Here’s an excerpt from a recent post from Douglas Rushkoff’s blog. The post is called Sock Mobs — and I was very interested in what he has to say. And please — no nasty comments.

The Internet can be a nasty place – particularly online discussions and
the comments sections of blogs. But is the recent increase in online
hostilities really an indication of some groundswell of American rage,
or are there just a few bad eggs determined to make it look that way?

here’s a relatively new phenomenon occurring online these days – an
illusion of populist group hostilitiy I’ve come to call "Sock Mobs,"
after the "sock puppets" people use to feign multiple identities in
online conversations. It works like this:

An anonymous poster
picks a fight with his presumed enemy. Whether or not that enemy
responds, a number of other posters appear to chime in – agreeing to
whatever the accusation might be. "This guy is a commie." "This doctor
is a quack." "This guy wants Israel to be abolished." "This professor
is corrupting college students." The accusation comes along with
twisted supporting evidence. Every once in a while, an underinformed
but real person agrees with the accusations; after all, it appears from
the posts that this enemy of all things good and proper really might be
a threat. All this makes it look like there’s a lot of upset people.

Doug has 10, count em 10 books out. Wow he’s prolific. They include Cyberia,
                Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about
                Judaism, and Coercion, winner of the Marshall Mcluhan Award
                for best media book. Rushkoff also wrote the acclaimed novels
                Ecstasy Club and Exit
                Strategy and graphic novel, Club
                Zero-G. He has just finished a book for HarperBusiness,
                applying renaissance principles to today’s complex economic landscape,
                Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out. He’s now writing a monthly comic book for Vertigo called Testament.