Well said. Those with dissenting views will be crucified, or sent to the gulag, along with fat people and smokers.

dorothy42: "Those with dissenting views will be crucified, or sent to the gulag, along with fat people and smokers."

and all the men...

1. I don't think that Voltaire actually said that: it was in a later commentary. But let it pass.

2. The opinions held by people do not change, that is that whilst the distribution of a particular view is unaltered by the social media, this fact : e.g. say 80% REALLY believe that the world is flat, becomes changed to the perception that "everybody" believes something else and therefore you are a minority of one instead of belonging to a majority of 80%: because of the operation of social media. Government then believe what the polls etc tell them, but only hear what people think is a "proper" reply. They then act in the mistaken belief that to do otherwise is courting political disaster.

3. What is the cure? I don't know, but you will doubtless note that this reply is from anon!

True on this board as well. Many seem more interested in the poster rather than the article, in personal evaluation rather than careful consideration of content.

Political correctness has done the most damage of all. Alongside multiculturalism and the nanny state politics. Seems democracy allows for individual dictators to blossom. We are judged, moralised, ridiculed and treated as children everyday in so many ways.

Our speech has to appeal to the lowest common denominator, hence all we talk about at gatherings is sport and money.

So forums are a good outlet as being anonymous allows you to say what you really think as society restricts it. So yes a shame some ruin it.

The Printers Apology by Benjamin Franklin may need to be taught at school as we have actually found ourselves set back a few hundred years, despite never have so many means to communicate. Also that interrupting legal free speech is a denial of basic human rights.

Nice article Mr Ferrier. It would be smooth if the anonymous cowards who 'need to feel safe' were relegated to some kind of world-wide sandpit for children only, but that would be yet another sort Internet censorship which goes against the freedom of speech to waffle on like an adolescent. It's maybe better to help remind them that IP numbers identify everyone's mummy's and daddy's ISP just as well as the names on their passports.

There is a stage that we all seem to go through in our online understanding where we get so amused by thinking up fancy pseudonyms for our alter-egos, and that passes as we start to learn how juvenile those habits look to others, but some of those with axes to grind or questionable motives cling onto the illusion of anonymity, and I like to read some of their rantings because it helps me to know what thoughts might be behind the eyes and dirty looks when I have the misfortune to have to encounter them in real life.

Still, it's not what CERN invented the www for. I tend to just draw the line plain and simple. If a someone is too ashamed to put at least their first name to their own essay, then it's probably not worth reading. Conversely, your essay was worth reading so thank you.

Sean Moran.
Perth, WA.

Well said Adam Ferrier, and Seano.

I've noticed that those who regularly post the most hateful, inane and puerile comments invariably do so from behind the coward's cloak of anonymity.

I post under my own name because I believe strongly that we should own what we say, and be prepared to be held to account for comments that we make in public fora. Having said that, I accept that there may be good reasons for some people to post anonymously, but that should come with the caveat that anonymity should not be an excuse to make comments that one would not make to another in person.