23 September 2016

Anonymous commenting allows ‘net trash to escape accountability

There’s a new commenting policy at the Helena Independent Record. Commenters now must write under their real names, just as authors of letters to the editor for the print edition must write under their real names.

My reaction? Hallelujah! But it should have happened yesterday.

The internet has become a refuge for outlaws from common decency, for the kind of people who exult in starting bar fights, for misanthropes who delight in provoking howls of pain, for thugs who would blackjack you in a dark alley or push you off a cliff if they thought they could get away with it. Anonymity allows these ‘net trash to escape accountability for their actions.

The problem is especially acute at small publications, such as the Flathead Beacon, that believe they cannot afford the New York Times’ practice of pre-publication moderation. At these publications, and many blogs, mean-spirited commenters writing under pseudonyms are stinking up the comment sections with vicious personal attacks, irrelevancies, taunts, and threats. This behavior eviscerates civility, drives away responsible commenters, and besmirches the good name of the publications that allow such mischief.

One solution, adopted by the Billings Gazette, is banning all online comments but continuing to publish letters to the editor. Another, Flathead Memo’s policy, is no comments of any kind (my time is spent best writing, not reviewing comments).

The Helena IR’s solution is an attempt to find a middle ground. Comments will be user moderated, which I suspect is a mistake, but commenters must provide their real names (verifying the authenticity of those real names will be hard). The IR’s premise — its hope — is that commenters whose real identity is disclosed will not write comments that bring opprobrium upon themselves. That’s a reasonable assumption, but it does not apply to sociopaths, sadists, and fools.

I support the Gazette’s approach, but I also support the IR’s approach and hope it’s successful.