Internet Commenting Growing Away From Anonymity

An article from the Associated Press makes the case that internet commenting is slowly but surely transitioning away from widespread anonymity. More and more sites are finding that the prevalence of vitriolic comments is driving away new readers, not to mention other, more reasonable commenters. Sites like YouTube and the Huffington Post are leading the charge, requiring users to log in via Google+ and Facebook respectively in order to establish a real-world identity. The Post's managing editor, Jimmy Soni, said, 'We are reaching a place where the Internet is growing up. These changes represent a maturing (online) environment.' "Nearly three-quarters of teens and young adults think people are more likely to use discriminatory language online or in text messages than in face to face conversations, according to a recent poll ... Newspapers are also turning toward regulated comments. Of the largest 137 U.S. newspapers — those with daily circulation above 50,000 — nearly 49 percent ban anonymous commenting, according to Arthur Santana, assistant communications professor at the University of Houston. Nearly 42 percent allow anonymity, while 9 percent do not have comments at all.

Comments

Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[cshark]

This is just nuts. The internet isn't growing up, big money sites like the LA Times and Reuters are just getting lazy. What ever happened to comment moderation? Why is it so fantastically difficult to screen these things?

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[DigiWood]

Companies like the ones you mentioned are all about not paying someone to do what to you and I would be something simple: Moderate the discussion. They also don't want the readership doing the moderation because that could potentially be at odds with the publications owners views.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderation requires manpower. Nobody in their right mind volunteers to moderate comments for for-profit businesses, so they have to pay moderators. Which they don't want to do.
Which means either you get spam, flames and shitposting, or forced registration/real id.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[DigiWood]

People moderate for /. all the time that are not paid. /. is a for-profit business.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[AJH16]

If they did that, how would they harvest people's personal information by making them associate their Facebook or Google account with their application? Why have a cost center (paying someone to moderate) when you could have a profit center (farming people's info). It's also worth noting that in the vast majority of cases, all this does is make it so that I don't participate in their comments and the comments sections on most sites that do this seem to be much more dead than the sites that do not.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[Sarten-X]

Slashdot's moderation is also heavily dependent on the whim of the hivemind. We're not as bad as, say, 4chan, but we're still pretty awful.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and this site is quite obviously a different case than a general media outlet like a major newspaper or CNN. Try to implement /.-like moderation on one of those sites and I guarantee that it would be swamped with sock puppets, many of them paid, to push very specific agendas, like the absurd, ongoing denial of the reality of climate change. It would only make the current bad situation much worse.

There are many site where I don't even look at the comments any more, because they're so infested with vileness and nonsense. /. is a notable exception; for me, about 90% of the value of this site is in the comments.

Re: Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[iamhassi]

It's less about moderation and more about control and mob mentality, because now with people's name and Facebook being available the Internet can go attack that person they do not agree with. I think that is far more dangerous than a few negative comments.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[DerekLyons]

The habit of moderating was established and became part of the community ethos before /. became a for profit business.

Re: Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[tverbeek]

If you think that the problem is "a few negative comments", you haven't looked at the responses posted on any news sites lately. I won't even look at the comments sections on the web site of my local metropolitan newspaper, let alone post anything: they are a rancid stew of idiocy, bigotry, and partisan attacks.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[Anonymous Coward]

NO. Wrong. You are wrong, sir. So very, very wrong.

Companies -- all companies -- have one simple thing in common: they do not care what happens to the unwashed masses as long as the company makes money. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and on and on. Not one of them care about you. Sure, step up and give them a little money and they will pretend to care, but if you want any long-term caring to happen you'd better have a contract and it had better be written by your lawyer, not theirs.

Nope, I think if someone does a little digging here all you will find is these sites championing civil discourse in their comments only want names and addresses, and they only want those for one of two reasons: to sell the info for money or to use the info to protect themselves from losing money.

When you see a news story, just think who would make money and how and all will become clear.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[UnknownSoldier]

Agreed. I'll answer your question in a moment ...

I've been online for 20+ years. The cycle of online human communication is *always* the same.

* Forum (BBS / newgroup / website) provides a common ground for people to share info. / tips / opinions
* Site is small as only the "geeks" use it
* Site gains Momentum and goes mainstream
* The crazies come out of the woodwork -- Name Calling / Ad Hominem / Trolls attack -- people keep forgetting authority needs accountability
* Moderators are either
    a) 45% of the time non-existent
    b) 45% of the time grammar/spelling/free-thought nazis where posters need to tow the party line,
    c) 4% of the time does it rarely exist there are balanced moderators who allow a difference of opinion as long as it it kept civil and intelligent
    d) 1% site allows members to self-moderate
* All the old members complain about "the good ole days" when the noobs / newbs / hipsters, etc. didn't drive the S/N from Signal into Noise
* New site starts that promises to be "Bigger, Better, Cheaper", etc.
* Old site membership is split as some members leave to check out "Awesome new site" (temporarily, others for good),
* Old site lingers but never really recovers from the mass influx of growth and decay.
* Rinse and Repeat ad nauseum.

