The End of Anonymous Online Comments?

Two points: one, as Cueball should shortly be around to point out, posting under your real name is a privilege. Those marginalized by society, targeted by police (legally or not) or anybody who simply works in an environment where one's radical politics would be a liability, don't share that privilege.

Two: I don't think anyone posts "anonymously" on babble. Just because they don't use their real name, doesn't mean their handle doesn't confer some sort of identity whom we get to know as a community. This is not to say that babblers act the same way here as they do in real life, but there are other, social-based ways to keep people civil and connected to each other.

It's an interesting assertion by the MSM that using one's real name would a) "clean up" the discourse and b) that the hate-filled, angry rhetoric would stop if people used their real names. Neither assertion is proven, of course, nor do they have much supporting evidence.

Quote:

 I am certain we have all seen the sort of comment online that is the equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

I'm not sure I have, given that the danger of yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre is that someone may get trampled in the ensuing rush. Someone making a callous remark anonymously doesn't seem to me to have that same component of tangible harm, for the most part.

Personally, I've seen a great many online comments, anonymous and otherwise, and it really seems to me that when they're offensive, that's basically it -- they're offensive. Mean spirited, insulting, etc., but not much more than that. It also seems to me that when some media outlets disable comments (eg: the Globe) it has less to do with legalities or other formal reasons, and more to do with them knowing that people are going to be mean-spirited (eg: comments are likely to be disabled following a story about someone leaving their baby in the car while they go drinking... is there some privacy or confidentiality concern there?? Or do they just pretty much know that most commenters are going to be big meanies about it?)

Five years ago, in addition to posting at my own blog, I was a member of a group that posted at the now defunct Blogs Canada E-Group. For a short period of time, Norman Spector joined us. It wasn't long before I began to think of him in my own mind as Lord Spector. And it wasn't long after that when Lord Spector, in his infinite wisdom, announced that he thought it appropriate that continued membership in the group should be contingent on a willingness to "sign" all posts with our real names. The owner of the site nearly bought into it too, until I convinced him it was unwise and unnecessary. I published a post at my own house at the time in defence of pseudonymous blogging. I've just reread it and other than a couple of typos and insufficient snark in the title, I don't see a lot I would change: [url=http://www.pogge.ca/archives/000752.shtml]The people's medium[/url]. I'm out in some places. If you know where to look you can find out my real name. But I would still defend pseudonymous blogging, commenting or whatever.

Interesting discussion.

Quote:

For the most part, I previously thought about internet racism as being fueled by anonymity. Take a look at the comments sections of news sites. Even when there is a little blip that reads something like Blah blah blah we value freedom of speech and reasoned discourse blah blah blah no racist or sexist or any other kind of ist will be tolerated. And then directly following that is usually a bunch of -ist comments.

Sometimes it's because free speech is privileged above preventing racist harm. But sometimes it's because the racism isn't even recognized.

But then came the popularity of social media sites like myspace and Facebook and twitter. Which blows my "anonymity" theory right out of the water.

Resist racism has a great piece about internet racism, anonymity and non-anonymity.

I want to quote something that Jane Rule published in the Body Politic back in 1979:

Quote:

...No hate mail I've ever received has been signed. Apparently self-righteousness needs anonymity. But from those who had real reason to protect themselves, the letters have invariably been signed. They have been a support for me without which it would sometimes have been nearly impossible to go on writing.

Of course she was referring to a different form of communication, and one that was directed towards a single recipient - the dynamics were quite different from a general discussion conducted before a potentially unlimited audience - but her underlying point is, I think, still valid.

Quote:

my understanding is that owners of such sites can not be sued for the comments of their users.

That can depend. Years ago, when "online services" like AOL and such were still popular, one of them (Prodigy, I think) had a policy of censoring its discussion boards with regard to sexual words and discussions.

At one point a user filed a defamation suit, naming another user and Prodigy itself. Prodigy's lawyers tried to claim "common carrier" status, similar to the telephone example you gave. But the judge presiding said "wait a second... you censor your discussion forums, don't you? Well, if you can monitor them for certain words, you can also monitor them for libel".

So an online service that's a true common carrier should be free and clear, but an online service that moderates for (say) coarse language can be expected to moderate for illegal speech as well.

Catchfire wrote:

It's an interesting assertion by the MSM that using one's real name would a) "clean up" the discourse and b) that the hate-filled, angry rhetoric would stop if people used their real names. Neither assertion is proven, of course, nor do they have much supporting evidence.

I agree. There are them who want to make things like Facebook, which is a CIA-FBI-CSIS hangout and opportunity for companies to dig up dirt on their employees and then fire them. And it just makes for cleaner, more illuminating forums for defamation and smear jobs same as usual but with semi well-known people doing it instead of the rabble at large.

Anyone remember this thread?  Can you imagine that helpful thread ever having been posted in the first place if there was a requirement that people use their real names here?  Their employer would find it in the time it took to type welder's real name (or that of anyone else they see as a union "troublemaker") into a search engine

Great archivist work, Michelle! This is a very hard argument to convince people of, I find. The idea that anonymity=trolling is hardwired into people it seems.

