[emsign]

Yep, that's definitely something you can observe. I think we've had a rich history so far of experiencing different types of online community software (newsgroups, web comment sections, IRC, BB forums, myspace, tumblr, etc) and I think we can classify them by the effect they have on their users' interaction with one another. Shifts in overall online behavior (at least perceived by the general public and the old school press) can be attributed to a shift in software used, I think.

Many of the old online communities still exist and often times the old conversations and interactions are still online. This would make for interesting and I think fruitful and enlightening material for social studies.

Ask anyone who has participated in various online communities and they can tell you pretty well how moderation and other users influence the overall social conduct in the respective online spaces quite differently. Most people can at least tell you about specific shifts in their online community and it would be interesting to find out what decisions of the site owners or software developers created this shift, if at all.

I think as a software user interface designer you have a responsibility to be aware of your creation's psychological and behavioral effects. Sadly only the big social media companies really invest in this research and weaponize it for profit maximization. But I think this knowledge should become more widely available and more people especially the users should be made aware of it.

To me people on Twitter and on 4chan aren't free in the sense of the enlightenment:

“Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another.”