No forum has a legal obligation to support comments; however, providing such a venue for free and intelligent discussion has long been a contribution to civil discourse. Although newspapers today generally require and check the identity of correspondents, anonymity and pseudonymity have been accepted at times. For example, letters to the editors of the London Journal and the British Journal by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, writing under the pseudonym “Cato” 1720 through 1723 played a role in the development of a liberal ideology that later became a foundation for the American Revolution.
The times they are a’changin’. [By the way, the obscene comments on the YouTube page for this cut illustrate the very problem about which I’ve been writing in recent columns. Sensitive souls be warned….]
Richard Perez-Pena of The New York Times, in an April 11, 2010 article entitled “News Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments,” writes, “When news sites, after years of hanging back, embraced the idea of allowing readers to post comments, the near-universal assumption was that anyone could weigh in and remain anonymous. But now, that idea is under attack from several directions, and journalists, more than ever, are questioning whether anonymity should be a given on news sites.”
Perez-Pena points out that nasty, crude comments can annoy readers, reduce the likelihood of thoughtful postings, and drive advertisers away. The journalist reports on moves by The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and the Plain Dealer of Cleveland in particular to limit abuse on their comment boards.
The Huffington Post notice on posting comments about its stories includes a ban on anonymous postings: everyone has “to use their AOL or AIM screen names to submit a comment”.
Perez-Pena’s article provides a useful review of different methods being considered or used to limit abuse. In summary, the approaches include the following:
• Require some form of reliable identification such as login IDs; these may not be real names, but they are at least likely to be relatively stable (unless the comment spammers just generate new throw-away IDs);claques);
• Rate contributors by the consensus of readers’ evaluations (but watch out for
• Let viewers see only a subset of comments such as those of paying subscribers;
• Moderate in advance: review every comment before allowing it to be viewed by the public;
• Moderate after the fact: remove objectionable postings either in routine review by a staff member or by letting readers flag the drivel;
• Shut down commenting altogether (“Some sites and prominent bloggers … simply do not allow comments.”)
For more about anonymity, you can read a white paper called “Anonymity and Pseudonymity in Cyberspace” that I wrote for a conference in 1998 and that ended up with updates in the Computer Security Handbook, Fifth Edition.
In the next column, I’ll look at the specific issue of free speech in college newspapers.
