People who write hateful stuff online vs their real life personality

[Alwaystheoddoneout]

I don't usually spend much time on Twitter, but recently I've become interested in a few topics and wanted to see what people were saying. I'm shocked by the extensive levels of hatred and online harassment. I know it happens a lot, but I don't usually read that sort of stuff.

I'm not talking about high profile people who make a living out of it, but ordinary people with ordinary jobs who are making some really nasty comments. How much of their free time are they devoting to this?

Have you ever known someone who seemed perfectly nice and then you discovered what they were writing online? Or if you work in recruitment, have you ever seen a good CV, then googled the person and found horrible stuff on their social media?

I know we can't get on all the time but it really is nasty out there.

I'm talking about woman hating and racism, making threats to people and things like that.

Bump

People are hideous on Twitter, some days I can't look at it as its so depressing. Other days there's some funny and entertaining stuff which is the content we're really all there for.

Block and mute all the horrible people.

The husband of an acquaintance lost his job/career because of the content of his online rants. I knew he was against certain people and I was uncomfortable with some of his conversation - it was fairly mild though. People generally changed the subject or told him to tone it down. He would stop.

The stuff he wrote online was extreme and he had a load of cronies egging him on. He sounded very ignorant and full of hate, He thought he was entitled to hold those beliefs and his human rights were being stamped all over. He probably could have apologised and kept his job but he had to make a stand with his online friends backing him.

The nasty side was always there but I think the people around him in real life were restraining him. I think online they all egg each other on to be the most outrageous.

I once clicked on the profile of a man who had called a female politician the c word on Twitter. His profile picture showed him smiling with arms around his three teenage daughters. I’m not quite sure what I expected to see but it wasn’t that!

Weird.