So much hatespeech on Yahoo! news comments - why?

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I sometimes comment on news reports on Yahoo! (in the U.K.)
I also read comments of other people, There is such an astonishing amount of vicious hate speech and uninhibited aggression in those comments! Most of it is racist and anti-immigrants, and you get racist comments on almost every article - whether is has to do with 'race' or not.
There are other things as well. People also seem to hate children; they call them feral and seem to assume that ALL kids and teens are borderline demons.
There are also many comments saying how terrible things are these days in Britain and that everything used to be so much better - which makes me think the posters did not look too deep into history.

I never come across that much spite in real life, nor in other forums that I take part in. Whenever I post a comment that is in disagreement with the aggressive posts, I get 'thumbs down' really quickly so my comment gets hidden.

Why would this be the case? Are there really that many more hateful racist child-hating people in the U.K. than reasonable people? Or is it to do with Yahoo! itself? And why are people like that? Why do they feel so much hatred?

More like why do they even bother flaming Yahoo! news messages in the first place. There's a lot of prejudice out there.

It makes me sad to read those comments. Also worried for humanity in general. How come those people are like that? Is there something wrong with them? Or are they in fact the normal people?

Maybe the 'Comments' sections are their only outlet for their anger.
Maybe this is the only place they can release pressure from things in their lives that they cannot change.
Like men who are unhappy who go to a gym and pound a punching bag, perhaps these rants are therapeutic for them.

Sylkat

It's the internet.

I've been boycotting yahoo for a month now, they picked some guy out of a crowd and labeled him "creepy gators fan" because he had an intense stare, they actually went on for a few minutes making fun of the way this guy looked. I go to NPR for my news instead.

Dear MDD123,

How ridiculous of them; most fans of anything ARE intense!

That is what makes people fans!

Do the Yahoo people not know that the term 'fan' is simply short for 'fanatic'?

Sylkat

I'm not sure wht the deal is with yahoo, they're eye catching and borrow rticles from other news outlets, I'm not sure if the segment in question was actually their work or not. Comment sections in NPR aren't as civil as they are here at WP, but they're better than yahoo.

BTW, I really like your avatar Sylkat, is that a real picture though? I imagine it would be hard to get a pic like that.

Dear MDD123, Thank you for noticing my Dormouse; I believe that it is a real photo, but I do not know the source of the picture.
I stole it from Shrox, one of the members here, who had posted it on one of the 'pictures' threads in 'Random Discussion' on WP.

Sylkat

I know where I'm getting my first avatar