From a dodgy big toe to fighting big Joe

I often think our online lives and personas are like that infamous experiment from the 1970s where one sociologist set-up an elaborate ruse to test how cruel people could actually be.

You’ll have heard of the plan. He had actors wired up to fake fuse boxes and buzzers like they were condemned to walk the Green Mile.

Then, in filed the unsuspecting subjects of the experiment. The volunteers were told the more they twisted the switch in front of them in the doctor’s lab, the more powerful the electric shock those strapped into the mechanisms would experience.