Belatedly, to borrow from Nick Cohen at Standpoint:
The overwhelming majority of political writers on the internet do not fact-check allies or warn them that they are making a mistake. Indeed, the standard web author rarely sees the need to spell out what his or her side believes in and argue for it in the marketplace of ideas. Instead, they encourage group loyalty and group-think by denouncing opponents. Free access to content makes the building of tribal identification by ritual jeering at opponents the dominant style. We are so used to it we forget its novelty. A generation ago, a conservative would have been aware that left-wing newspapers contained ideas he found ridiculous or sinister. However, as he would never waste his money buying a copy, he could spend his life in happy ignorance of the specifics. The same applied to liberals with the Tory press. Now it is easy, far too easy, for a blogger to click on an ideological opponent’s site or newspaper and select heretical thoughts to copy and denounce to his allies.
It reminds of Raja Petra’s Malaysia Today, pigsty of mud-raking, old little monkeys, a barbarian horde, stroking each other’s back, shouting down the establishment, and shrieking away when they don’t like what they see. Read? Illiterates don’t know how to read, much less illuminate issues. And they think of themselves as great freedom lovers and democrats. Tian-ah!
