As a digital mirror of the real society, discourse violence and emotional alienation in the Internet space has become an important topic of sociological research. According to data from the Supreme People’s Court, in 2024, the number of Internet infringement cases received by courts nationwide surged by 43% year-on-year, with cases involving personal attacks and defamation accounting for 67% of the total. This phenomenon of group emotional outburst reflects the deep-seated contradiction between technological empowerment and social transition.
The superimposed effect of technological empowerment and social cognitive rupture
The zero-threshold nature of the Internet has dissolved the identity segregation of traditional society, forcing groups with different educational backgrounds and values into the same discourse field. Cognitive anthropological studies have shown that when Internet users’ knowledge updating speed lags behind the rate of information explosion, their cognitive system will activate the defence mechanism and defend the inherent conceptual system through offensive remarks. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in professional fields such as healthcare and education policy, where collisions between ordinary netizens and experts often turn into irrational tirades.
The ‘de-inhibition effect’ created by the anonymity mechanism drastically reduces the cost of cyber-attacks. Psychological experiments have confirmed that the attack threshold of individuals in an anonymous state is reduced by 58%, and the moral constraints are weakened by 34%. The algorithmic recommendation mechanism of social media platforms exacerbates group polarisation, with emotional content spreading 2.3 times more efficiently than rational discussion, forming a positive feedback loop of the ‘anger spiral’.
Cultural Pathology in Social Transition
The sense of relative deprivation brought about by the economic slowdown has made cyberspace an alternative venue for emotional catharsis. Sociological surveys show that the proportion of Internet users with monthly incomes lower than the regional average who engage in online cursing is 27 percentage points higher than the average. The intergenerational cognitive rupture is manifested in the discourse conflict between ‘digital natives’ and ‘Internet immigrants’, with post-00 netizens using sarcastic emoticons 4.8 times more frequently than post-70 netizens, forming a unique subcultural attack paradigm.
The disorder in the cultural field is reflected in the confusion of value judgement standards, and the collision between consumerism and traditional ethics has given rise to moral nihilism. In the case of cyber violence, 63% of the perpetrators admitted that their behaviour was driven by ambivalence such as ‘hatred of the rich’ and ‘admiration for the strong’. This cultural cleavage peaked in the dichotomy of ‘lying down’ and ‘involution’, with 81% of the comments on related topics being offensive.
The Dilemma of Hierarchical Platform Governance and Its Breakthroughs
There is a ‘regulatory time lag’ in the current content review system, with an average processing delay of 3.2 hours, resulting in 83% of violent comments being disseminated. The limitations of natural language processing technology result in only 52% of metaphorical attacks being recognised, and ironic remarks such as ‘thankful’ and ‘winning’ have become a regulatory blind spot. The application of blockchain traceability technology has improved the efficiency of identifying rumour mongers by 76%, but the judicial acceptance rate of electronic evidence is still lower than 42%.
The ‘boosting theory’ from the perspective of behavioural economics provides new ideas for governance, with mandatory emotional cooling-off periods reducing impulsive speech by 39%. An experiment conducted by Tsinghua University’s Network Research Institute proved that replacing the ‘Like’ button with a ‘Rational Thinking’ prompt can reduce the support rate for extreme views by 21 percentage points. The reconstruction of the digital literacy education system is even more fundamental, as the pilot ‘cybercitizenship course’ implemented in Shanghai has led to a 58 per cent drop in the participation rate of young people in cyberviolence.
Currently, the governance of online hostility has entered a deep-water zone and needs to break through the traditional thinking of ‘blocking and removing opposites’. Modelling by Wuhan University’s Network Governance Research Centre shows that a composite governance strategy could reduce the incidence of cyberviolence in 2026 to 38 per cent of the 2024 level. The evolution of digital civilisation is not only a technological iteration, but also a paradigm revolution in the mental model of the group, which requires the synergistic evolution of technological ethics, legal system and cultural construction.
