The Internet: A Breeding Ground of Ignorance and Hatred

Anybody with even the vaguest experience of a Youtube comments page will know what I'm talking about already. That user that writes walls of text with incorrect grammar, that uses words and phrases like "fag" and "that sucks" like a young teen uses Kleenexes....when he has a terrible cold. Or how about that other user that cannot get it through his impenetrable skull that, oh no, God forbid, somebody has a differing opinion to him about a particular issue/band/song/whatever it may be.

These sad, lonely individuals hide behind the anonymity and facelessness afforded by the internet, and in a way, provides an insight into how a lot of individuals are underneath the facade they construct to hide the qualities they feel will hamper them in life, such as their baffling intolerance and borderline hatred to anything that doesn't conform to their view of the world.

For the purposes of this post, I'm doing a little bit of research. I typed in Linkin Park and clicked on the first video I found (I love them, but they generally get a lot of hate). Sure enough, about twenty comments down, I come across "fuck this song". Three words, no elaboration on the comment or any sign of tolerance towards others opinions. It's as if, in this person's own little world, it is plain fact that the song in question is awful, and there can be no debate about it. To quote a very wise man, it really "grinds my gears".

Another angle I took while researching was a classic cleavage filled with tension and controversy, American politics. On one video, the user posted the following in the info box: "I had stopped the comments on this video for many reasons, for example: racist rants, death threats, calling out for murder". (I'll take the user's word for it, considering there's thousands of posts). But is this not an awful sign of what we're really like? When the reins are loose, when we're allowed the luxury of pure free speech without consequence or the possibility of it being traced back to us, we are animals. The fact that people would make death threats over differing political views is truly shocking.

As a journalist, I often wonder also how easy it for people like this to get their views onto a pedestal more public and accessible than Youtube. It really is a simple matter of copying and pasting from Youtube, correcting all grammar mistakes, capitalising where appropriate, removing any expletives that will give them away as the immature, spoilt brats they are, and, hurrah, they have an opinion column on some random website. And of course, it being the internet, these distorted, warped, hateful views of our world will probably appear somewhere in, oh I don't know, a college essay, or serious publication, citing this verbal vomit as fact. False information has been posted on the internet before for experimental purposes, which has in turn been posted, so what's to say the opinions and spewings of these nutcases could be misconstrued as fact?

Everyone loves the internet, for a variety of (sometimes private, best left alone) reasons, but the dangerous mixture of unlimited free speech, anonymity, and ease of publishing information has lead to it becoming largely a dangerous concoction of distorted facts and extremist opinions, that only serves to spread all of this around until nobody really knows what the truth is.

A half an hour examination of comments pages and forums about anything, from politics to porn, will prove this, and will really make you fear for the future of humanity..

A country going backwards

On the 1st January 2010 the new blasphemy law came into effect in this country. It outlines that a person can be fined up to €25,000 by the State for saying anything "that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion".

Naturally there is global outcry over this mind-boggling law that is a throwback to the middle ages. In the age of free speech it's an appalling step backwards.

Let's not assume for one minute that I think hardened atheists should be swanning around spewing hatred and insults to the religious folk out there, upsetting them as they go. This isn't acceptable in any walk of life, not just with regard to religion. And neither do I for a minute think this will ever be enforced on any meaningful or consistent basis, as unless someone writes a blasphemous statement down and exhibits it to the public, I can't really see our Gardai ever catching anyone.

Anyway, what was Justice Minister Ahern thinking when he introduced this bill? It was clearly high on his list of priorities, in a year when gang violence terrorised neighbourhoods and towns across the country. His priorites beggar belief. According to a post by the group Atheist Ireland on Blasphemy.ie, "Islamic states led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at U.N. level." This could conceivably open the floodgates for similar laws to be introduced in other countries around the world and, more frighteningly, for bodies such as the EU to adopt them and enforce them on member states.

As I've said already, the scope for proper prosecution with this bill is slim, considering that real crime is rampant and it would be very hard to catch someone being blasphemous, but the principle behind it is worrying. Have we as a nation instigated something worldwide?