During lockdown I find I'm reading local news websites more often. And making the error of reading the comments sections under the articles. It really offers up a window onto the searing, seething mass of stupid that makes up British society.
My favourite one to spot, and it pops up with increasing frequency, is the thread title. Almost always directed at the police, or the courts, or the civil service, and invariably in the context of :
'MAN ARRESTED FOR DRIVING AT 105 MPH WITHOUT MOT OR INSURANCE"
or
"POLICE ISSUE FINE TO HOUSEOWNER WHO HAD MIDNIGHT RAVE PARTY FOR 150 PEOPLE" .
I can guarantee that within 5 comments, one of my fellow citizens will have offered the opinion that "they should have better things to do". And not in the context of some libertarian social utopia where obviously criminal offences should be ignored or self-policed. Oh no. The "better things they should be doing" are invariably "stopping people in dinghies", or "sorting out islam paedos" or "not giving 5-bedroom houses to immigrants".
It really does seem that we're now in a place where the comments like that are not only uncensored or unchallenged, but are the ones that get 51 "likes". Which does make me then question : are real people actually that hate-fuelled, or is there something happening here? Bots or whatever, bombarding even local newspaper sites with "mainstream" opinions?
My favourite one to spot, and it pops up with increasing frequency, is the thread title. Almost always directed at the police, or the courts, or the civil service, and invariably in the context of :
'MAN ARRESTED FOR DRIVING AT 105 MPH WITHOUT MOT OR INSURANCE"
or
"POLICE ISSUE FINE TO HOUSEOWNER WHO HAD MIDNIGHT RAVE PARTY FOR 150 PEOPLE" .
I can guarantee that within 5 comments, one of my fellow citizens will have offered the opinion that "they should have better things to do". And not in the context of some libertarian social utopia where obviously criminal offences should be ignored or self-policed. Oh no. The "better things they should be doing" are invariably "stopping people in dinghies", or "sorting out islam paedos" or "not giving 5-bedroom houses to immigrants".
It really does seem that we're now in a place where the comments like that are not only uncensored or unchallenged, but are the ones that get 51 "likes". Which does make me then question : are real people actually that hate-fuelled, or is there something happening here? Bots or whatever, bombarding even local newspaper sites with "mainstream" opinions?
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