What /. did innovate at the time was to allow the crapfest of usenet to be FILTERED. Reddit has mob rule when you get carpet modded into oblivion because people don't want their thinking challenged.

Newspaper used to exist because people saw the value in someone else filtering the amount of information to collect mostly signal and to present THAT to you so you didn't have to waste your time filtering the S/N.

Now to answer your question:

Why is *good* moderation so HARD?
  1. Because it involves TRUST. Are you an expert? Prove it? etc.
  2. The problem is that Truth is NOT only objective, but ALSO subjective. The majority fall into the fallacy of duality. "I'm right, THEREFORE you're wrong." instead of being humble and honest enough to admit. "My POV has + and -, Your POV has + and -. What *new* things can we learn from the difference and intersection of these strengths and weaknesses?"

As a Mystic I am able to see the Strengths and Weakness in *everything*. The question is NOT about simple-minded good vs evil, but about being able to have an open mind and consider ALL the possibilities: the short-term, the long-term, how the strengths of short-term thinking/action might eventually become the negative in the long-term, and vice versa, what did the negative teach us, etc. Most people are not able to communicate with clear, simple, logic free of mis-guided emotion, let analyze something to that depth.

Being passionate is fine. Be able to walk the line between Logic and Emotion -- yeah, we're all still trying to figure that one out. Especially when some noob / fanboi makes an ignorant comment and you just want to flame his ass for being a stupid git. :-)

cue oblg. xkcd ...
  http://xkcd.com/591/
http://3d.xkcd.com/802/

References:
  * "A Community Membership Life Cycle Model" http://arxiv.org/pdf/1006.4271.pdf
  * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_community

Re: Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[jd2112]

Slashdot moderation is among the best (or perhaps just least bad) of all the sites I regularly visit.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and this site is quite obviously a different case than a general media outlet like a major newspaper or CNN. Try to implement /.-like moderation on one of those sites and I guarantee that it would be swamped with sock puppets[...]

You mean, unlike the sock puppets who seek to get /. to outlaw anonymous posting by constantly trolling every thread with "hosts file", "golden girls", "frost piss", and other stupidity?

A lot of the companies whose fortunes are tied up in a business model which requires them to associate your demographics and opinions with your actual identity tend to piss themselves every time it looks like the /. moderation system is still working, and still allowing anonymous posting. I have absolutely no doubt that most of those trolls are being paid, and paid well, for attempting to destroy the economic viability of anonymous postings everywhere they are currently allowed.

After all, you can't get a site to buy into single sign-on, be it Facebook's or Disqus' or Google+'s, unless you first get them to buy into the idea that a sign-in is necessary in the first place. And you can't charge an account and paywall the entire Internet using your micropayment mechanism, unless you can tie those payments back to an account you are able to then debit, which is where all this crap is headed, if they get their way.

Welcome to the new cable TV! First, we sold it to you as having no commercials, and then when you were already paying, we slowly crept the commercials back in so that the very thing you were paying for in the first place was no longer true, and now we'd like to convert you to pay-per-view for everything, and, oh yeah, there's still going to be commercials.

Re:Yes, because moderation is oh so hard to do

[kencurry]

Read the comments on WSJ (even with unregistered comments blocked). Seriously, read them. You will come back to Slashdot and thank god for the wonderful minds that visit this site, and marvel at how well the mod system works.

No, it's not

[Anonymous Coward]

People are just being forced to give up anonymity. There's a difference.

Whatever

[CanHasDIY]

When my local Gannett-owned newspaper switched from a PHPbb type forum to the new Facebook comments, it pretty much killed discussion altogether.

The irony, of course, is despite the big banner extolling the virtues of non-anonymous commenting ('"it'll make everyone play nice!" Like that's something we give a shit about) the people who actually had anything intelligent to say were the ones who stopped commenting; since it's still pretty easy to create a fake facebook account, trolls abound.

Seriously, sometimes it's like 4chan without pictures over there.

Nonsense.

[Karmashock]

1. The change is happening on companies that make money by connecting advertisers with potential customers. A large part of their revenue comes directly or indirectly through data mining their user base. If their user base is bogus names and bogus information then the value of the data mining is less. Therefore it is in the interest of these companies to get real information in their databases. This is the primary reason this is desirable.

2. Smaller websites that are if anything more known for thoughtful commentary have no such program.

3. There has been a consistent effort by politicians to get identities put on internet comments so they can file law suits or other forms of heavy handed harassment against anyone that would dare criticize them.

4. While internet trolls are an issue, anyone that has been on the internet for awhile gets used to them. You just don't take them seriously anymore. You recognize them for what they are and then you "nothing" them. They are deleted if only from your own perception.

5. It is telling that leading the charge to have identities on the internet are entities such as the Chinese government etc... This is who you're praising.

Will we gain something by having real identities on the internet? Yes. But we will lose a great deal more. This is a fool's bargain. We would do well to protect our anonymity if only because it will protect our ability to speak our minds. Those that advocate for real names are advocates for censorship. Point blank.

