Time to Stop Anonymous Commenting
Julia Hobsbawm thinks that the anonymous trolling on the internet has gone too far and needs to be addressed.
6 Nov 2011, 21:33
Internet trolls
Now another class of media victim is appearing, one which is denied sympathy because they are powerful and well paid: The commentators. Yet they are frequently open to a form of “comment abuse” as David Aaronovich of The Times puts it, when the public who are encouraged to leave comments at the end of their authored articles often do so with a level of viciousness which is often breathtaking.
Women broke the wall of silence, in particular a series of women who are writing about misogyny: The writer Laurie Penny wrote in an article in The Independent that “an opinion, it seems, is the short skirt of the internet. Having one and flaunting it is somehow asking an amorphous mass of almost-entirely male keyboard-bashers to tell you how they'd like to rape, kill and urinate on you”. The novelist and former journalist Linda Grant tweeted: “when I was a columnist pre-email the desk would filter out that stuff so I never saw it. Plus most letters were not anonymous”.
The key issue here is not actually misogyny – although it is clearly prevalent, on the increase with particularly violent and criminal intent, one writer having both her home address and a threat to rape her published in a single comment – but anonymity. Where we celebrate the trusted, known voice of the columnist or member of The Commentariat, we encourage the mentality of the so-called ‘electronic mob’ by celebrating its lack of known identity. After a decade in which the public has come to enjoy its own power and to use it – the era of UGC or User Generated Content - surely it is time to stand up and be counted with the same authority as those it feels free to spew invective over? Right now this protection seems as outdated as Parliamentary expenses not requiring signatures or telephone hacking: we will look back and think how was it ever allowed to happen?
The hundreds of thousands of words a day written by paid commentators has been hard-won and designated, paid-for editing and sub-editing time is devoted to it. What has not happened in a decade in which the public’s voice has been used to add riposte to comment is the emergence of much new prized comment voice. Why not? Because of its quality as well as brevity. Isn’t it time the media groups set out to read and select lengthy reply pieces or unsolicited comment to aim to publish them and encourage new talent? I would happily add a category to the Editorial Intelligence UK Comment Awards I first set up three years ago if I felt an emerging talent with serious opinion, pithily put, was likely in this medium. But I’m not holding my breath right now.
The kind of interactivity of comment reply is highly prized by media executives and advertisers: generating the ‘eyeballs’ is what everyone needs to do in order to underwrite the cost of any kind of journalism continuing, and the most comments are left, the more there is evidence of such attention. But the tone reflects the ultimate powerlessness of those writing it: they know they are being indulged rather than really heard, so they use what voice they can in a tone which is is often scornful, spiteful, vengeful.
We don’t need the fatuous or the gratuitous. If people are transparently themselves online – as they are when their faces and physical voices are used in broadcast – we might see an interesting rise in the level of interaction. The BBC’s Question Time and Any Questions are examples. I heard a joint BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio 3 live discussion recorded at the Sage Centre in Gateshead, Newscastle, about the importance of the News in media. The members of the public only gave their first names but they fully owned their comments – as people have done for years on the Letters Pages of national print papers.
The internet age which has ushered in massively important social freedoms and changes to society which we all applaud has also brought in intrusions in privacy and an indulgence of anonymity which don’t need perpetuating. It is still young enough to change and adapt. I’m surprise that advertisers have not seen the same potential amongst online comment that they have in broadcast: Talk Talk recoup more than what they spend on sponsoring the X Factor in customer loyalty and interaction: hundreds of thousands of people apply to be part of their ‘ident’ ads during the breaks. When are we going to see brand-sponsored Comment, encouraging people to own their views and remarks with dignity and apolomb, like the masthead, website-owning names they read in the first place?
By all means let’s have more members of the public contributing well argued, passionate, fact-based, opinion-rich comment which adds seriously to the debate. But let’s not pretend that masked, anonymous bile masquerading as free speech is helpful, right, or particularly readable
It is funny how cultural norms of all kinds which are perfectly tolerated in society can suddenly fall away. Perhaps in years to come we will add ‘trolling’ or ‘comment abuse’ to this list.
Comments (15)
Subscribe to this posts's comments feed
Julia Hobsbawm is chief executive of "Editorial Intelligence"
If irony were made of strawberries, Julia Hobsbawm would be drinking a really big smoothy right now!
07/11/2011 00:38"By all means let’s have more members of the public contributing well argued, passionate, fact-based, opinion-rich comment which adds seriously to the debate"
You really don't know how patronising you sound, or you wouldn't have written this article.
