Social Media Mobbing - Why?

[OutofFlowers]

Can anyone give any insight as to why so many people want to gang up on the person seen as "the bad one" on social media and then mob them with hateful comments and such? I don't get it. It sounds like petty high school only on a world stage with no consequences for the smear campaigner mob and worse accusations.

Is it to be a part of the crowd or to get attention? Do these people have no conscious?

I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of all these people coming out of the woodwork (some whom we've never met) on social media saying "Oh I knew they were a creep." and their seemingly incessant desire to share  "my experience with xyz person" stories, which by the way are always highly exaggerated or outright lies.

I don't understand the need for people to pile on and lie.

I mean, if I saw something shocking/negative online about a person I knew (either knew online or in real life) I would NEVER feel the need to post my confession like experience about interactions I had with them. It's stupid and I swear it's solely for attention-seeking, it has to be! It is just appalling so much to see how easily someone will exaggerate, take out of context, and outright lie about someone else online and post it all because they are not even thinking that other person is "real" and has a real family with real consequences for what is typed about them. It is absolutely sickening.

I just saw someone else today with a threatening sounding tweet that they too were going to share their experience with the person in question. Wow, just wow. And people seem to gobble it up like it's entertainment! WTF.

[clara]

There term flying monkeys seems to apply to a lot of those situations.  The aggrieved person enlists their friends by encouraging their friends to buy into the grievance and then come to the "defense."  It's part of the "the best defense is a good offense" way of behaving.  Attack the other person before they have the chance to attack you (even if they're not interested in attacking) and compound the attack by enlisting others to prove how "right" you are.  Unfortunately, some people are particularly good at convincing others of how right they are (regardless of the truth) and therefore in need of help.  The people helping by mobbing likely aren't even aware that they're being used.  Of course, there's a subset of folks who will just do things like this to go along with the crowd, to not want to stand out by saying maybe we shouldn't do this, or I don't know if this is the correct way to deal with this, etc.   To me, they come across as weak and insecure, same as the person encouraging the "mobbing." 

[Thru the Rain]

I agree it's maddening!

My own personal policy is to not say anything on social media that I wouldn't say in person.

I also have relentlessly weeded out my Facebook feed. I block and snooze people who only post angry mean things. And I seek out feeds that offer relief from the constant drumbeat of media. I have ended up with a fairly peaceful parade of pet pics, vacation updates and what everyone had for dinner.

I exited Twitter years ago. It's a mean and nasty place at all times, and it's not welcome in my day.