You know, it occurs to me that there was a similar argument when North America brought in the secret ballot for elections -- how could you trust the vote if you didn't know who it came from?

I'm not sure that anonymity works or is desirable in all situations, but it's interesting to see how deeply invested we are in one idea or another without really looking at them critically.

Catchfire wrote:

I'm not sure that anonymity works or is desirable in all situations, but it's interesting to see how deeply invested we are in one idea or another without really looking at them critically.

It certainly does not work in all situations. I have run discussion boards for my union (at the local level). Reading and writing were both private, password protected. Local members only - first and last name mandatory to register, login, post. It works beautifully - the equivalent of a local union meeting, but because it was a big local and regionally based, in-person monthly meetings weren't enough to facilitate full discussions and debate. A previous board had allowed anonymous logins (where only the moderator was able to confirm local union membership). The discussion was wild and irresponsible and bickering and shouting. Kinda like babble. (Kidding, partly.) Suddenly it became respectful and serious.

That's obviously a very special case. Generalizations are impossible. But banning anonymity in situations where it's not a "private" board in the sense I've described is, I think, an attack on democracy. It would be like forcing people to print their names on leaflets they hand out or posters they stick up.

Not to mention that I've seen some pretty racist and abusive crap written under what look like real names under mainstream media articles.  A lot of mainstream media outlets make people login using their Facebook ID (don't even get me started on how crappy that is privacy-wise), and it's amazing, how stupid and abusive people can be, even using their real names.

I have the misfortune of looking in to discussions at the Montreal Gazette and the amount of hatred spewed about Indigenous people, and of course francophone Québécois people... They require Facebook registration. That angers me greatly, as there is no way I'm registering on Facebook. 

I'm a freelancer, and although a good many of my clients aka employers are progressive, I want a free hand to criticise, say, the trade union bureaucracy or large progressive associations, and I also work for corporate clients (there are of course contracts I would refuse out of principle). My life has become difficult enough due to the Harper cuts to any vaguely progressive NGO and to the arts without further material problems. 

I almost always use the same handle at forums; it is long-standing and people who know me know very well who I am. 

The wild anti-Native-people hatred brewing these days at the National Pest but even at the Globe and the Star (just to mention anglo media; in French obviously the worst are Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Péladeau rags) doesn't require anonymity. No, they are fuelled by groupthink, they are bullies who believe the crap they are saying against Indigenous peoples and are proud of hating them. 

I don't agree with Mallick's solution, but her piece is relevant to this issue (and others here).

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1314100--mallick...

What got me about the Mallick piece was her apparent shock that their is racism in Canada.

I had always thought that one of the joys of Canadian life was its abhorrence of racism. But judging by some of the email I received and the comments I read online elsewhere, it’s getting a bit Mississippian around here.

Possibly, Mallick is just naive, but I think it could also be that, for some people, the reality of racism is irrationallly highlighted when it suddenly appears on the internet. Basically, legitimate concern about racism is being conflated with lingering moral panic about the internet.

I saw the same problem with the Climenhaga piece that Michelle posted. He cites the "Taliban Jack" epithet as an example of why we might need to do away with on-line anonymity. Well, I'm sorry, but the Taliban Jack horse left the barn when Rick Mercer called Layton by that name on CBC, doubtless to the delight of Mercer's more right-wing fans. And I'm betting a lot of those fans were repeating it the next day in offices, donut shops, and on call-in radio shows. But a few right-wing keyboard-jockeys use it on the internet, and it suddenly demonstrates the neccessity for a whole new set of laws?   

[Just to clarify, in my second paragraph, after the quote, I'm not saying that concern about racism is irrational, just that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to start worrying about it only when it appears on-line.]

No kidding.  I find it hard to believe that she hasn't heard that kind of thing in real life.  There are lots and lots of people who are more than willing to say those kinds of racist things right out loud, more than publicly. 

As a white person who grew up in smaller white communities and towns and cities (we moved around a lot when I was a kid), the kind of racism and sexism you read in comment sections now were standard fare then.  And hell, they're standard fare NOW, too, and not just in smaller centres, but right here, in "enlightened" big cities too.  We grew up with incredibly racist schoolyard chants and jokes, people in many of our families and our friends' families regularly made bigoted and racist remarks, whether at family dinners, or car rides to this place or that when listening to the news or talk radio.  Talk radio is filled with racist commentary, by both the hosts and the callers, and they all use their real names!

What amazes me is that the same people who want real names policies argue against tighter moderation because they think it will cost too much because it would take sooooo much time.  But they don't take into account how much time a real names policy would take, that is, if you wanted to VERIFY that the "real name" and address someone uses is actually their real name and address.  And on top of that, the threads would still have to be moderated, because lots of people using their real names would get out of line.  Wouldn't it just be easier to just moderate the threads after the articles, delete the comments that contravene the paper's policy, and have the threads automatically close two or three days after the article has been posted, so that the moderators only have to keep track of the comments after the most recent articles?

