The Rise of Aggression in Online Spaces (Public Post)
And why I'm instituting a 'No Second Chances' policy to protect community members
The internet was once heralded as a revolutionary tool for connection, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas. Online communities, in particular, provided spaces for individuals with shared interests to gather, discuss, and support one another. However, over the years, these same spaces have become battlegrounds where hostility, aggression, and even outright abuse have been normalized. The impact of this toxic shift is especially profound for facilitators—moderators, community managers, and group leaders—who bear the brunt of managing these (at times) hostile environments. For survivors of Family Scapegoating Abuse (FSA), these dynamics can seem tragically familiar as they mirror those we grew up with. And this is why I am further tightening up my Community Guidelines by adding a “No Second Chances” policy - for my sake, and yours.
The Rise of Aggression in Online Spaces
Today I banned a new paid subscriber from my Substack based on an interaction we had in my Direct Messages. It’s not the first time I’ve banned a subscriber. It also won’t be the last.
I didn’t make this decision lightly. The truth is, it’s deeply painful to reject someone in need of support, even when they are acting out their pain by projecting the very same scapegoating dynamics that harmed them onto me. But when someone crosses the line by becoming hostile, aggressive, and/or abusive - regardless of the ‘reason’ - it’s no longer a space where healing can occur - for any of us. And I will do whatever I need to protect this space for the good of the community as a whole. And that community includes me.
Sometimes, people forget that mental health professionals are human too. We have personal lives and face distressing circumstances at times. We have (if we are healthy and taking care of ourselves) limits on what types of interpersonal behaviors we will tolerate. We’re not impervious to the same stresses and emotional tolls that affect everyone else. While I welcome open conversations and strive to provide support, I’m also responsible, as the sole community facilitator, for creating a space where community members can relax and feel “safe enough” to interact with other FSA survivors in an emotionally open - even vulnerable - manner.
While online communities have always contained elements of conflict, the escalation of aggressive behavior has reached new heights. Anonymity, a sense of detachment, and the lack of immediate real-world consequences embolden individuals to engage in behavior they might avoid in face-to-face interactions. What once might have been a heated debate can quickly escalate into targeted harassment, personal attacks, and unrelenting negativity.
A key factor in this shift is the way digital culture has increasingly tolerated and even rewarded hostile interactions and the dehumanization of others. Social media algorithms prioritize engagement, often amplifying inflammatory content. Platforms that value controversy and virality over constructive dialogue inadvertently encourage behaviors that degrade the quality of discussions. As a result, insults, call-outs, bullying, and dogpiling (i.e., mobbing) have become commonplace in online interactions, shifting the norm toward hostility.
Michelle Rios, a subscriber of mine who is a coach, had this to say following a note I posted recently about my decision to ban a paid subscriber, and I’d like to share it with you all here:
Thank you for standing strong against abusive behavior in all its forms. There is a toxic behavior pandemic occurring in our society (both in real life and online) and for reasons I don’t fully yet understand, many, many people seem unwilling, unaware, unmoved, or unable to take actions that support, respect and protect themselves and others. This is likely an enormous topic for its own discussion. I’m spending all of my coaching time with individuals and groups faced with the challenges of what to do in mean-spirited and cruel environments. Seemingly small actions like blocking or banning the source of this type of verbal/written violence is a large action in the fabric of human consciousness. Thank you thank you thank you for continuing to be a Bright Light in this challenging time.
The Unseen Burden of Online Hostility on Facilitators
Facilitators—whether community managers, moderators, or administrators—are tasked with keeping online spaces functional and welcoming. However, in increasingly toxic environments, this role comes at a significant emotional and psychological cost, including:
Emotional Exhaustion: Constant exposure to negativity and hostility takes a toll on facilitators. Dealing with aggressive users, navigating conflicts, and enforcing rules day after day can lead to burnout, stress, and even anxiety.
Lack of Support: Many facilitators, particularly volunteers or those in unpaid roles, find themselves managing hostility without adequate support from platform administrators or community members. When a culture of abuse is normalized, even well-intentioned rules are met with backlash, leaving facilitators in a lose-lose situation.
Targeted Harassment: Facilitators often become the direct target of hostility when they attempt to enforce guidelines or de-escalate conflicts. From verbal abuse to doxxing and coordinated attacks, their role places them in the line of fire, making their work feel thankless and even dangerous.
Erosion of Community Values: When hostility becomes the norm, facilitators struggle to maintain the integrity of the space. Rules meant to foster healthy discussion are increasingly ignored or challenged, making moderation an uphill battle.
How Online Abuse Affects Me as a Community Facilitator
I’m not working as a therapist or clinician on my Substack, and this is something I deliberately emphasize in my Terms of Service, which are included in my Welcome email (and which are also available on my Substack’s home page). I engage on Substack as an author, researcher, and community facilitator. I also intentionally show up to my Substack as a full human being with my own past, vulnerabilities, trauma, pain, joys, failures and successes and am not interested in acting as a human projection screen for anyone here.
And although it is not my intent to burden my Substack subscribers with the personal and professional challenges related to my own history of family abuse, online abuse, betrayal, and complex trauma, there comes a time when being open about what I’m experiencing in regard to online hostility and abuse in my professional life is indeed necessary if I’m going to continue showing up here authentically as a whole person in an expansive, caring, and open-hearted way.
