Samuel Dutton

Jill Parrott

ENG 101

October 11, 2023

The Strange Science of Online Toxicity

The rise of online toxicity is by no means a new phenomenon. With the rise of cancel culture and online abuse, a certain behavioral trend has risen with those who choose to voice their most vulgar outrage and threats online, seemingly with no hesitation. Naturally people will begin to look into this trend and try to find reasons to explain and even combat the behavior at hand. Since humans have survived for a long period of time, the probability that they could have survived this long if they were constantly threatening and berating each other is very low. “Why Good People Turn Bad Online” by Gaia Vince effectively explains why people who would naturally be inclined to do good turn toxic online through references of cognitive imaging studies, behavioral experiments, and features of existing platforms.

Before explaining the mechanics behind online toxicity, Vince explains their experiences with behavioral studies, all of which indicate that cooperation between people is very beneficial. Vince had participated in a behavioral experiment surrounding cooperative behavior led by lab director at Yale University’s Cooperation Lab, David Rand (Vince). The experiment had people playing a game that had groups of people contribute money to a group pot; the money contributed to the pot was then doubled and split among each individual in the group (Vince). Half of the groups required people to make their contribution decision quickly while the other half of the groups were given time to decide how much they were willing to contribute (Vince). Within this section of the essay there are quotes from Rand himself. Whether it was from an interview or briefing is unknown. Rand’s statements indicate that cooperation is natural in humans on an evolutionary level (Vince). Rand’s statements indicate there is existing evidence supporting the idea that people will be naturally cooperative as they know on an instinctual level it will be the best course of action to survive (Vince). Vince makes use of an ethical appeal in this section as Rand’s authority as a lab director in a prestigious university is used to persuade the reader to trust what he has to say. Rand’s statements are also logically supported by the results of the experiment

The groups that had to quickly contribute money gave more generous contributions while those who had more time to decide were more selfish (Vince). What can be derived from these results and Rand’s statements is that humans are instinctively inclined to cooperate with each other (Vince). Vince going out of their way to explain people’s natural cooperative tendencies effectively encapsulates people’s confusion toward online toxicity. The combination of information presented by Rand and the experiment effectively set the foundation for Vince’s argument. It sets a baseline for the rest of the article since if it is clear that people are naturally cooperative, why do they go against their nature on social media?

Vince begins to develop the reasoning behind people’s online toxicity from their research on moral outrage. By looking into studies done by researchers using Molly Crockett Psychology Lab, Vince explains the factor of moral outrage within peoples’ toxic behavior online: “Brain- imaging studies show that when people act on their moral outrage, their brain’s reward center is activated – they feel good about it. This reinforces their behavior, so they are more likely to intervene in a similar way again” (Vince). The evidence provided by Vince explains that on a physiological level, people are driven to act on moral outrage and actively seek to do so as much as possible (Vince). By providing evidence regarding brain imaging studies, Vince elevates their argument as scientific evidence describes that outrage is something beyond social psychology and taps into biological tendencies. This concept is further developed by Vince’s own reasoning as they explain how the widespread nature of social media allows moral outrage to reach large bodies of people very quickly (Vince). Indicating the existence of factors from social, physiological, and technological perspectives. Which are further compacted by lack of punishment and anonymity provided by social media.

While examples exist of effective countermeasures against toxic online behavior, there are simply not enough to discourage those who participate in it. The relative anonymity provided by social media provides the perfect outlet for people to express their outrage, even to the most vulgar extremes (Vince). While it is not outright said in Vince’s essay, they imply that the easy ability to express and spread outrage with little risk causes a feedback loop of negativity since people are already driven on a chemical level to participate in outrage (Vince). This weaves the answer to the research question as it describes scientifically how all of these factors at hand are the causes behind online toxicity.Vince does a fantastic job of showing that it is not just one factor, but multiple factors playing into the issue. She also discusses another contributing factor, being the lack of countermeasures on social media platforms, which further contributes to this little risk, high reward feedback loop.

While most platforms seemingly lack effective ways to combat online abuse, some have achieved effective countermeasures. An example discussed by Vince of an effective countermeasure for online toxicity stems from “League of Legends” (an online video game where players interact with each other) in the form of their “Tribunal” feature. This feature acts as a way for the players themselves to socially punish toxic behavior from others (Vince). The “Tribunal” feature proved to be quite effective as the “League of Legends” developers stated that 280,000 players within a year had improved their behavior (Vince). This idea of social punishment is further developed by reference to an experiment that had an AI bot respond to racist tweets. The experiment had bots with white people profile pictures, these bots would respond to racist tweets by simply humanizing black people to the racist tweeters (Vince). These simple responses from the bots reduced the tweeter's racist tweets to almost zero (Vince). This experiment brought up by Vince as well as the “Tribunal” feature poses a complex argument that isn’t necessarily explored in the paper, but can be derived from Vince’s evidence. If more platforms implemented features that focused on socially punishing toxic behavior, it could drastically reduce online abuse.

Vince effectively argues the reasoning and combating of the toxic tendencies of people using online platforms by evidence of physiological incentive, cooperative evolution, and socially based countermeasures. Vince has shown through the evidence presented that a sociological standpoint is the way to combat and explain online abuse. There is no way to eliminate the behavior on an individual basis as it has been established by Vince that people are physiologically prone to outrage. This article convinces that if outraged people are reminded that cooperation and social awareness are the factors behind the sustainability of the human race, then people’s online behavior can be reformed to meet these factors accordingly.

Work Cited

Vince, Gaia. “77: Why Good People Turn Bad Online (Vince).” 88 Open Essays A Reader for Students of Composition Rhetoric, 88 Open Essays, openwa.pressbooks.pub/lwtech88readings/chapter/77-why-good-people-turn-bad-online- vince/.

The Strange Science of Online Toxicity by Samuel Dutton is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license 4.0.

Dutton, Samuel. “The Strange Science of Online Toxicity.” The Commons: Tools for Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric (2nd ed.), edited by Jill Parrott and Dominic Ashby, Eastern Kentucky University, 2026.