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by imakesnowflakes 3697 days ago
This section from an essay I read recently [1] might be relavent here

>In the 1960s, feminists faced social ridicule, media approbation and violent hostility. Now, mirroring the incremental changes seen in technology, social progress all too often finds itself down the blind alleyways of political correctness. Student bodies used to be hotbeds of dissent, even revolution; today’s hyper-conformist youth is more interested in the policing of language and stifling debate when it counters the prevailing wisdom. Forty years ago a burgeoning media allowed dissent to flower. Today’s very different social media seems, despite democratic appearances, to be enforcing a climate of timidity and encouraging groupthink.

So we are conditioned by the social media to encourage groupthink, and so, we are conditioned to hate "trolls", when their behaviors threatens breaking groupthink.

I see this manifested here in HN in discussions involving Tesla/SpaceX. In those threads, if you are in a position where you are going against the rabid enthusiasm, moderators will step in with a ban threat, if you are even slightly combative or go out of the line. But the other side is given a lot more slack, when it comes to silencing dissenting opinion..

[1] https://aeon.co/essays/has-progress-in-science-and-technolog...