The injustices I have experienced since developing an online presence have been many, and include repeated incidences of defamation and slander. In every case, these abuses occurred after I set a boundary on someone’s egregious behavior. Which, as most all of you here reading this knows, precisely mirrors scapegoating and scapegoat injustice dynamics, which is hell on one’s nervous system. Including mine. And yet, I’m still here, and I’m not planning on going anywhere. Because this community matters. And it especially matters to me.
Therefore: To ensure that my Substack remains a place that all of us can safely be, please know that if a subscriber violates our Community Guidelines - particularly if they act out and are aggressive toward me or anyone in this community, I will not be “working through” anything therapeutically with said subscriber but will instead act on this information immediately and that subscriber will be banned from my Substack.
There will be no discussions about it, nor will there be any second chances.
This sense of being in a “safe enough” virtual container is not only important to the people on my Substack who need community support, but to me as well. I can’t pour from an empty cup. If I let the negativity of the hostility and abuse that is at times directed at me online consume me, and if I don’t set limits on it, I wouldn’t be able to be present for anyone in a healthy way personally or professionally - especially here on Substack, where I currently devote 20 to 30 hours a week of my time (with enough paid subscriber support, my goal is for Substack to at some point become my full-time ‘job’, allowing me to offer even more community features).
The erosion of civility in online communities is not just an inconvenience—it has real consequences, especially for those tasked with maintaining these spaces. Community facilitators cannot bear the burden of managing an online environment without proper support. My support comes from all of you. This includes your being willing to alert me to inappropriate comments that violate our Community Guidelines (which I am sharing again at the bottom of this post) by using the Substack ‘report’ feature or sending me a Direct Message through Substack. This also includes not challenging my decision to ban a subscriber or undermining our community if the banned subscriber is your friend (you always have the option to leave).
By working together in this way, we can prevent our wonderful online community space that so many of us value, need, and treasure from becoming toxic and unsustainable. It’s time to take a stand against the normalization of aggression and to create digital spaces where engagement is built on kindness and respect rather than hostility, aggression, and psycho-emotional abuse.
Compassion Doesn’t Mean Accepting Mistreatment
Setting limits is a form of self-respect, and a reminder that compassion doesn’t mean tolerating mistreatment. To anyone who may not understand this, I hope this post offers some clarity. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about people who are struggling; it means I have to protect my own mental and emotional health (as many of you know, I’m also an FSA survivor and can experience severe Complex Trauma symptoms when under stress, and this is becoming more and more so the case as I get older) and I ethically must protect my Substack environment and the well-being of our community members. I’m still here, still committed to offering all that I reasonably can to my subscribers, but I need it to be in a way that’s healthy and respectful for the entire community.
If I seem like I’m drawing a hard line in the sand with my new No Second Chances policy, it's because I care too much to let my Substack be anything but a healthy, respectful, compassionate, and nurturing space for everyone involved. And I care too much about myself, and about you, to let this become a place that feels like the painful, hostile, rejecting, guilt-provoking, dismissive, judgmental, “shaming and blaming” family environment most of us here came from.
Enough is enough. Let the healing from abuse - in all of its forms - begin here. Now.
Update: I also am no longer making my content on Substack available to those who twist and distort my articles by ‘summarizing’ them in a manner that directly goes against the intent and spirit of my work (such as implying abusive behaviors are just “big emotions” that we need to learn to accept - yes, somebody actually wrote that yesterday after they restacked this post). That’s just another way of creating false narratives that cause harm, and I’m not interested in supporting that here or anywhere else by letting my research-based, clinically validated FSA offerings be used in this way.
Having newly found this community, and having gained immeasurably already, which doesn't really adequately say it: truth is I am so moved by all of you and the fact that Rebecca has so carefully crafted every single aspect of her work here and shared it so lovingly! It's a dream come true and I have to admit I find it heartbreaking to think of this space being harmed. May no harm come to this wonderful service to the heartbroken that Rebecca has offered openly. And thank you, Rebecca, for sharing your personal story. To me, it is very helpful to have you share these experiences that you have in common with us. I will endeavor to be here for you, to help you where I can, and to be a good member. This place is nothing short of life-changing. I was really looking for my spark to return when you all came along and turned my lights back on. Thank you. May no harm come to this space, to these sincere people, and to you Rebecca C. Mandeville, my new hero. Thank you for standing up and demonstrating how it can be done.
Respect starts with ourselves. Your decision to remove an abusive participant is the ultimate act of self-respect, as well as respect for your community. Your value to us goes beyond your work and extends to you personally--as a survivor, a trained professional, an inspiration, and, in this instance in particular, a role model of the kind we did not have.
Respect was lacking in our upbringing, especially when it came to establishing and enforcing boundaries. Courage only got us mocked or punished. Your act is the model that proves strength in courage.
Respect has been in long decline in our public arena in an increasingly coarsened and undisciplined political environment, where the pursuit of "individualism" and exercise of "rights" deny respect for other people. The anonymity of the digital realm seeds this decline. Ultimately, there is no divide between the public and private as people follow the example increasingly normalized in life. We are, after all, social creatures who learn how to behave by copying others.
We need more moral courage of the kind you exemplify.