When you talk to people online there is a wonderful lack of background information. Generally, I'm in favour of the ‘all-the-information-you-can-get-your hands-on' theory, but in this case less is better. Talk to someone face-to-face and you can't help making judgements about them, based on their height, race, clothes, gender etc. Sandra Bullock said on the ‘Oprah Winfrey Show' that she'd met a redneck with tattoos, a baseball cap, and work boots, and had assumed that he was both racist and stupid. She was surprised when this ‘redneck' spoke like a normal person, and they had an intelligent conversation together.

Talking to people over the Internet you don't see their height or their race. You only know about their tattoos if they tell you about them. You don't know if they look gay, or if they are gay. Don't know if they are deaf, or in a wheelchair. You don't even know what country they're in unless you ask. All you get is a screen name which gives you some hint as to the kind of person they are. Being self-chosen, this ‘name' ‘tells' you more about the person than their family, country, or religion. It often tells you what THEY think is important about them. Someone who picks the screen name ‘Padme_Skywalker' is a Star Wars fan and that is a significant fact about them. It is more specific than if their screen name is ‘MusicWeaver' or ‘CakeLover'.

All our relationships with anonymous people have an equal and egalitarian starting point. In many cases it is an optimistic beginning that assumes people are interesting, intelligent, and moderately good until they show otherwise. A few people seem to assume everyone is a fool or a criminal, but that is their choice and everyone still gets the same start with them. Thanks to this anonymity, people who hate Muslims or Christians, blacks or whites, Germans or gays, might unknowingly talk to someone they would otherwise hate. They might get to know their enemy as a person before they find out that their new friend is ‘one of them'.

Or someone might start talking to ‘Padme_Skywalker' and just assume that all Star Wars fans are Americans. Then minutes or weeks later ask her want she thinks of the racial violence in Germany and find that she has lived in Germany all of her life, and belongs to the group the violence is targeted against. Plus, she is happy to give her first-hand impressions of these events.

Naturally, you don't need to rely on luck for these personal insights. If there is a controversy in California about gay marriage, or about Muslims headscarves in France, you can go online looking for people who live on the spot and ask them about it. I love this aspect of the Internet: being able to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Summary – Face-to-face we can't avoid judging people by the way they look. Online we only know what people choose to share, so judgmental separatists might talk to their ‘enemies' without knowing it, even until they've become friends with their ‘opposites'. We can also talk to people about the state of international events at the actual scene to get personal insights into the situation.