MONTREAL — A good old-fashioned, picket-sign protest may have kept U.S. conservative Ann Coulter from speaking recently at the University of Ottawa, but the angry crowds were nothing compared to the unruly hordes waging the anti-Coulter war over the Internet.
Facebook groups that cropped up to petition against the controversial pundit’s Canadian tour created, within a matter of postings, a place for online protesters to unleash their tempers.
The cyber claws came out, comments ran afoul and the social networking masses let their messages and wall posts get really nasty, really quickly.
Online anger is everywhere, and not just where politics are concerned.
Gay, straight, black, white, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Canadian, American, male, female — any group can easily stumble upon a whole slew of offensive, derogatory online comments. Things the authors probably wouldn’t say in person.
Andre A. Lafrance, a communications professor at the Universite de Montreal, suggests it’s natural to behave differently on the web when there’s no one around to be a witness.
“Users think they’re free from anybody overseeing what they’re doing, because they’re alone in front of their computers,” said Lafrance.
It’s part of what’s known as the “online disinhibition effect.”
A large part of the effect is that with e-communication, what a person says or does can’t be affected by a listener’s physical body language.
“Take a video camera and record yourself while you’re talking on the phone,” Lafrance said. “And then, look at it without the sound. Look at how many messages you’re giving by way of just moving your head, moving your hand. I adjust what I’m saying to what your reaction is. Online, there’s no reaction.”