Huffington: Trolls Uglier Than Ever, So We're Cutting Off Anonymous Commenting 582
v3rgEz writes "The days of anonymous commenting on The Huffington Post are numbered. Founder Arianna Huffington said in a question-and-answer session with reporters in Boston Wednesday that the online news site plans to require users to comment on stories under their real names, beginning next month. 'Freedom of expression is given to people who stand up for what they’re saying and not hiding behind anonymity,' Huffington said."
Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment on stories under their *facebook accounts.... Nice try, they are simply using this as an excuse to expand their advertising market.
Anonymous Cowards (Score:3, Insightful)
This would, of course, be news to Publius (Patrick Henry).
Real names? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Those cowardly founding fathers!
>The authors used the pseudonym "Publius", in honor of Roman consul Publius Valerius Publicola.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers
Pseudonymity in the age of data aggregation (Score:5, Insightful)
You are nuts if you post anything, anywhere under real name. Internet has no "right to forget".
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Identify yourself...
and get shot... http://mashable.com/2011/11/10/mexico-blogger/ [mashable.com]
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone wants to express an opposing view point on Huffington and be called a racist, or be labeled as such. Lets be honest here, Huffington super users are the first to pull the racist card the moment their arguments get refuted. (with maybe the exception of MSNBC comment sections)
I have long wondered... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have wondered over the last few years why more big-name general news sites around the world don't just shut down their comment systems. The comments attached to virtually any major TV news network site or newspaper site tend to be filled with content that does little if anything to actually further any sort of discussion or dissemination of knowledge about the topic at hand.
I have noticed recently some of the sites I follow daily have started to only selectively permit commenting on stories. Stories which are likely to bring out the trolls and bigots seem to have commenting disabled more and more. However, I'm not sure why these news sites don't just bite the bullet and dismantle the comments attached to stories. Nobody seems to ever benefit from them.
(Obviously, something like /. which is centred around discussion and commenting is a somewhat different beast. I am specifically talking about general news outlets like CBC News [cbc.ca], The Toronto Star [thestar.com], or CNN.com [cnn.com], and others like them. /. naturally also has the benefit of community-driven moderation to limit trolling, flamebait, and spam).
Yaz
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't post under your real name, so we should ignore your comment too. Posting anonymously is not a sign of fear, nor of ill-considered comments, but merely that you are keeping that part of the internet separate from your real life.
*Note: This is a real name policy discussed, not a must have a community identity policy.
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:5, Insightful)
There are occasionally exceptions where people *need* to remain anonymous for fear of lawsuits or termination from their jobs
This is not nearly so rare as you imagine.
Their admins are the worst trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
I had my account deleted years ago when they went from a news site to an agenda site. I've very liberal mind you, and even I had comments deleted that didn't match the party line (including reminding everyone under a feel-good article that Gavin Newsome had cheated with an employee's wife and wasn't some kind of saint). I just couldn't tolerate the naked agenda-driven slant and how even other liberal opinions weren't accepted. I've had admins jump into threads and argue with me and threaten deletions. I've been online since 1991 and that's the only time I've had an account wiped, so I'm no troll. I haven't tried commenting out there in years, so I don't know what there forums are like now.
Testing the thin ice here... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Anonymous isn't the same thing as pseudonymous. I have a lot more invested in "seebs" than I do in the name on my driver's license.
Even ignoring that, though... Your point is still ill-considered. The "lawsuits" and "termination" are just where it starts; the world is full of people who are going to be threatened with all sorts of things if they identify themselves. And, of course, you can provide for that, but if the way you provide for it involves people having to prove to someone else that their reason is good enough, that can also effectively "out" them.
So far, if I compare all the things I've ever read from people who insist that anyone not identified by a "real name" isn't serious or real, and all the things I've ever read under arbitrary pseudonyms, the latter have been a much, much, more valuable resource.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Insightful)
Judge the message by its own merit, rather than person/pseudo-name that is saying it.
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:5, Insightful)
That is silly. One of the great features of the internet is that you can debate freely and anonymously. I don't want everything I say or have ever said turned into a googlable permanent record. I sometimes change my mind. I sometimes say stupid things. I sometimes make "too soon?" jokes. I don't want permanent records of every utterance. Online forums are places for informal discussions. If I tell you a dirty joke after work, it doesn't get indexed for the next 20 years. I'm not writing a law school dissertation on how I feel about the 2nd amendment with every post. And, I don't want my silly or crude Kristen Stewart jokes showing up when an employer looks me up. This is probably nothing more than analytics and adding another notch in your marketing profile. It's simple to do what Slashdot does and allow the community to self-police. Mod the trolls out of existence and there's no problem.
