I think the web used to be much more diverse, or rather heterogenic. Communities really differed a lot. They still can, but now there's this thing that has shifted from the TV and print media to the web in full: the public opinion.
In the past 10 years the public debate and public consciousness has finally been transfered to internet. Mostly because of social media. And while doing this, the "public" has changed from a moderate and gate-keeping environment of the press and TV networks, to something more wild and "liberated". And it has picked up a lot of traits that we would formerly observe in the more rough pockets of the web.
I don't think those pockets have changed or seized to exist, some of them have become more radical than ever before, it's just that what we consider to be the public space where everyone is grounded to has changed place.
In the past 10 years the public debate and public consciousness has finally been transfered to internet. Mostly because of social media. And while doing this, the "public" has changed from a moderate and gate-keeping environment of the press and TV networks, to something more wild and "liberated". And it has picked up a lot of traits that we would formerly observe in the more rough pockets of the web.
I don't think those pockets have changed or seized to exist, some of them have become more radical than ever before, it's just that what we consider to be the public space where everyone is grounded to has changed place.