PROPOSAL: A New Internet Law

As the geekiest of us knows, there is a set of internet “laws” that provide insight into what the internet is, how it is run and who is out there on it. These laws are a light hearted look at internet practices. For example (these are all taken from Wikipedia) there is Godwins Law - As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1, Poe's law (religious fundamentalism) — "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing, or Skitt's law — A corollary of Muphy's law, variously expressed as, "Any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself," or even Pommer’s Law “A person's mind can be changed by reading information on the internet. The nature of this change will be from having no opinion to having a wrong opinion.”

If you use the internet a lot, you will have encountered all of these at one time or another. I use the internet a lot. I do a lot of research for my blog this way, for our podcast this way and just as a way to find humorous entertainment. Over the last several months, I have seen something changing and wanted to offer some commentary on it. As such, I am proposing a new law to be recognized about the internet, a corollary of Godwin’s law. Godwin states that as internet discussions grow longer, the odds of a Hitler or Nazi reference becomes almost a certainty. Well, the Countless Screaming Argonauts Corollary (CSA Corollary) to Godwin’s law is that in almost any internet discussion, the more posts there are, the more likely you are to get a negative or offensive political reference. The keywords seem to come in two groups – the consistent one like Obama, Bush, Obama v. Bush, Palin, Bachmann or even tea party reference. The other keyword group seems to change according to the political issue de jure, such as health care, oil spill, immigration reform or bank bailout. As examples of this political negativity popping up in the most unlikeliest of places, I offer this example from Reddit, which appeared on Monday, the day after Father’s Day.

Someone posted the famous quote attributed to Mark Twain, “When I was a young boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to 21 I was astonished at how much he had learned.” As is the style of reddit, this was followed by a series of reader submitted comments, most in the “I like that” or Happy Father’s Day” meme. However, this is where the CSA Corollary kicks in. Comment 13 was a statement by someone that their father was a bigot and poor example, but he still loved him as he was his father. By comment 15, the bigotry and hatefulness had become political fodder, by 18, it was a right wing/left wing comparison, and 21 brought out Obama and hate. It continued. By comment 26 we were in the throes of right wing radio, and then the focus shifted to the original quote which was now redefined as a Twainism, an apocryphal saying in Twain’s style as Twain’s own father died when Twain was 11. Well you get the picture.

Just about any discussion nowadays seems to go in this manner. It is somewhat like a roller coaster, peaking when the political issues are hot. I know several people who have had blog and Facebook entries taken over by political zealots, trolls really, complete with name calling and other abuses. It seems as if there are bunches of political crazies out there just looking to argue. I have always gone for political debate but the anger and abusiveness is over the top right now.

Just for laughs, a review of internet stories just this past week showed several further examples when the CSA Corollary to Godwin’ Law was seen:

-In a story about Oprah and Zach Anner Controversy, the 31st comment brought up a negative Tea Party slam;

-In a story about Jay Leno’s poor ratings, the 71st comment in the third main comment thread brought up an Obama and health care slam

I’m sorry people; we really need to be more tolerant of opposing views. And, let’s ease up on the politics ok, check out Lolcats or fake science or something and have a laugh!