Absolutely this. Facebook is almost entirely, if not entirely, empty of anything I care about. After a while it just starts to look like a ton of people all poi

Absolutely this. Facebook is almost entirely, if not entirely, empty of anything I care about. After a while it just starts to look like a ton of people all pointing out, "Hey, look! I have an asshole!" "Whoa really? Look at my asshole!" "Nice asshole, here's mine on the beach..." HN can be totally anonymous, but good luck being mean here! The issue is how you moderate your forum, the competence with which you do it, and the kind of people you draw. Having a name doesn't change behavior as much as people would like to think. We're not suddenly turning into beasts because of the internet, we're just connected to every last beast out there. They always existed, but they use to have to do things like slip pamphlets in the pages of library books, or shout at people on the street. Now they have the internet, and a lot of people seem to think that it's not just a new medium for them, but a new species. It is not a new species, or a new behavioral profile.