Are you as sick of the trash talk as I am?

[femmedem]

3. Yes.

I frequently see people who are attacked on DU and either say that they are done here or I check their profiles and see that they've quietly stopped posting. Sometimes I message them and say that the way they were treated was cruel, and I get responses about how hurtful it was.

Often the cruel responses are just this side of alertable: innuendoes, carefully worded to stay within the terms of service.

I think people forget how isolated many of us here are, either due to being retired, health issues, poverty or the pandemic. Sometimes people come here for their main social interaction and find themselves attacked when someone could just offer a different opinion without making it personal.

I come here primarily for news and I occasionally post articles or tweets, but I rarely offer my own opinions anymore. And I interact in areas where odds are everyone will be kind: humor, pets, artists, the lounge--although someone felt hurt enough by lounge interactions to leave DU today after being here for eighteen years.