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:4, Insightful)
If you aren't afraid to be known for your comments, then you haven't been on the internet long enough, IMHO. Are you old enough to remember what happens on harmless-seeming newsgroups? A simpe discussion of gardening tips can suddenly erupt into threats of cross-country trips to perform physical violence. Lessons learned as a 3rd-hand bystander: always post anonymously (or at least pseudonymously). Always.
Cyber-bullying, cyberstalkers, and internet vigilantes are much worse for society than trolls. Trolls can be modded into oblivion, and most trolls don't have access to multiple IP addresses, so they're very easy to squelch.
Slashdot's sensible AC policy is the main reason I still visit here after 13 years.
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If you are afraid to be known for your comments (Score:2, Insightful)
"The Founding Fathers couldn't envision assault rifles!" the man said, before raising his hand and shouting, "Larboard, from for'd aft, as she bears!"
The man's ship spit twelve pound balls with a shocking force and regularity, completely leveling an entire town within the half hour.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I think this is a stupid policy, I have a very simple answer.
There is an even simpler solution: a moderation system. It seems to work pretty well for Slashdot. Moderation also works well for sites like Stackoverflow. I have never understood why news sites don't implement something similar. That way the good 1% of anonymous speech is available, and the 99% that is garbage is not seen by most readers (but is still there if anyone wants to read at -1).
Re: Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone should have told snowden and manning that.
Oh wait, they did. Sometimes something needs to be said but saying it could be worse for you than what needs pointed out. Some times an anonymouse post saying does so and so look pregnant is better then a husband saying why are you getting fat.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
How does signing a post with a real name have anything in the slightest to do with standing behind what you say? From a purely logical perspective it adds nothing of value expect maybe an improved ability to make ad hominem attacks. And even if we ignore the extreme difficulty of verifying the supposed real name, real names don't even attempt to be unique. I most certainly do not stand behind things written by people who share my name and yet you have no way of distinguishing me from the author.
In short, a real name adds nothing but confusion. Now, maybe if you attach a publicly visible address to the name the you could improve upon a simple email address in terms of identification. However, chances are that the only additional standing up you'll be doing in that case is in response to getting swatted [wikipedia.org] by some clown.
Personally, I'm plenty happy to "fucking stand behind" my comments in the forum where I make them. I feel no need to sign my posts "come at me (or someone with a similar name) bro".
~ Artraze on Slashdot
Re:Awesome (Score:0, Insightful)
Yes, i am aware of the irony... but nevertheless I have always been in favor of this.
Then you must not really understand the problem. In order to have discussions on controversial subjects, some degree of anonymity must be maintained.
Let's say for argument that your dream comes true and anonymous posting comes to an end. Discussions on many controversial subjects would also abruptly come to an end, out of fear. Post a public message that you favour the decriminalization of marijuana and it would not take long before the drug-sniffing dogs started showing up at your doorstep. Imagine the possible social stigmata if you were to publicly admit that your hard-core catholic parents went to Vegas for a "quicky" divorce. In 25% of the world saying anything against Islam is a death sentence, remember the Satanic Verses? As far as I know Salman Rushdie is still alive, but I also believe he still is in hiding and hunted by Hezbollah.
Besides, your average troll is so obvious and clueless that they often make for humorous reads. You have to be able to take the good with the bad.
Re: If you are afraid to be known for your commen (Score:3, Insightful)
When "i don't agree with obamacare" is equal to being a racist, your comment is a joke. Seriously, not agreeing with the president is considered racist now. Its a WTF moment all the way around.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
The downside of moderation systems is seeing highly-rated horrible posts. On a messy free-for-all forum like 4chan, you expect horrible shit. It's far more jarring to see hateful ignorant trolling get +5 insightful. Every time, I reevaluate ever visiting Slashdot again. Moderation reveals the biases of your cohort.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-anonymous people just say stuff like this so they have an actual target to defame while they cry their crocodile tears of 'victimhood'. It doesn't matter who said what. It matters what was said. In free societies, a culture should be expected to separate the message from the presentation. The truth stands on its own.
They can do what they like with their site of course, but they're kidding themselves if they think this will bring better discourse. When it comes to controversial subjects, the term 'troll' is hurled as an ad hominem all too often, and this 'logic' is used by moderators as justifications to delete posts/ban users.