Here is a good article with a well balanced view on the same subject:
http://www.iaindale.com/posts/female-bloggers-cry-rape
Ps - Your friend Laurie Penny, who is so disgusted with the offence of people commenting on her blog, finds it quite acceptable to throw a party to celebrate when Margaret Thatcher dies:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/10/margaret-thatcher-healthier#reader-comments
07/11/2011 00:47Cannot understand how anyone can object to the basic premise here. If one has a genuine heartfelt opinion on a subject, be it of a thoughtful, neutral or abusive nature, then by all means post it. However know that in posting you must shed the protection of anonymity and identify yourself. If you are so ashamed of your opinion that you prefer to throw dog mess with a paper bag over your head then perhaps you should think again as to whether your opinion is either worth hearing or adds to the debate.
The alternative is easy to access, go lock yourself in a cubicle in any public loo and rant away to your hearts content without shouting out your name. It may give you the same warm feeling as anonymous comment and you may find some new friends.
I am of course skating over the obvious difficulty, that of ensuring that comments posted with full disclosure are not themselves dishonest representations of identity .Someone who has more intelligence than me can work on the detail.
07/11/2011 05:56"Now another class of media victim is appearing, one which is denied sympathy because they are powerful and well paid: The commentators. Yet they are frequently open to a form of “comment abuse” as David Aaronovich of The Times puts it, when the public who are encouraged to leave comments at the end of their authored articles often do so with a level of viciousness which is often breathtaking. "
Tough. They get well paid.. If they don't like the comments, don't write...
07/11/2011 08:16It's a sledgehammer:nut problem - bad manners are solved by removing anonymity. Some people may cease to post once they are no longer anonymous, but not all of them. Some people are rude. Even if people are not anonymous, why would they necessarily feel ashamed by what they post - a quick google search brought up the result from 192.com of over 200 John Scotts in the UK. How do you know which of those I am (and that assumes John Scott is my real name!). Until that identity problem can be fixed, removing anonymity doesn't help. I suppose we could give everyone a number instead of a name.
There's also a related issue, which is the benefit of anonymity. My employment contract makes it clear that I am not allowed to engage in activity which would bring my employer into "disrepute" (with no definition of what that means, or who will define it). The same applies to many other people. If I post something related to my employer under my real name, I could have to deal with disciplinary consequences. I could probably argue my way out of them, but then I have to put in lots of effort. Expand that to many other people and public discourse becomes much less diverse - in fact if can preclude specialists from commenting on their specialism!
07/11/2011 09:42This isn't really a major issue as bloggers are perfectly free to restrict anonymous comments on their platforms. Also, posters can be traced through ISP addresses and prosecuted if they have committed an offence, especially if a single individual is persistently offensive and threatening. The Johann Hari/ David Rose character seems to fall within this category so it isn't just nasty misogynist males, and homophobic comments are also quite commonplace.
The main motivation for raising this issue seems to be attention-seeking on the part of some fairly minor and little-noticed commentators, seeking to raise their profile. A flip side to this argument is that public commentators find other ways of dealing with such abuse ... either by gracefully ignoring it, or revelling in it. As mentioned above, it is down to the commentator how to deal with it, and this can include restriction and moderation of comments, and also involving the police for the "I know where you live" type of stuff.
07/11/2011 10:14Three things:
(1) What you do on your own site and the rules you place regarding anonimity are a matter for you. There is no need for legislation as it is already within your power to control.
(2) What about the protection of the posters? For example, more and more we are seeing employers check their potential staff's political views, etc. Anonimity allows for people to be honest (however obsence, offensive or even left wing) without consequence.
(3) How on earth would you know that "Paul Smith from Luton" is actually Paul Smith from Luton? OH, I SEE, bring on the licensing and control...
Sticks and stones...
07/11/2011 10:16I don't think it's very helpful to suggest that all trolls are men or that the only targets for unpleasant comments are women.
07/11/2011 10:18Julia,
I think you may have confused "trolling" - rendering a deliberately provocative or controversial opinion in the hope that somebody rises to the bait - with "flaming". The latter is when someone, often anonymously, takes violent exception to what you say and posts an abusive reply that goes well beyond saying "I think you're wrong on that one."
If I were to go on say LabourList and in a posting about the oppressed public sector (a common theme there), deliberately advance the view that public sector unions must stop trying to savage the private sector taxpayer hand that feeds them, then that would be "trolling." That is, posting a contrary opinion in the hope that someone bites on the bait; to whit contriving an online argument to get up a particular audience's nose.
Another example of trolling would be to visit an extreme Islamic forum and advance the view that if you take an exception to the wearing of the poppy for Armistice Day, then you might like to consider leaving the country.
