The first question, of course, is are there even “Bernie Bros”? And the answer may well be NO. Like Biden’s “giant delegate lead” being reported with over 100 delegates from Super Tuesday still unallocated and data from 44 machines in Texas missing, This may be a narrative that’s being reported with little supporting evidence.

There may be “Bros” but as a numeric rather than statistical fact — how many Twitter followers does Bernie have (highlight mine)?

Are these followers particularly negative (again, highlight mine)? Not more negative than Warren’s followers. And, ironically, both Bernie and Warren’s followers appear to be more negative than Trump’s.

Even if we leave aside lexical sentiment analysis, the accuracy of which can legitimately be discussed. If we leave aside what actually constitutes negative commentary — someone who posts convey a negative-sentiment as they face bankruptcy after a serious illness isn’t the same as someone who attacks immigrants or espouses white supremacist beliefs — are the Bros Bernie’s? One thing people grappled with, back when the Internet first became a consumer offering, is that I may not be what I say I am. And not the type refuted by ‘yeah, there aren’t that many barely 18 girls on the planet’. “I’m a 32 year old guy living in Bloomington, IL who is really into R/C airplanes”. No way to tell — my ISP uses MPLS routing so my IP address geo-locates to Nebraska, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and North Carolina quite regularly. It’s not like social-media sites take any extreme measures to validate identify — a ten cent registration fee and your information needs to match up with the billing details, send us a copy of your cable bill, we need a copy of your birth certificate and state-issued ID card?! I’ve got friends who play games through Facebook who create additional accounts to “friend” and boost their game performance. Is it inconceivable that some 4-chann’er would create a social media account posing as a liberal? What percent of ‘Bernie Bros’ are MAGA’ers? How many MAGA’ers are trolls? What percent are Russian operatives? Does perpetuating the ‘Bernie Bro’ myth create division in America (i.e. something the Russians want)? Not saying there aren’t assholes who support Bernie. There are. And, statistically, I expect a significant percentage of those individuals to be active online. But what part of Bernie’s campaign is designed to *attract* assholes? But I don’t see evidence that Bernie’s supports have a higher percentage of assholes then any other campaign. A fortunate, but often ignored, facet of free speech is that freedom to speak freely does not imply freedom from consequences for your speech. Moving discourse online has significantly disrupted the threat of consequences.

Even if we discount the existence of real negativity and assume anyone who claims to be a Bernie supporter is a Bernie supporter … what can Bernie do about it? He’s already disavowed the comments and said he does not consider these individuals to be part of his movement. Is he supposed to get a warrant to unmask the identify of everyone who posts a snake emoji on Twitter and deliver a cease and desist letter? Drop by and speak to them about their online behavior?