Mike, I think that you will find that many people respond differently to you with regard to the concept of virtual. It can and does work, but it is also more prone to failure than real life communal society. Years ago people had pen friends, often over a lifetime. They were individual virtual communities — one on one. Those friendships were often regarded as very real. Later we have amateur radio, then CB radio — also a virtual, but more communal in that they involved multiple personalities, often simultaneously. I still have friends I met via Amateur Radio, some of whom moved onto the early internet (Arpanet) in the days of Bulletin Boards and Fidonet. These are real friendships, established and maintained over decades.

With current on-line communities there is a resurgence of school bully personas, only without the requirement to be physically imposing. Bullying is not new — the ancient Greeks complained of it.

What is new, and something I have difficulty grasping, is the effectiveness of such bullies against people who have the means to stop their behaviour. In the past with physical bullying, the bully had be a real threat, someone who could cause physical harm. On-line bullies have no such power unless it is granted to them by their victim. Some people, instead of ignoring, blocking, maybe laughing at them, respond and encourage them.

It is impossible to be bullied unless you allow it. There is no threat, there is no possible force that can be applied, there are simple ways to defeat on-line bullying, but people don’t close the “virtual” door, they keep it open and invite trauma. From a victim’s point of view, on-line bullying is a form of self harm. It can be nothing else.

If on-line bullying was real, people could bully me -believe me, many would like to- but they cannot as I do not accept it. Sometimes I find such people to be amusing, in which case I might have fun annoying them, or if both persistent and annoying I simply block them. Since joining Medium, and I have not been here long, I have only blocked a couple of people. They were defending Paedophiles and I won’t accept that, I won’t debate it; I abhor it. So I blocked.

Once you eliminate bullying from virtual communities, then do the same for bigotry or hate, (and it is simple to do) you have an interesting and pleasant community that offers worthwhile rewards. In summary, on-line communities are what you make them. You have that power.