Week 7. Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics. Rule 7: Help keep flame wars under control

 

Anger on the Internet is a usual phenomenon when people start swearing at each other for a miserable reason. Such action is called flaming and can be done on purpose when discussing a controversial subject or because of an emotional outburst. Both are caused by anonymity on the Internet, but a good society must try to be sensible with any type of communication. Because of that, Netiquette rules were made in which rule number 7 says to keep the flame wars under control.

 

"An example of flaming"

 

 I think that this rule is correct because of the decision not to prohibit it completely but to keep the flaming under control. People need expression and many of us may find flaming fun and amusing to look at, but when it keeps on going and turns into a war of words, nobody will find it interesting, but rather problematic. For example, 4chan tries to deal with flaming but it often fails to do so. Many people visit imageboards to start flaming or troll someone, thus they got used to visiting such sites only to have fun, but not for constructive talking. The same I can say about controversial groups on Facebook or YouTube. A lot of flaming happens on official pages of platforms because it happens to be that the platform does everything in the teeth of its users. 

 

    "Dogs kill rats YouTube video. Massive flaming in the comment section. Some find it good some find it terrible"

 

 

A very good example is YouTube official site. Before YouTube hid dislike count it was clearly seen by the like/dislike ratio and by hateful comments how many flaming is being made there. By these examples, I want to show that too much flaming will cause only negative outcomes. People will start to massively hate the specified resource, and they will come on this resource just to spread more flaming there.

My personal experience when I was dealing with flaming happened and keeps happening in YouTube, Instagram and Vkontakte social networks. I do not find much flaming on Twitter or Reddit however, maybe because I don’t visit any controversial discussions there.

 

"Instagram flaming"

 

 

Nevertheless, controversial topics in YT and VK are full of hate and flaming and unfortunately, platform managers have not done anything vital so far to stop it. Yes, Instagram and YouTube try to control the words posted in comments but people often bypass these checks. I may highlight that the audience and its manners play a crucial part in the size of flaming. If you would start flaming in a polite community, people will not mention it or notice your bad manners and ask to be polite. In another community with a less sensible audience, the started flaming will be supported by others and will grow in size drastically. It's like lighting a flame in water and in gunpowder. One will not start, the other will explode in a moment. The useless flaming not only create a bad atmosphere but also monopolizes bandwidth for useless swearing. So after all those examples, I can say that it is really important to keep the flame wars under control.