I used to know the person who ran the Teens website on the BBC around 15 years ago. She was at a conference about protecting children online and spoke to someon

I used to know the person who ran the Teens website on the BBC around 15 years ago. She was at a conference about protecting children online and spoke to someone from the section of the police who dealt with tracking and apprehending paedophiles who met online. Even back then he had seen online meeting points for paedophiles where the fact that they could speak to each other openly about what they wanted to do normalised what they were talking about, and that had lead to real-world consequences. I think about this often when reflecting on how this kind of depersonalised (in the sense of not being present) hate speech seems to be growing and what it might lead to.