A misunderstanding of social media is driving media elites to keep pushing an easily disprovable stereotype by Keith A. Spencer Part 3 - Angry people and angry brands But the demographics of Twitter's user base only say so much about the site's distorted commentariat. There's also the question of how people behave online, and why they behave so differently than they do in real life. There is a psychological reason why even very nice people are more likely to behave like assholes online. It is called the online disinhibition effect, and it is a big source of misery from pundits who do not understand it. The combination of three factors — the anonymity and pseudonymity of being online, the lack of accountability, and the indirect nature of online communications — make it so that online communication is dehumanizing, and often cruel. Demographics and "real" users aside, Twitter — like most social media sites — has a huge number of accounts that ar