to think the internet makes the extreme mainstream

[SkippyYourFriendEverTrue]

Just reading this:

gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web

The site 'reddit' is very popular with computer geeks. And they are quite devoted to all kinds of free speech.

So you end up with stuff like this: www.reddit.com/r/beatingwomen/ (offensive, violent, etc., probably best not to visit)

still there, even after the site has been exposed and the child pornography removed.

It seems like a race to the bottom, presided over by those with the best computer skills but no empathy or consideration for others.

Maybe not mainstream but one aspect of the advent of the whole social media/internet revolution is that old risk of people being rational as individuals but irrational when part of a mob. As we found with the Raoul Moat case, there is no opinion too offensive that several thousand others aren't prepared to claim to share it... As Harper Lee put it in To Kill A Mockingbird

"A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in every little Southern town is always made up of people you know--doesn't say much for them, does it??