The Boston Globe is reporting that next month, the Huffington Post is going to require everyone who leaves comments to do so under their real names (see link). Trolls uglier than ever, so we’re cutting off anonymous comments.
I would like to suggest that BMG follow the example of the Huffington Post and similarly require real names. While I enjoy the diligence of some, including myself, to get the DFTT – Don’t Feed The Troll in place as soon as humanly possible, I personally feel that some of the absolute worst and offensive postings, like the completely idiotic “Culling the Seals” post would seriously diminish if people had to assign their actual names to this stuff.
The money quote IMHO is:
“Freedom of expression is given to people who stand up for what they’re saying and not hiding behind anonymity,” she said.
In the days of Snowden and Manning, I don’t see the argument against anonymity. Not that it’s closely connected to this issue but this trend of punishing anyone who speaks out about the truth with their jobs doesn’t make me comfortable.
While some anonymous posters annoy me, other anonymous posters bring most of the value to this website. I can ignore the trolls, but I can’t read material by those who stop posting.
I say err on the side of reader choice and keep the anonymous option.
You used to be able to filter out people. They’d simply disappear from threads. Poof!
I want one condition though, everyone shows a license or state issued ID to Bob or David. I’m not relying on email names or the honor system. Start at Doyle’s Pub next week. We all use out legal name and city we live.
I loved the culling of the seals diary, unique, and a hot topic on the Cape. Mike, why did that disturb you, but you support abortions all the way, up to the 9th month. Now that is sick, dude.
For you information, abortion is illegal in the US with the third trimester, except where the law provides for exceptions for the mother’s life and health, so don’t give me this crap about up to the 9th month. And you should hardly be positioning yourself as anti-choice with Your garbage about the death penalty.
Yet another failed shiny object diversion attempt, Liar. Being for the death penalty is not the so-called “pro-life” position, numb-nuts.
Stupid preview button is gone.
And in the same breath, say Scott Peterson killed just one person, and a fetus, not a baby (although everyone knows Connor looked like a baby). I’d rather protect unborn babies like Connor Peterson, who aren’t even born with the original sin, than scum like Jared Remy or Scott Peterson from the ultimate justice.
Prisons don’t deter crime, should we get rid of all prisons?
Google Dr. Gosnell abortion babies, tell me what you see.
Pooh to you, with knobs on!
I don’t understand why you can’t let it go. Do you really, really think that there are readers out there who think that mike_cote, underscore and all, favors abortions, say, one week before delivery? Do you really think that you have to stand up and prove you’re not some sort of heartless wretch?
And of course, he loved the culling of seals diary. He’s a troll! It got your permanent attention. You can’t forget it. He has won your attention forever. You cannot do him a bigger favor. If he could write a diary that outraged you that much every day, he would.
I once told a friend that sometimes feeling superior and condescending can be a healthy improvement. Here too. It might be very helpful if you stopped feeling enraged and engaged by danfromwaltham. Start feeling superior to him. You are. It’s not difficult.
Then, it would cease to matter what the f. he says.
What part of “A woman has a right to her own medical choices” are you too Stupid to understand?(2+ / 0-) View voters
Right now, as this race for Senate takes place, all women have a legal right to their own medical choices. As to keeping an open mind, you do not demonstrate it at any level.
mike_cote @ Thu 28 Feb 4:29 PM
ever.
I this place starts emulating HuffPo, I’m gone. TI stopped reading that thing years ago.
in many ways. Most of the posts here appear on other websites first and are repackaged here. Even the troll posts are mostly repackaged Brietbart (sp?) or Koch Brother’s or Fox News/RNC repostings.
Some of the posts here are repackaged. Not “most”, not by a long shot.
Arianna’s “money quote” is dead wrong. In fact, First Amendment protections have long been extended to anonymous speech. Some of the most important political documents in American history – the Federalist Papers – were published anonymously (though obviously not with First Amendment protection, since they predate its adoption). Here’s a relatively recent Supreme Court case on the topic.
…of Porcupine’s Gazette for mentioning that. Lack of anonymity got me deported by John Adams.
I hope I do not have to begin posting as William Cobbett…
When discussing political issues, anonymity is important because of the lengths that people who disagree with you will go. Especially on more localized forums.
Let’s say that I put up a post that ticks people off. Maybe it’s anti-police. Maybe it’s a solid point and it turns the public on to something that the police are doing.
