With the recent discussion about wild comments on our news sites, I thought this was apropos. Teresa Wiltz: "I don't know what it is about this particular moment in human history which lends itself to the sanction of miscellaneous and casual cruelty," says cyber-guru John Perry Barlow, vice chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cyberspace, he says, "has a way of making us feel like other people are informational artifacts. If you cut data, it doesn't bleed. So you're at liberty to do anything you want to people who are not people but merely images."
As Chris Crocker, the notorious "Crying Britney Fan," told MSNBC.com after he was pilloried this summer: "The Internet is a place where haters can roam free, where psychopaths run free, and threaten lives. I've never had my life threatened, but I'm getting death threats now."
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