>Or is this more of a social problem that code can't solve? Absolutely, because it's wrong to regard the web as a thing that's separate from the real world and

>Or is this more of a social problem that code can't solve? Absolutely, because it's wrong to regard the web as a thing that's separate from the real world and it's effects. We're talking about people's identities in the sense of how they see themselves, and that's shaped by their environment (what they see, hear and do), online and offline. What happened is that people are able to find a tribe, whereas before the web was a thing, finding a tribe was more difficult and often exclusive to cities. People living in rural areas were likely to adapt to existing "big village tribes", branching off wasn't viable or a matter of circumstances because of a lack of different subcultures within those rural areas. The web changed that, everybody can socialize and find a tribe online, it's like a big city full of subcultures, and subcultures provide identity. Early people on the web were often already part of urban tribes I think, and took position of views within those, so if they encountered a rival group online (think about poppers and rockers stereotypes from the 80's) toxicity was almost ensured. So what happ[ens if a mainstream culture that's fed with stereotypes through hollywood etc. is let loose on the web? The before tribeless population which was forced into a tribe by circumstance is basically discovering the world and is going through their teenage years. That's my explanation of what's happening.