The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

Slate's technology writer Farhad Manjoo has a beef with anonymous commenters. He writes, "For one thing, several social science studies have shown that when people know their identities are secret (whether offline or online), they behave much worse than they otherwise would have. Formally, this has been called the 'online disinhibition effect,' but in 2004, the Web comic Penny Arcade coined a much better name: The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. If you give a normal person anonymity and an audience, this theory posits, you turn him into a total fuckwad. Proof can be found in the comments section on YouTube, in multiplayer Xbox games, and under nearly every politics story on the Web. With so many fuckwads everywhere, sometimes it's hard to understand how anyone gets anything out of the Web." Heh. Wiser words have never been spoken.