Quite often you'll find that "trolling" provokes a "flaming." Sometimes just posting a different opinion to that of the resident visiting pack can induce a "flaming." You should have a look at Mumsnet.
Just thought I'd put you straight there if that's OK.
Anonymous or just general online "flaming" is pretty unsavoury but it is gender-neutral. But this is how certain people react when the natural behavioural curbs of face-to-face etiquette are removed. As to Laurie Penny, well she's just using her gender to smokescreen the fact that she posts preposterous, juvenile, socialist rubbish ... perhaps she is actually a deep undercover troll from CCHQ. Now there's a thought.
07/11/2011 10:31Hi Julia
I am glad you posted something on this. Because the notion of 'getting rid of' anonymous commenters has been flying around with no substantial argument or proposals up till now.
I have one or two observations about how you portray commenters:
1) you seem to suggest they on the whole are not very bright or at least don't leave very intelligent comments. Well I often find comments sections much more intelligent and well-argued than the articles under which they appear, especially on Guardian cif. And the fact the editors often commission commenters to write articles is testament to this.
2) You seem to go along with Laurie Penny's idea that most abusive commenters are men. I don't agree. Only this weekend on twitter, for example, Julie Bindel was complaining about the misogynous abuse she had been receiving from... Laurie Penny! Nearly all the abuse online I have received has been from feminists and their allies, and gay men.
Apart from that my main problem with your argument is that it doesn't seem to understand how the internet works. The Guardian for example set up cif because it knew the only way to have a healthy business plan was to include the use of an online forum. As you say this is partly or a lot to do with 'hits' on the site. But some of those hits are made because people want to discuss below the line. And people discuss anonymously all over the internet, the newspapers are just adopting that model.
If cif cancelled anonymous or pseudonymous comments I would just continue the excellent and intelligent debates I have with people , anonymous and otherwise on my blogs. It really would be no skin off my nose. So it is the publications who need the commenters.
Really your suggestion is to newspaper editors and online moderators on those sites. Good luck with convincing them of your view!
Yours
07/11/2011 11:21Quiet Riot Girl
Elly
The solution is to go to your editor and ask them to turn off comments underneath your pieces. If they won't do that for fear of losing ad revenue, your argument is with them.
Yes the internet is full of mentals but what is a practical way of stopping people signing up to comment sites anonymously without putting off the majority of decent commenters?
07/11/2011 11:30If someone has been abusive to Julia then I regret that, not least because insults and bad language are a certain way to lose an argument. As a man, I slightly resent the assumption that flamers are men, however.
My first advice to columnists who are shocked by comments is that they should get used to it. This country is not what PC middle-class journalists think it should be, and the internet has allowed everyone to have their say, including the foul-mouthed, the racist, and others who have never previous found expression in the media.
My second advice is that if you can't stand the heat, etc. Setting up a system that only allows twee people to give their twee opinions would be both expensive and complex, and any such system would be easily defeated. IRL (In Real Life for internet novices) people obtain bank accounts, credit cards, and welfare benefits using fake ID's, and people will sure as hell find ways to post anonymous comments.
And don't get me started on Laurie Penny, my top candidate for the Johann Hari Journalistic Integrity award. Of course being deliberately offensive is unpleasant, and more seriously it is counter-productive. But Ms Penny is absolutely the true definition of a troll, someone who trails opinions solely for the reaction they attract. As you sow, so shall you reap.
Closing with old-worldly courtesy,
Peter. (Honestly)
xxx
07/11/2011 11:35Great points Peter, I agree!
QRG
07/11/2011 12:18@nicolodean
"Cannot understand how anyone can object to the basic premise here. If one has a genuine heartfelt opinion on a subject, be it of a thoughtful, neutral or abusive nature, then by all means post it. However know that in posting you must shed the protection of anonymity and identify yourself."
I for one think there is a unique value in knowing what people really think. Not what they think when they are concerned people know who they are, but what they really think, when they know nobody can trace it back to them.
If you are scared to know what people really think, then don't read it or go to censored blogs, such as the Guardian etc. It is your choice, but you need access to understand that you would be cutting off a valuable freedom of expression.
I for one would rather see with unclouded eyes, no matter what they see.
07/11/2011 13:01@shaft120 @nicolodean
also I think people are missing the point about how online identities are often 'traceable' at least to other places online.
My 'quiet riot girl' identity has a blog where people can and do leave critical comments, and a twitter account where people challenge my views. I use the same id everywhere online. I am 'accountable' within that realm.
My 'quiet riot girl' identity was real enough for someone to steal it on twitter, when I briefly changed my handle there.
07/11/2011 13:15