Personally, I don't think tribalism / group-think, as well as public / private image spaces are very new things at all. Scandals, blacklisting, even execution f

Personally, I don't think tribalism / group-think, as well as public / private image spaces are very new things at all. Scandals, blacklisting, even execution for having the "wrong opinion" for the social norm of the time -- that's unfortunately pretty common throughout history. From my viewpoint, an issue with a lot of today's social media is it doesn't feel as nakedly public as it really is. Personally, I wouldn't go into a large room of often random people that you don't know well, and loudly break traditional rules of etiquette by broadcasting inflammatory viewpoints on potentially pot-stirring topics like politics, religion, etc. Likewise, I feel the same with Facebook: that is not the place to discuss these sorts of topics due to how very public Facebook is. Yet a lot of people do that on Facebook and Twitter every day.