The Great Comment Section Debacle

2Fer #2 Revised

The Great Comment Section Debacle

Written by Luis-Manuel Morales


In many ways, The internet has paved the way towards bringing the world together. Whether that be through hashtags to raise awareness, or viral videos that get everyone talking, the world is now in the midst of being intertwined by the world wide web. However, there are some major flaws in this massive communication system. The comment section was brought to various social medias and forums to keep the conversation stirring, even further then the content could do. This may sound great on paper, but the end result isn’t that pretty. Although the average internet user might not think that the current state of comment sections matters much, they're impact on the community is dangerous and contagious. If anyone can say anything on the web with no backlash in real life, the side effects of such freedoms are horrifying.

One of the freedoms that is available in the virtual world that is not as accepted in the real world is freedom of speech. In person words can backfire and damage a reputation, because a person’s identity  is almost always associated with what has been said . However, the internet has gifted the people with anonymity. Anyone can say whatever they want, without anyone knowing it was them. People are free to say whatever they please with little to no backlash in real life. This allows for the unlimited use of bigoted, racist, and crude remarks for many people to go crazy with.

With anonymity giving people freedom to say everything and anything, room for meaningful and constructive conversation in the comment section has become scarce. Those who wish to positively interact in their community are met with a deep dark cyberbullying wormhole.  Whether that be simple playground taunts or vulgar, crude threats, the issue that is cyberbullying has taken over these sections of the internet.  Despite many sites, such as youtube, putting systems in place to report such behavior, they are rarely enforced properly. This isn’t necessarily the fault of the sites themselves, as the amount of reports in comparison to the amount of employees is ridiculous. This shows an even greater problem, which is that these sites are well aware of the issue. They take some steps to try and prevent it, however they do not take the proper measures to permanently fix the issue.

Giving the people this kind of freedom is dangerous. It makes monsters out of good hearted hearted souls. Even though in concept the privileges given in a comment section are not mischievous and are for the better, they do not result in so. Christopher Wolf of the Anti-Cyberhate Committee of the Anti-Defamation League, discussed this very topic in a debate for the New York Times.  “Anonymity has an important role in free expression and for privacy interests, to be sure. But the benefits of anonymity online are greatly outweighed by the abuse.” What he is saying here is that although websites allow anonymity for good and justified reasons, those who take advantage of it ruin the spirit of the community. Normal people who positively contribute to the conversation are drowned out by such people, and often times they result to fighting fire with fire. Before they know it they are contributing to the chaos that once plagued them.

The comment Section was meant to be an extension of the conversation held in the content proceeding it. It has never really been that, however, as the internet has grown over the years, this feature has become less of a conversation and more of an unwanted spam folder full of  bots and degrading , off topic comments and conversations. "It's hard to determine whether this problem can be fixed, or rather if letting humans free with complete anonymity was simply a doomed plan from the start."


Works Cited


Wolf, Christopher. "Anonymity May Have Killed Online Commenting." Have Comment Sections Failed? The New York Times, 18 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/18/have-comment-sections-on-news-media-websites-failed/anonymity-may-have-killed-online-commenting


Lemieux, Jamliah. "Get Rid of Comment Sections." Have Comment Sections Failed? The New York Times, 18 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/04/18/have-comment-sections-on-news-media-websites-failed/get-rid-of-comment-sections


Wallsten, Kevin, and Melinda Tarsi. "It’s Time to End Anonymous Comments Sections." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 19 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/08/19/its-time-to-end-anonymous-comments-sections/


Comments (2)

Eleanor Shamble (Student 2018)
Eleanor Shamble

Ugh, the comments section of anywhere is such a mess. From my experience, whenever a website tries to regulate comments and any other forms of interactions, the people that want to be rude just move to another site. I'm on a website called scratch, and I use it for mostly art. All of the drama that basically belongs on scratch is moved to hangouts or deviantart because of the heavy moderation. This eliminates the consequences on scratch because the inappropriate actions weren't conducted there. You could also research psychological experiments about the fear of consequences like the stanford prison experiment. This helps to explain why people would be so awful in the first place. This 2fer didn't really change my thinking, though, because I already knew this (and it's why I keep off of comment sections of something popular and not heavily monitored). You raised quite a few good points, though. Good job!

Charles Velazquez (Student 2018)
Charles Velazquez

This 2Fer didn't really change my thinking about the comment section because I agree with all the points. I have seen the comment sections of many different social media sites and all the meaningful good-hearted stuff is shrouded by hate or spam. I really like how you discussed that anonymity is important but is misused.