A harassment campaign on Goodreads

Situations like this make me think that public educational systems should experiment with some form of "digital literacy" courses / exercises for young children with the goal of humanizing the processes of online communication. Teaching standards for how to treat others (and how to respond to observed and experienced abuses) may provide some reduction in the number of individuals that seem to be finding their ways to toxic online communities. From a lay perspective it really does seem that people who participate in extremely toxic online communities are exhibiting signs of serious personality deformations; since the internet acts as a significant force multiplier on an individual's ability to spread their perspective, and since the problem of policing online speech without creating a locked-down surveillance nightmare seems unlikely to be solved any time soon, perhaps one of the better options would be to arm adolescents with a proper mentality for handling online harassment under the assumption that it is likely to occur.

I think this is a good intention but it would end up with little difference.

My iconic example is that Marin county with some of the highest levels of tertiary education are also the highest in terms of not getting their kids vaccinated.

Also seen in campaigns against drunk driving and campaigns for eating balanced diets. People become aware of the pros and cons (after exposure) but continue unabated in their behavior.

I’m a pessimist on this.