{"id":2074,"date":"2014-08-26T14:56:56","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T21:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/?p=2074"},"modified":"2014-08-26T17:20:15","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T00:20:15","slug":"will-the-internet-ever-get-less-nasty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2014\/08\/will-the-internet-ever-get-less-nasty.html","title":{"rendered":"Will the Internet Ever Get Less Nasty?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;sX5mpeff0G48ZdDK8B8DiylO4zB4YCnG&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>BY now, anyone who writes for a living knows the kind of nasty comments and chatter that accompanies almost any public utterance. (This seems like a cross between the hostility that&#8217;s bred on places like Fox News and the larger &#8220;snark&#8221; culture, with an extra layer of nastiness unique to the Internet.) How did it happen, what are the consequences for our public discourse, and can it ever get any better?<\/p>\n<p>Is the Internet &#8212; often compared to the Wild West &#8212; just going through a Deadwood phase, with a gentler, more civilized state to come?<\/p>\n<p>A number of scribes have mused on Internet trolls lately, in part because of the social-media retreat by Robin Williams&#8217; daughter. But t<a title=\"Sara on civility\" href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2014\/08\/23\/furious_trolls_are_everywhere_even_internet_moms_are_angry_and_they_hate_you\/\" target=\"_blank\">his<\/a> piece, is my favorite of them, and not just because it was written by someone close to me. Sara Scribner writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Although the initial promise of the Internet was that it was a noncommercial, alternative space where anyone could have a public forum, there is clearly something about the structure of the Internet and what happens to people when they are using a computer that taps into something deep, dark, com<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2075\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/200px-DDTrolls.jpg\" alt=\"200px-D&amp;DTrolls\" width=\"200\" height=\"183\" \/>pletely judgmental and furious. The worry is that the fury will reshape our online world. Will the Internet become a nasty, brutish place where only the bullies can find a voice? Is there a chance for civility and free speech online?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For what it&#8217;s worth, I&#8217;ve been amazed over the months I&#8217;ve written this blog just how civil and smart the comments and discussion has been here, even when people disagree with me or other readers. I hope and trust we can all keep it that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;sX5mpeff0G48ZdDK8B8DiylO4zB4YCnG&#8221;] BY now, anyone who writes for a living knows the kind of nasty comments and chatter that accompanies almost any public utterance. (This seems like a cross between the hostility that&#8217;s bred on places like Fox News and the larger &#8220;snark&#8221; culture, with an extra layer of nastiness unique to the Internet.) How [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,27,649],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-internet","7":"category-journalism","8":"category-salon","9":"entry","10":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}