Experience with Internet communities going back to the days of UseNet in the mid-Nineties, yes. Of course these communities were not entirely without "minority" representation but take your average geek forum or Board? Something like, say, The Escapist in its halcyon days of sort-of-credibility before it was Actually About Ethics in Game Journalism? In the long term under rules that soft-pedalled bigotry, it would become so disproportionately white and male that even white males would notice it. They wouldn't necessarily do much about it, swimming against the current is hard and most people who try drown, but they'd notice it.
Well, that is messed up.... I'm just not sure if i'm convinced its as wide spread as some might think. Maybe because it happens in much heftier forums with much larger user bases, or shall we say when it crops up in more "high profile" or "more visible" places is when it get's really noticed? I've certainly encountered a fair share of degenerate asses on the internet, but most of them were not specifically about bigotry as much as they used that as a tool to cause problems.
An example would be there was this guy on a gaming related forum I go to, he started derailing a thread with what on the surface seemed to be anti-semitism. He was posting poorly photo-shopped images of stereotypical "jewish" characters rubbing their hands together, et-cetera. He pissed everyone off, took the topic off track for four or five pages, and then he was done. In a PM discussion he revealed that he was just drunk and having a laugh. He didn't really believe the anti-semantic trash he was posting, he just used it to get a rise out of people, and it worked. I think that can, to a certain extent explain the behavior of many people on the internet.
What's my point exactly? I think there is a large chunk of this "hatred" out there that is so over-the-top not because those folks honestly believe the horrible things they say but because they know they can get attention for saying those things. "The trolls will blot out the sun." I mean, either way it's poor behavior, but I've never seen, personally, the wide spread "administrative" reinforcement of bigotry that you imply. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I do wonder if maybe it's a matter of some of these places just being higher in the visibility of the internet and thus getting the attention of interested parties. Most of the places I've been a part of the primary rule was... If you're a big enough shithead, you're going to be dealt with, for whatever reason. In certain places it was looser, and in certain places it was more formal.
Let me know when every single city and person in the US agrees with them, a segment of the population being accepting doesn't make up for everyone who doesn't. Especially when a major political party is determined to roll back rights as part of a misguided "moral" crusade.
Unfortunately I think you'll be waiting indefinitely for
everyone to agree on something like that. We can't get people to agree on basic things, like that the Earth is a planet orbiting the sun. I'm shocked we haven't seen new age groups arguing over the alphabet's length. If there's anything I've learned on the internet, people will always find a way to argue about everything.