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with moderation systems is that they tend to support the populist view, which is not always the correct one. The premise is that posts will be moderated up for correctness and down for incorrectness, but this is not what happens, as the posts ending up at the top usually represent the prevailing ideological belief of the majority of users. Even meta moderation doesn't help much as these popular posts are then moderated back down using the same fallacies, resulting in a different position on the same false dichotomy.
For sites that want to foster honest discussion, I say strip away the moderation and 'reputation' systems, and leave it anonymous. If someone's position is the truth, there is nothing for him to worry about. The only reason someone might want to censor the truth is because a part of it clashes with his ideological/political/emotional position. This should be discouraged.
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
The downside of moderation systems is seeing highly-rated horrible posts. On a messy free-for-all forum like 4chan, you expect horrible shit. It's far more jarring to see hateful ignorant trolling get +5 insightful. Every time, I reevaluate ever visiting Slashdot again.
Not sure why that is so shocking; hateful or not, it is apparently a widely held view in that case. Go to Bill O'Reilly's Facebook page and read through the comments, that gets pretty hateful, and is then Liked. It's also presumably not anonymous.
But you're right, if you only like free speech when it's something you agree with (or aren't offended by) then don't visit such a forum.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason for anonymous voting, you know.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Moderation systems with anonymous comments allow everyone to say what they want. If the community downmod it, so be it. The posts are still posted, people can still read them.
Requiring people to register limits discourse.
Re: If you are afraid to be known for your commen (Score:4, Insightful)
When "i don't agree with obamacare" is equal to being a racist, your comment is a joke. Seriously, not agreeing with the president is considered racist now. Its a WTF moment all the way around.
Actually it's not, but you want to make this connection to silence those who would call out the inaccuracies or fallacies of your view.
What you are doing is "poisoning the well" by trying to attack the legitimacy of those who would argue against your views before they do so.
A lot of people poison the well when they want to say something they know is obviously wrong. Odd that you would mention racism as poisoning the well is one of their favourite tactics to avoid being called out on obvious racism I.E. "It's not racist to say bad things about black people if its true. Disagreeing with this is just Political Correctness gone mad... But all them niggers are layabouts, drunks and criminals". In this example the racist attempts to vilify the critics before using an obviously racist statement to prevent being called out on obvious racism.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty comfortable with the mod system slashdot uses, and yes, I browse at -1 and put up with some real garbage to see such things as anon coward posts that are still being unfairly downrated (when you start at 0, it doesn't take much to move you to the very bottom under this system).
The only thing I could see along the lines you describe is if there were some people given special points to take the straightforward total trash to negative 2 (and yes, people could choose to browse at -2 to see even those). I'm visualizing some sort of mod that was only to be used when its some specific repeating annoyance, such as the bit about Golden Girls/Cosmonaut, GNAA, the public restroom story or goatse/tubgirl or similar.
I don't want people, however well intentioned, to be able to move something that's a one time, non-repeating bad post or troll or maybe just somebody who's an honest jerk arbitrarily low, but when its something the community has had time to consider and it just keeps repeating, having it vanish into the wilderness below -1 might be the best thing. I probably fit the people you describe - karma at top, sometimes use all my mod points, often don't - but I really don't want the power to push just any fool post to negative infinity or whatever, for fear even people with excellent karma, a history of promoting rather than demoting, and all those other good things will push something sarcastic, or sardonic, or just not easily parsed, into that same limbo.
Give me that power, and I might clean up more junk, but then somebody would post something I'd take literally, and miss a common cultural reference and I'd end up condemning a perfectly cromulent post. (I'm in my mid 50's dammit, do you want to give me some kind of authority when I probably don't even know any of your favorite bands, watch any of the hot shows (TV's a vast wasteland again now that Fringe is over), and barely tolerate Superhero films or any Bond since Connery? (And get off my lawn, dammit!)
Some pints on anonymity, reputation and moderation (Score:4, Insightful)
1) People who Have So Much Money That Nothing Can Hurt Them like Huffington should consider what happens to people in the REAL world if they voice opinions unpopular with their co-workers, employers, neighbors or government. Where my wife works it's THIS far from a liberal/conservative political food fight on some days and if her REAL opinions ever became known, she'd be out of her job at the machinations of her co-workers, without a doubt.
