It definitely gives people super-specific social niches in which to nurture their worst habits and views in a way that's not just unchallenged but even encouraged.

People who are chronically online tend to live in extremely insulated social bubbles. When you go out into the real world for your socialization time you tend to become less radicalized because you're more likely to encounter decent human beings with differing views from yours and your worldview becomes broader for it.

Most online communities actively discourage giving others the benefit of the doubt and instead prefer dismissing community-consensus-defying views with either overly harsh labels or extreme skepticism ("explain why you're not a troll for disagreeing with me politely", basically).

So in other words, I guess what I'm saying is that the internet seems to have given rise to a new wave of what are effectively cults. They encourage extreme views and extreme rejection of those with outside perspectives. Then when you conform to those views and behaviors, you tend to become socially isolated IRL, which leads to emotional dependence on the radical online community. It's a cycle of bullying that's extremely cult-like, and it's extremely common online.

I know that's what everyone says, what I'm saying is that I'm not sure I agree. I mostly think it just made old problems more visible. At the risk of upsetting Godwin, if you look at the rise to power in Nazi Germany, Hitler was able to appeal to people's inner prejudices and susceptibility to demagoguery and commit one of the worst, if not the worst, atrocities in human history.

Hitler didn't post radical content on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit, he just spoke publicly about stuff.

> Hitler didn't post radical content on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit, he just spoke publicly about stuff.

That's what social media allows random people to do much more easily: speak publicly about stuff. Before that you'd have to build a reputation and following in meat space which takes a lot of time and effort. Now it's just a like and share button.

I'm sure Hitler would have totally loved using Twitter, Facebook and the like.

But then Hitler would have to compete with a million other Hitlers

Or they simply join forces

> That's what social media allows random people to do much more easily: speak publicly about stuff.

GeoCities let you speak publicly about stuff, so that alone is an incomplete characterization.

What nearly all social media does is preferentially bias message propagation to boost engagement in order to enhance advertising sales and biases of its owner(s). This tends to amplify drama and stoke rivalry.