Quora is a hotbed of racism

I have been writing on Quora for around five years. I’ve written an embarrassingly large number of answers, and made good friends.

When I joined Quora, it was a breath of fresh air. A civilised oasis in the feral wasteland of Internet forums. Quora had the simple concept of “Be Nice, Be Respectful”.

Today, it is just another pit of racism on the web. Seemingly every other question is a passive aggressive dig at Black Lives Matter, or an anonymous dog-whistle racist comment on whatever is in the news that day.

Quora used to be better than this, it is (perhaps was) the only Internet forum I stayed for over a month on. Real people, using their real names, talking to each other with respect and good humour. Now Quora joins the ranks of Reddit, 4Chan, Digg, or some other forum where people join seemingly for the sole purpose of abusing others.

Quora is moderated, at least in theory, but whatever moderation there is doesn’t seem to be able to prevent the constant torrent of racist questions and answers.

Quora lets us “mute” a user, it doesn’t work.

Quora encourages us to use our real names, but anonymous users are normal.

Quora allows us to report harassment, but rarely seems to act on the reports.