Re:Nonsense.

[Jason Levine]

While internet trolls are an issue, anyone that has been on the internet for awhile gets used to them.

For most trolls this is true. However, there are the occassional trolls who have nothing better to do that make your life miserable or are so mentally unbalanced that they think they are "doing good" by harassing you. Online, they have limited powers, but if they get a hold of your real-world identity they can cause serious harm. Example, there's a troll (who I won't name for fear she'll find her way here and see *my* real name) who has harassed me in the past. She didn't know my real name (Slashdot is one of the few places I use it) so her power over me was limited. One of her targets, though, used his real name and mentioned where he worked. She called up his job, reporting him for child abuse (he's a teacher), found and contacted all of his family on Facebook, and contacted his local police department to report him for child pornography. None of those charges were true, and luckily he had warned enough people about her that the damage was minimal, but he's still had to endure years of not knowing who she would contact next to spread lies. (In her mind, she's a "prophet of god" and everything she says comes straight from god himself, so obviously there's no way or reasoning with her.) Before anyone asks, police were contacted in this and other cases regarding her but nothing was done. (Her living in another country complicates matters and it's too "small time" for any real traction to get moving.)

Were I forced to use my real name everywhere, she could have done the same to me or the other few dozen people she's harassed (from bloggers to Boy George to the CEO of FireFox). Now imagine a hundred other trolls like her empowered by having access to the real world identities of the people they are harassing. If real-world identities themselves don't scare away commenters, the trolls will.

Nigger Hitler Fuck

[gelfling]

That is all.

Non-anonymous comments are worse

[MrVictor]

Take a look at the Facebook comment section of any sports article. The caustic comments are still there, and contrary to what they want you believe, are worse than ever. Now, instead of your typical benign flames and trolls you have truly nasty, personal insults aimed at a poster's wife and kids or something. It's truly disgusting. If these sites thought real identities were going to stop this thing, they were sorely mistaken. The masses have absolutely no dignity.

Re:Non-anonymous comments are worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Don't get fooled, there's plenty of people who are not ashamed of how stupid they are (or they don't even know it). There's plenty of people who are not shy to express their opinions, anonymous or not. What you don't get with real names system is people who have knowledge to share but don't want to be identified in fear of losing their jobs of being harassed.

Cunts.

[magic maverick]

Hi.
My name is Johan Smith, and I live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC.

I just logged in to say, you're all a bunch of cunts. Soulskill is a cunt. The mods are all cunts. And this article was written by a cunt.

Anyone who thinks that non-anonymous commentating will drive away the trolls, and the hacks, and the flamebaiters, is insane, and/or a cunt.

Also, anyone who thinks that people are using their real names on the Internet is probably wrong.

No. This is really bad.

[twocows]

Listen, part of the reason anonymous (and to a lesser extent, pseudonymous) commenting is a good thing is because you can say something you wouldn't normally be able to say for fear of some sort of real life consequences. I'm not talking about "trolling," I'm talking about political opinions or affinity for ideas or concepts that are looked down upon in polite society. Tying your real name to this means that anyone can find it and stifles free speech. Additionally, truly anonymous speech has to be judged on content, since there is no concept of reputation. If you say something stupid, someone will probably call you out on it and construct a logical explanation as to why you are wrong. Ironically, anonymous speech tends toward a place of more well-informed opinions, even if individual messages may vary greatly in quality.

This move away toward "real name" tie-ins is bad any way you cut it. Yes, it cuts down on "trolling," but the cost is too high. There are other ways to cut back on that, anyway, like hiring more effective moderation staff. Even 4chan has a moderation team and users are able to report individual posts (though their moderation team is rather spotty and various less effective solutions often crop up in their absence). There are problems with any solution, but real-name tie-ins will end up with people tip-toeing around, which stifles intelligent discussion and leads to relative echo chambers where only the popular opinion is parroted.

I just want pseudonymity

[GlobalEcho]

I generally refuse to post anything but the most anodyne statements on public web forums under my own name. Who knows what political or cultural opinion some future interlocutor might find offensive?

However, give me a pseudonym and I'm happy to post. The risk of search engines making the association is small. I'm fine with being legally responsible (and culturally anonymous) for what I post, which is precisely what pseudonymity gives me.

As with moderation, this is something Slashdot gets more or less right.

Think of It This Way

[DexterIsADog]

Think of real world identification for online comments like the suggestion that we replace seatbelts and airbags in automobiles with a sharp metal spike in the middle of the steering wheel. Imagine how much more carefully the average person would drive!

Naturally, no sane society would do that to cars, but the equivalent vulnerability in online commenting would do wonders for civility, and I also believe improve the quality of the content. Yes, yes, there would be some horror stories about people posting reasonable comments who are persecuted, but then, life is risk, isn't it?

Just to show my money, er, identity is where my mouth is, here's my real life information. Feel free to send any and all comments about my post.

Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500 (202) 456-1111