It's important to remember that not everybody is in one of those two groups, even if it may seem that way on social media... whenever you go by actual representative surveys rather than your impressions from social media, it turns out there's a silent majority who isn't getting all that worked up either way or hasn't heard about it at all.

But yeah, even so, the social media wars and witch hunts are still scary enough. And especially when the people involved are minors, Brooks is right that this can do terrible damage to people's lives. Even when the person in question is in fact guilty of something bad, they don't necessarily deserve all that. I'm thinking of a case in Spain where a female politician was insulted on social media in a really vile way by someone (a woman, perhaps surprisingly), something along the lines of 'I hope you get raped, bitch'. The politician felt disturbed enough about that to make a point of calling out this woman on Twitter. A day or so later, the woman's name, face and personal details were known to all Spain and her reputation was ruined to the extent that her employer decided to fire her on the spot (I don't remember what her job was, but it had nothing to do with politics). Sure, her appalling behaviour deserved to be called out and condemned, but for her to lose her job over it might be going a bit far. I doubt the politician intended for that to happen, but such social media storms, once unleashed, are beyond anyone's control.