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My go-to commentary on this general topic is the classic penny-arcade comic "John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory"

(Normal Person) + (Anonymity) + (Audience) = (Total Fuckwad)

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/

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I hate this cartoon. it leads real name requirements on sites, in the hope of removing anonymity. This hurts all sorts of groups (see the google+ real names saga for a long list) but doesn't really slow down trolling. You can and do see people making racist / sexist / whatever comments with their real name. Possibly the trolls know that there are many John Smiths in the world. Its a "theory" thats been disproven by this point.

More generally: (Normal Person) + (Wrong Situation) = (Oops)

See: Banality of Evil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banality_of_evil

and, http://www.radioopensource.org/hannah-arendt-and-the-banalit...

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