Who's to say that someone who signs on as "John Smith" is really John Smith?  Who's going to verify that?  babble even had some troll on here for years who kept coming back with new aliases, and one of them even sounded like a real name, which he used on all sorts of web sites. 

This pollyannaish idea that the comment section sewers in mainstream media are filled with things people would never say without anonymity is ridiculous.  First of all, a lot of the commentary in the comment sections can be found by right-wing columnists and talk show hosts who are only too thrilled to perpetuate that kind of crap while proudly using their real names.  Secondly, most of us have heard that kind of crap from people in our real lives, although we experience it differently based on who we are.  People of colour hear it aimed AT them.  White people who try to have a clue end up hearing it from other white people who think that just because we're white, we'll "get" what they mean when they say racist things, and that we'll empathize with their racist points of view.

In an article where she repeatedly calls Aboriginal people "Indians", it doesn't surprise me that she didn't realize there was so much racism in Canada.

I've written two long posts responding to her column.  You quoted one line from those posts.

So my answer to your question is, yes, there are slightly more important issues at hand.  Issues I addressed in both posts.

P.S. You'll also notice that in the comments under Mallick's article, a number of commenters have also taken issue with her using the term "Indian".  I would assume the protocol is probably the same as any other marginalized group that takes an oppressive name and uses it among themselves.  Fine for insiders, not so fine for outsiders.

Out of curiousity, Smith, what did you find to be so insightful about the Mallick piece?

Moving back to the broader issue, I will admit that ditching anonymity would probably deter a number of people from posting obnoxious stuff on the internet. The biggest deterrence might be against personal attacks and flame wars. I'd probably be less likely to call a specific person a "goddam motherf*cking [INSERT SLUR WORD HERE] piece of shit" if I thought he might be able to move the flame-war over into the analog world.

Other than that, I don't think the deterrent effect would be significant enough to justify the negative effects that would ensue from abolishing anonymity. And remember, the street runs in both directions. POCs and anti-racists will also have to post their personal info on the boards, presumably. So racists could use that info for harassing them off-line.

Fair point.

Thanks, radiorahim. I had already made a similar point, but he makes it better. As I said, there is no shortage of racist venom at the CanWest websites (or whatever that media conglomerate is called now) though they actually require Facebook registration. As I refuse to join Facebook for privacy reasons, that means I am silenced there. 

Of course if one is so unfortunate to peruse the Montreal Gazette, the anti-Indigenous venom rivals the usual anti-Québécois crap. (We are "Québecistan", after all). And of course all the crap one finds everywhere attacking Muslims and presumed Muslims...

These bully boys (and girls, à la Blatchford) are PROUD of the racist shite they spew. 

I liked the emphasis on how anonymity is a cornerstone of democracy. There is no democracy if the powers-that-be know how you vote. 

The entire mediaverse is populated with trolls extolling the virtues of one ideology or another that is complimentary to a system that certainly doesn't limit itself to online trolling.  When we engage in a debate about the pros and cons of anonymity as an exploratory ways and means response to trolling commentary in general that the system itself engages in across the spectrum of communication, we're taking up with a conversation that is generated by the system, in a manner that is constructive with the design of abolishing anonymity so as to fix everyone's location and to ascertain their intent and level of threat.  It should be enough to know that the system mainly concerns itself with contradictory knowledge from that which it produces on a daily basis, rather than racist or extremist reactionary mumblings that have always served the system in whatever medium it appears.

Proof that you don't need anonymity to write racist crap.

I'm enjoying this thread. And I completely agree with the understsanding that being anonymous has nothing to do with spewing trolling and hateful language/ideas.

A former babbler and I are friends on Facebook. He posted a rather bland and mildly funny chart, outlining the differences between those on the left and those on the right. I "liked" it and made some pithy comment as I am wont to do. I assumed his friends were lefties as he certainly is.

I got into an intense argument with a friend of his (we ended up on the topics of abortion, war and capital punishment) who ended up calling me a self-centred Nazi and a murderer. My friend intervened in an "argue the argument, don't attack the person" kind of way to no avail. I was a bit concerned that this freak could access my basic FB info, but given that he lives across the continent and in the US, this was not warranted. He might not have though, and that made me think about getting into something like this again.

I saved screenshots of the argument just for the hell of it. And when I use my real name and identity I'm extremely civil. In fact, the more wound up and personal the dude got (such as assuming things about my life, name-calling and telling me I was going to hell) the funnier I found the entire exchange.

And, as a larger point, racism and other oppressions aren't just about "people saying and writing oppressive, offensive, violent things". It's built into our systems and institutions, which have been wide open to be viewed and scrutinized for as long as this colonial entity called Canada has existed. There is where it is legitimized and there is where it needs to be dismantled/destroyed.

To play Devil's Advocate, whenever you write a letter to the editor in a newspaper, the paper will always verify that you wrote it and publish your real name. What's the difference between that and requiring people posting comments on public news boards to do likewise?