Nastiness threatens online reader comments
Nastiness threatens online reader comments
AFP By Rob Lever
14 hours ago
In the face of rising vitriol -- attacks, bigotry and
general nastiness -- news organizations are increasingly throwing in the towel
on online comments
Washington (AFP) - The Internet was supposed to
facilitate better exchange between the public and news media. But vile and
hateful comments changed all that.
In the face of rising vitriol -- attacks, bigotry and
general nastiness -- news organizations are increasingly throwing in the towel
on online comments.
Last month, Vice Media's Motherboard news site turned off
reader comments, saying "the scorched earth nature of comments sections
just stifles real conversation."
It instead began taking "letters to the editor"
to be screened by staff.
Vox Media's online news site The Verge said in July it
was "turning off comments for a bit," noting that the tone was
"getting a little too aggressive and negative."
Blogging platform Medium this past week allowed its users
to hide reader comments, acknowledging that "sometimes you may not want to
get in a discussion."
The Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Beast, news website
Re/code, the millennial-focused news site Mic and Popular Science also have
shut off comments.
And Vox.com launched last year without them, saying that
"flame wars" turned readers off.
"Newsrooms are really struggling with this,"
said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor of information studies at Syracuse
University.
"They like the idea of the comments because it
brings readers back, it creates a community of people who are dedicated and
that's good for advertising," she told AFP.
"But the downside is that when people see lots of
vitriol and attack, even if they are not using bad language, it turns people
off. The worry is that instead of fostering communication, you lose
readers."
Research this year by University of Houston professor
Arthur Santana found anonymous comments on online news sites can often bring
out the vilest of views, particularly on hot topics such as immigration.
- 'Locusts, vermin' -
"Often the targets of the incivility are
marginalized groups, including racial minorities," Santana said in the
Newspaper Research Journal.
Santana found readers referred to immigrants as
"cockroaches, locusts, scumbags, rats, bums, buzzards, blood-sucking
leeches, vermin, slime, dogs, brown invaders, wetbacks," among others.
Santana said that newspapers "have expressed
frustration with rampant incivility and ad hominem attacks in their commenting
forums," but may also be hurting their own reputations by becoming a place
for mud-slinging.
The problem is not limited to US news sites: "flame
wars" have forced the shutdown of comments on South Africa's largest
online news publisher 24.com and Independent Online has done the same.
Controlling online forums can be especially tricky in
countries where news organizations may be held liable for defaming content from
readers.
Some news organizations have sought to clamp down on
incivility by requiring registration and banning anonymity.
- Facebook as a tool? -
One tool is from Facebook, whose plug-in verifies the
identity of those who post comments, requiring people to use their real names.
Some evidence indicates the Facebook platform and other
tools have helped the tone.
A 2013 University of Kent study found that by making
users "accountable," the Facebook system makes them "less likely
to engage in uncivil discussion."
But when The Huffington Post ended anonymous comments and
began using the Facebook plug-in, it sparked anger.
By creating obstacles to posting, "you lose a lot of
commenters," said David Wolfgang, a doctoral researcher in journalism at
the University of Missouri.
Wolfgang, who has been researching the state of online
news comments, said many newsrooms were unprepared for the deluge of acrimony
but should not give up.
"If your local news organization isn't going to
provide a space for this conversation, who will? It doesn't always work out the
way we want, but that doesn't mean we should throw it out," he said.
- Tech solutions? -
Large news organization employ teams of moderators,
sometimes with help from outside contractors, to weed out inappropriate
comments. But that's not feasible for many budget-stretched newsrooms.
Some are looking to technology, to filter out nastiness
and highlight constructive conversations from readers. Several private vendors
offer software for this.
The Washington Post and New York Times have joined forces
on a project funded by the Knight Foundation to create open-source software
that can be adapted for news websites to get a better handle on online
discussions.
Greg Barber, director of digital news projects at the
Post and a member of the "Coral Project" team working with the
Mozilla Foundation, said the competing dailies realized that "we had the
same problems and it made sense for us to work together."
"Civility is a challenge for everyone," Barber
said, adding that the Post gets some eight million comments a year and
struggles to keep a positive tone with its own moderators and an outside
contractor.
"When users come in and see a pie fight, they are
likely to pick up a pie and throw it," he said.
"If they see a reasoned discussion, they will want
to contribute in a reasoned way."
Project members have spoken with publishers in 25
countries interested in trying the software, which will be offered free.
News sites may use their own criteria to keep the
dialogue on course, according to Barber.
Barber said the software, set to be released for testing
in January, aims not only to filter out the ugliness but to identify the
"trusted" readers and display constructive comments more prominently.
"It's not just to scrape the mud off our boots, but
to find and highlight the valuable contributions," he said.
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