Is human nature too violent for the internet? Have you ever got really angry with somebody online? One thinker believes you could be a victim of the “information crisis”, a period of upheaval in human behaviour and thought.
We need to stop the ‘digital witch hunts’
Big name: Naomi Alderman won the Women's Prize for Fiction for her sci-fi novel The Power, in which women become the dominant sex. Glossary
Axial Age - Coined by a German philosopher, it describes a period from 8th to 3rd Century BCE when major spiritual and religious systems appeared in different locations.
Epoch - A particular time period.
Reformation - A major movement in 16th Century Europe in which the Western Church split into Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church.
Conspiracy theories - Theories that explain world events by blaming shady groups of powerful people operating in secret. Some conspiracy theories have a basis in fact, but many more of them are completely invented. What is more, they often play on dangerous prejudices such as antisemitism. It's worth being especially cautious and critical when you come across accounts that ascribe enormous agency to small and secretive groups.
BBC - The British Broadcasting Corporation is the UK's national broadcaster.