ThomasLitchford

Kathy Sierra, author of Creating Passionate Users, has been getting death threats.

As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I’ve been getting death threat comments on this blog.

This is what an anarchical system gives you: a lot of really creative people building wonderful things, and a bunch of antisocial vandals. Or thieves. Or stalkers.

All of these threats exist in the real world, but the anonymity of the Web seems to be a corrupting force, allowing respectable law abiding individuals to indulge in a little sociopathic activity now and then.

I love the internet and all of the things it allows me to do, but it’s becoming more and more like the sort of bad neighborhood where you lock your doors, roll through stop signs, and keep your head on a constant pivot while you look for ‘anything strange.’