So I guess Rich Bitch Huffy is telling my wife that she's not welcome to post at Huffpo. Atta' way to shut people up once and for all on just those topics- controversial ones- in which the polity presumably needs access to the widest opinions possible.
Oh and by the way, my wife NEEDS her job and isn't going to find another one like it somewhere else. Enough said.
Not to mention that if people ever were known for publicly supporting activities which were illegal - like smoking dope or same sex marriage - then they wouldn't come out in support of such things since even supporting them, back int he day, was basically a job/neighbor/family death sentence. So on THOSE topics there would be even less discussion, even fewer people relating real experiences. What we would have left to read would be the jingoistic tropes of the day and the crassest forms of majoritarianism
This "if you believe in what you're saying, then you'll sign your name to it" bullshit are just manipulative ploys used by elites to try to shame people whose speech they don't like,
I think that we can now also add to that traditional motivation another one- the motivation to increase your profit from your website. By being able to assure buyers of your sites' REAL product, the sentiment analysis, consumer analytics and personality dossiers you sell- that you know the real, actual names attached to those products, you can command a higher price than aggregated, mass statistics and genericized profiles can command.
Let's face it. Employers really want to know who's going to work 80 hours a wek for peanuts, never complain, keep their mouths shut about law breaking they see and never ask for a raise. They want to know who the bitches are and who the OTHER ones are who think they deserve, you know, a life, a raise, some vacation, some decent treatment If Huffpo can deliver those first names to them and also deliver to them the names of the people who must be kept unemployed, then Huffpo has finally found a business model other than selling itself to yet richer owners and cashing out the current ones.
As far as moderation goes, Slashdot has it just right. Give random, people limited ability to mod posts. Let people post AC if they see fit. Don't let people disappear other people's thoughts under any circumstances. Don't reward higher usage with special and increasing god powers - this is the mistake StackExchange made- because it attracts losers with power issues like flies to shit and basically you've got a Survivor-style dynamic on your hands where alliances form and favors are passed around and it all gets very personal and petty very fast.
One thing that always good is if you can elect to never see posts form someone again. Trolls go on talking , but only to themselves. Salon had this and it was great. The user experience improved because you didn't have to deal with the trolls who spent all their time there picking fights and being obnoxious. You never saw their posts. Nice. Then Salon went "must log in , no anonymous speech " and I left and never wen back.
Anonymous speech is completely foundational to truth telling , to speaking truth to power, to organizing and to broad societal change. Elites have always called it the mark of cowardice. If you ever find yourself holding that opinion, pat yourself on the back because while you may be a piece of shit, you've nevertheless made it in America.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of Americans who have a clue about such things is vanishingly small, and they are vastly outnumbered by those who don't *want* Americans to know such things.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but real names will allow the mob to chase and shame you on facebook and linkedin, potentially ruining you for saying things that the mob doesn't like. I get voted down often on NPR for making the case that Affirmative Action hurts Asian American students, and have been banned from a section of that site recently for trying to point out the flawed narrative underlying the Zimmerman coverage.
It's so very easy for people to shout racist (for the left) or socialist (right) or whatever stupid label, and just try to silence you with shame. I firmly believe that an honorable person would agree that it is better to let a thousand guilty men go free than to condemn an innocent, but it seems these sites that demand real names would rather sacrifice as many innocents as needed in order to eliminate the guilty.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it works fairly well. I frequently come across posts which are obviously unpopular with the majority of slashdot users (for example, advocating government surveillance). The fact that I can still read it, and/or that it is part of a chain of back-and-forth arguments which are not censored/deleted speaks well of the system.
It might just be personal bias; if you are predisposed towards thinking that unpopular posts will be censored, invariably your mind will fixate on picking up examples of that sort, ignoring the other occasions when censorship did not take place.
Re:Some pints on anonymity, reputation and moderat (Score:4, Insightful)
This "if you believe in what you're saying, then you'll sign your name to it" bullshit are just manipulative ploys used by elites to try to shame people whose speech they don't like,
There's also the question how common your name is. There are two people with my real name in Germany, eleven with my last name in all of Britain and none with the same first name. My wife's name is most likely unique in the world. Much easier for Joe Smith to post under his real name than me.
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that your real name? Does it even matter when considering your point?
Cutting off anonymity... (Score:4, Insightful)
..means that those who will be punished for what they say will be quiet. (Or punished.)
If you think this is a good thing you have a very limited knowledge of history.
The majority is almost always hostile to the truth.