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That isolation was also a blanket of security. If you exhibit any attributes that today's moral panic is against, you could find yourself facing down a horde of
by Zikes 11y ago
That isolation was also a blanket of security. If you exhibit any attributes that today's moral panic is against, you could find yourself facing down a horde of harassers. They'll find all your friends and family on Facebook and try to get them to turn against you. They'll look up your employer online and tell them you're sexist or that you're sharing child pornography online. If you're in university, they'll convince the school to expel or otherwise ostracize you.
There are a lot of similarities between this generation of moral panic and the past, but the differences are not at all an improvement.
- StevePerkins 11y agoEhh... I won't argue that the Internet hasn't opened up the door for new modes of harassment. However, the "cyberbully", "stalker", or "brigade" phenomenons are a totally different animal from a moral panic. Maybe they're even worse, but they're not the same.
- brighteyes 11y agoBrigades and harassment can be expressions of a moral panic. In the 80's, moral panics led people to write leaflets, call their senator, and push their local TV station to cover it. Today, technology lets the people caught up in a moral panic directly interact with the people they see as the cause of their panic. It's not surprising that we see brigades and harassment on those new front lines. Of course, that doesn't tell us that every antagonistic movement is a moral panic. But certainly the moral panics, if large enough, will have unpleasant aspects. That's just the cost of allowing easy direct interaction between anyone at any time.
- addled 11y agoGrowing up, I was probably the member of our social group from the most "panicked" home. I am more tempered in my ideas now, but I suppose I still lean that way myself, at least compared to most of the opinions here. However, I'm sorry if I said or did anything rude to those on the other side of the fence back in the day. I am also sorry if I just made this weird, but I did that a lot growing up as well.