The essay was about 10 people who self-selected into an interview study based on online negativity and 'problematic' speech. Online spaces have always sort of

The essay was about 10 people who self-selected into an interview study based on online negativity and 'problematic' speech. Online spaces have always sort of transcended the filters that exist in person. The insulation from individuals' physical identities and body language enables or maybe even causes interesting behaviors that to occur that wouldn't otherwise. We saw this originally in "Deviance in the Dark" from the 70s, but anyone who's had experience with extremely online realms knows this to be the case as well. We even have pop TV shows exploring this phenomenon. I think what probably would be more interesting is an exploration to what clusters of personalities tend to develop or emerge in virtual worlds, across platforms, etc than attempting to make a research paper out of comments that escaped profanity filters. Come to think of it, a taxonomy of unfiltered speech and its source demographic might be interesting.