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Comment by cloverich | Hacker News Reader

I think communities attract types of folks unless they become uber popular (like reddit) to the point they can attract everyone. 4chan was interesting when I found it, but I quickly found it became mostly toilet humor at its best, and was often (i.e. every time I opened it) full of racism and sexism. It was a safe place for immature folks to shout whatever they wanted and not care who it affected -- though of course anyone affected likely ditched the cesspool anyways. Yet, as I watched one of my friends continue to use it, I don't think it was pure coincidence that their own verbiage became increasingly vulgar and desensitized. As some of my friends matured as they grew up, I found he went the opposite direction (at least in online messaging).

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> It was a safe place for immature folks to shout whatever they wanted and not care who it affected

It is sad that the popularity of internet has reached such proportions that people are no longer responsible for what they read by their own choice, but rather people seem to be responsible for what they write, regardless of the fact that anyone can choose not to read it.

Internet posts are just text, yet people act as if we're forcing others to read what we write. Imagine if writing books that make other people feel bad was banned - what a culture would that be.

"Internet posts are just text, yet people act as if we're forcing others to read what we write. Imagine if writing books that make other people feel bad was banned - what a culture would that be."

Between death threats and insults directed at real people - and a fictionary book, there is usually a difference, even though books can be bad as well, if they are directed against certain people (e.g. Mein Kampf).

Arguably, there have been a good number of wars (ostensibly) over books (in particular religious texts seem to do the trick), whereas we are yet to declare war over any form of web content.

People tried the latter a number of times already. Then the activism at US unis happened; first, about a decade or a bit more ago, lefties not only stuffed books with trigger warnings, but fought (and in a few cases successfully) for books to be banned from universities because they made them feel "unwell". Then, as if copying them, right-wingers tried the same in recent years. It's a shit culture, that's what.

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