If there’s one thing we hate doing around here, it’s removing reader comments from our Web site. We feel very strongly that our readers’ voices should be heard, regardless of how objectionable any one of us might find a particular viewpoint. But there are occasions when the right thing to do is pull the plug.
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Such an occasion arose last Wednesday morning, when we were compelled to remove a comment that had been posted by a reader in a discussion prompted by one of my recent blog postings on the H-1B visa issue. Anyone who has read any of the comments from readers responding to our H-1B coverage knows how controversial the topic is. It’s also fairly obvious that we don’t censor comments that are directed at any one of us here at Computerworld. Journalists tend to have thick skins, so even malicious comments in that category, as long as they don’t also direct hatred toward a particular group, are willingly condoned.
But it’s different when the malice is directed at other readers. And when the forum degrades into a vehicle for hate speech, we make no apologies for deleting any offending post. That’s what happened Wednesday, when we removed a derogatory, demeaning comment directed at a reader presumed by the poster to be from India.
The blog post that spawned that discussion was one in which I provided the full text of a newsletter written by Norm Matloff, a university professor and well-known critic of the H-1B program. Matloff had devoted the entire newsletter to rebutting last week’s Editor’s Note, in which I contended that the blame being directed at foreign workers and those who hire them is misplaced.
As I wrote in that blog posting, my goal has simply been to advance the H-1B discussion, and no one has advanced it more admirably than Matloff. That he contested the views I expressed is beside the point. It makes absolutely no difference to me — nor should it — whether a contributor to the discussion agrees with me. The value of the contribution lies in furthering informed discourse on the issue. That the discourse is so frequently tarnished by mean-spirited attacks — and, occasionally, by hate speech — is a shame. Imagine how much more constructive the H-1B debate would be if it were conducted in a manner in which opposing viewpoints were appreciated and respected.
It’s not as hard to imagine as you might think. Coincidentally enough, it was also on Wednesday morning that I received an e-mail from an IT manager in Connecticut who wrote that he had to “admit it took every ounce of self control not to send harsh feedback or post a comment that was full of bile.” Instead, he went on to write a reasoned, engaging response in which he explained why he felt that the H-1B program should be discontinued. As I told him in my reply, I couldn’t have asked for input that was more exemplary in promoting thoughtful discourse.
Nor is it difficult to imagine ways in which such discourse can be advanced. A couple of weeks ago, I spoke with some people from New York who are working with enterprise systems management software vendor CA to enrich the education of students in the city’s school system. CA has focused its philanthropy on education, and it’s participating in a number of outreach programs, including one in which students in East Harlem are corresponding with students at a school in Hyderabad, India, that CA established with the Hope Foundation.
“Now they can talk to each other about what their lives are like, hopefully just expanding their horizons and giving them new ways to explore and learn,” said Anne Marie Agnelli, CA’s vice president of North American communications and community affairs.
Yeah, they can. And it’s gratifying to imagine how far their exploration will take them from what tarnishes our discourse today.
Don Tennant is Computerworld’s senior editor-at-large. You can contact him at don_tennantcomputerworld.com, and visit his blog.
