Comments

Someone recently shared a link to a blog, pointing out the comments section introduction:

"Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous."

I thought this was brilliant. I am not someone who comments often on articles or blogs, but I sometimes glance through the comments when I finish reading. I primarily browse through the online versions of BBC News and the Seattle Times, for world and local news, respectively. The Seattle Times commentators certainly fit the above statement a little too closely for my liking. It frequently seems to be a free-for-all to see who can come up with the most idiotic or unsubstantiated content, belittling others and generally presenting themselves poorly. People seem to sometimes react to the feeling anonymity in the digital realm by behaving in very different manners than they would in-person.

Photo by Stian Eikeland

In my information ethics course, we discussed the pros and cons of anonymity from both an ethical and policy perspective. It isn't a clear-cut, black and white issue, but it is an important area to consider as new technologies and information behavior continue to emerge and evolve. There are cases where anonymity can facilitate more honest feedback, particularly when there are power disparities that hinder people from feeling completely able to voice opinions otherwise. Employee engagement/feedback surveys are a good example of this.

But for something like social media or other by-choice dialogue, I wonder if anonymity is the best choice. I understand the comments on cute kitten pictures at icanhazcheeseburger.com don't often take a serious tone, and I wouldn't argue that a site like that requires full name disclosure. But on a newspaper site like the Seattle Times? I think that it is a little too convenient for people to say outrageous things on an issue, throw out all sorts of data that they do not back up, and do it all rudely.

In terms of social media, I was really disappointed with the newest development by Google on their most recent foray into social media, Google+. Google initially instated a policy that required users to use their real names when signing up for Google+. I seemed to have missed most of the commentary and "controversy" over that, but Mashable recently reported that Google would be relaxing that policy to support pseudonyms and nicknames. Seems like that move will dilute the community-concept (including knowing who your neighbors/'friends' are) that Google was going for. Ah well. Maybe I'll go post an anonymous comment about my concerns.