From the article: "This assumption that crowds have some non-fragmented
consciousness leads us to the false dichotomy we draw between physical and
virtual crowds: one is dumb, the other is smart. But in both cases, we’re
placing too much emphasis on the crowd as distinct from the people involved in
it. …
This has real-world consequences. When police officers show up at a protest or
political rally, they tend to think of the crowd in Le Bonian terms, McPhail
told me. That can be dangerous. If the police assume the crowd is acting as
one, it becomes easier for a handful of people to provoke a violent reaction
from law enforcement — and vice versa. McPhail uses what he has learned from 40
years of studying groups of people to advise law enforcement on better, safer
ways to deal with crowds. He told me that 150 years of records from Europe and
the United States show violence happens at less than 15 percent of political
gatherings. So he instructs officers to never respond categorically to a crowd.
If one person is breaking the law, address that person in an unobtrusive way.
“If you are blatant and violent, you affect people who weren’t doing anything,
and that . . . turns them against you,” he said.
At the same time, knowing that virtual crowds are merely
human helps us better predict when one is likely to be smart and when it’s
likely to be stupid. Reddit can help someone understand a medical diagnosis
just as easily as it can foster a men’s rights movement. Scientists, working as
a virtual group, are capable of sharing diverse research to reach a consensus
on climate change, but they’re also capable of passing down the received wisdom
that crowds have minds. The group itself isn’t what matters. What matters is
who they are, what they know and how they interact." Read more