If I’m using my own name, and if I live in a small town, I’m likely screwed. If the entire police force knows that I’ve done something that upset their apple cart, I’m going to catch exactly zero breaks while driving. 36 in a 35 zone? Ticket. Yellow light? Ticket. The opportunity for harassment is substantial.
It could get worse. Let’s say that a particularly vile person wants to mess with me. Maybe they start calling my place of employment to mess with me. Maybe they report that I’ve treated them badly as a customer or something. If someone really wants to, they could damage most people economically fairly easily. Or worse – maybe they single out my kids, maybe they tell their kids to start rumors at school or something. It can happen.
So what does that do? It muzzles me. Yes, this muzzle also extends to so-called trolls. But it muzzles everyone, except perhaps those with little to lose.
A better solution would be a better moderation system, likely one that is backed by crowdsourcing, with the paid moderators making sure that the crowd doesn’t become a democratic mob of bullies. But requiring full disclosure on each post in a political debate? That’s a bit like printing the names of the Boston Tea Party in the papers.
Dear Mike and Dan:
Your rivalry is tamer and less interesting than Cubs-Cardinals and that’s saying something. Wrap it up before we fall asleep.
That’s what the evidence suggests, too.
The problem isn’t really anonymity so much as it’s the fact that 1) there really are people who are whacky or jerks out there and 2) we tend to be nicer in person because we’re actually seeing the person we’re speaking with and thus forced to deal with them as human beings and not a bunch of digits in a text box.
The solution isn’t forcing real names… it’s banning DFW.
We’ve staged this rodeo before.
Attempting to force “real names” creates far more problems than it solves, and it does NOT solve the trolling problem problem at all. Try the following search string in Google: ‘troll “robert abitbol” ‘.
The name “Robert Abitbol” was most likely a real name. Until it becomes illegal to troll (and we must hope that will never happen), then forcing the troll to use his or her real name will have little effect. It may even be counterproductive, because exchanges about his or her name (such as “is it real?”) will attract yet more of the attention the troll craves.
I am beginning to wonder if we are watching a sock-puppet battle with some of these exchanges between dfw and others.
Some of his comments are ok, he isn’t rabidly offensive like John Howard, but a lot if his posts are the same things over and over (as were/are EB3s). Best to ignore, but Mike Cote is making this problem worse not better. I only comment when he has ideas I agree with or find interesting (urban consolidation, the tax exemption thread). When it’s the same cookie cutter Reagan Dem ignorance over Keystone, trade, or jingoism over some perceived conservative victimization I ignore. The BS posts about Tebow and Trayvon were just put there to piss Cote and KBusch off and they were highly effective at that purpose. But I’d delete this thread and maybe ban Dan for a week. He is too arrogant to admit it, but EB3 has definitely
Cooled off so can DFW.
I wrote about an NFL player inciting violence on his twitter feed.
This fish ain’t takin the bait bro. You can believe whatever you want, it’s a great country that way.
Seriously stop engaging him. I respect your service to this country and real life policy work and like your other contributions here, but every time you try and beat him we all lose.
How do you prove that the name a commenter supplies is their real name? Demand a working email address? Proves nothing – Yahoo email addresses are free, and you can assign them any name not already taken. So what proves reality? Physical address? Phone number? SSAN? Do you require a waiver allowing the commenter’s ISP to identify them? I don’t think many people would jump through any of those hoops.
I don’t go to work to talk politics. I’ve worked with people for a couple of years before they teased out that I’m liberal and progressive. In this day when HR’s job is to Google search all potential candidates and we can Google our co-workers, I’d like to remain as Google-anonymous as possible. I don’t want to poison the well of a conservative manager’s evaluation of my job skills because of something I say online. I don’t want to be judged, pestered, harassed, by co-workers or management because of my positions on hot-button political and social issues.
You know, I’m at a station in my life where my employment is not autonomous. I’d like to think that if I’m the best candidate, then I will get the job; but if, all things being equal, I’m being interviewed by a Rush Limbaugh fan, and that person Google searches me and the other candidate finding that I am far left and the other candidate has a Facebook picture volunteering for a Republican candidate, it could be the tie breaker. Or I may not get my foot in the door because I support marriage equality, or because I am pro-choice, or because I don’t believe in god.
Even ethical people make conscious and subconscious judgements about people based on these things; I’d like to keep that separate and private from my daily work life and future employment searches.