I get abuse and threats online – why can't it be stopped?
Let me share a few observations from how this all happened in broadcast TV and Radio.<p>Say we are in a small, out of the way, town that runs fairly reasonably.  Say it has a few stations, news, sports, music.<p>In this town there will be some percentage of bigots, racists, theocrats, sexists.  But let us also say the town has reasonably strong, just social norms too.<p>Nice people generally being, or presenting as nice mean the behaviours of the toxic people are not overt.  One would have to go to the right bar, party, clubhouse to see it clearly.<p>In general, strong norms and the dominant good nature of people discourages the discriminatory and abusive behavior these toxic people are known for.<p>And to be clear, there are more kinds of toxicity in play, and there being toxicity is not partisan.  I am just citing examples I know well and just for context.<p>All around, these norms and the connections between the people in the town keep all that ugly pushed out of the way.  It is known, but not too much of a problem because most of the time the targets of abuse and hate are not faced with it when out and about as any one living their lives tend to do.<p>Now, a new station shows up and on that station is programming aimed right at the toxic people.  KASS, just for shits and giggles.<p>What happens?<p>Prior to KASS, people presenting this hate and abuse experience strong social pressure to behave reasonably.  They also may not all be aware of one another and the dominant trend as new people age in is to be more agreeable to others and more accepting of differences.<p>Once KASS is on the air, things change in subtle ways:<p>The toxic people see their more painful inclinations normalized.  Hearing it on the radio elevates toxicity.<p>They see themselves in terms of them against, &quot;those other people&quot; and become aware of their minority status.<p>It becomes more normal to talk in toxic terms in more overt ways.<p>Trust in media overall declines as people wonder why others think it is OK to make their lives worse for money, or for lies, etc...<p>Normalizing like this is worth a lot to people seeking to have themselves validated.<p>They will buy the product, write the letter, cast the vote, tell their friends and response rates on ADS as well as other activities will be solid.<p>There is money to be made, and most importantly, more than enough to sustain and grow the effort.  Politicians see a solid voting bloc willing to vote regularly, and, and, and...<p>Basically, Reagan eliminating the fairness doctrine, coupled with Clinton deregulation in the form of the Telecommunications act of 1996 opened the door for this kind of thing.<p>Normalizing toxicity like this pays well enough for consistent growth.<p>Again, the money is too good.<p>The product of all that got started in talk radio and grew into entities like FOX News today.<p>Now this is going to hurt, and it does hurt me to write it, but cancel culture is growing in a similar way.<p>And I am not defending anyone here.  People sending abuse, hate, threats to women, anyone really, is not OK.  However, cancelling ones political opponents, and or ideas that get in the way, are also not OK.<p>The point being the same dynamics that got us here are still in play and will not get us to a better place.<p>More generally, as we moved away from broadcast to our current many to many, one to many, few to few, modes of communication possible today, a few things are sure fire ways to engage people and make a lot of money:<p>Blaming problems on &quot;those other people&quot;<p>Teaching &quot;those other people&quot; a lesson.<p>Generating outrage and righteous indignation.<p>&quot;Newstainment&quot;<p>And on the topic of newstainment, low clarity material does particularly well when coupled with algorithmic means to identify what triggers people and then pushing material that resonates to them, while at the same time giving them the means to share it and clearing the way for money to be made via donations, ADS, issue and candidate political campaigns, and whatever else can ride along.<p>Low clarity, for the purpose of this comment is:<p>Information that contains fact and opinion that is difficult to different to discern<p>, and<p>bias not easily identified and or poorly represented.<p>Today, nearly everything is politicized.  Worse, the toxic behavior and information is very highly normalized.<p>Finally, a move away from common, public views and toward individual feeds, views means we lost one of the very best pre deregulation broadcast to offer and that is that one to many sameness.<p>That, by itself can be really good or really bad, and it going bad can be directly linked to a shift away from the idea of serving the public interest (in broadcast), and toward just making money.<p>The public interest is an idea largely in the shadows today, and it shows.<p>The things this woman has talked about are real, growing and are making some people an awful lot of money.<p>Stopping it is not a software problem.<p>Cancelling &quot;those other people&quot; simply drives them and those who serve them to new means and methods to continue making that money.<p>And from that point of view, let me go back to KASS.  If we ask them why, the answer would be they were simply satisfying a strong market demand for profit.<p>It is these dynamics that are leading many to reconsider the public interest, for profit news, social media, and how we might walk back the idea of just making money and toward what the public interest ideas were about and how we might return to them and put the public interest back into how all this works.<p>I will end with another observation:<p>In broadcast, the money was unbelievably good.  And today in social media it remains unbelievably good to the point of software and networks getting to be a part of literally anything and everything.<p>I submit as good as the money is, everything costs something and here we are seeing the cost being:<p>a public divided into factions and blocs, a very ill body politic, and government more about making money and winning elections than it is about being the public service, originally given authority because our lives, ability to advance, and personal agency were much better with it.<p>Arguably, we got advancement, and many people got improved agency, and for a time we got seemingly great social advancement.<p>But the cost has been sneaking up on us, adding up to real pain points today.