2018 was the year we (sort of) cleaned up the internet

This was the year we began to answer the age old question: if a bigot rants in a forest, and nobody is around to hear him, does anybody care what that idiot says?

Over the past year, internet companies wielded the hammer known as "deplatforming" more than ever. Deplatforming, or no-platforming, is the term for kicking someone off social media or other sites when they break the rules by, say, using hate speech, or participating in harassment campaigns. Getting deplatformed means that the rule breaker can no longer use that platform to share their thoughts or feelings with the world.