Observations on online insults, flame wars, and their effects on bystanders in digital spaces, highlighting psychological insights.
To be flamed on the Internet is to be directly insulted by an angry written message in response to something submitted to chat rooms and mailing lists. Volleys of insults sometimes develop into flame wars, often enveloping rather innocent bystanders. How could this be explained? My perspective on flame wars is from the vista of 21 months on the Psychohistory Discussion List and 50 years in clinical psychology.
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John Chappell (1999) studied this question.
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