Online obnoxiousness
Columnist Yvonne Abraham of the Boston Globe wrote a great column today about online comments and how mean they often are. I am inclined to agree. It’s a well-known fact that people are less inhibited when they don’t have to give their real names or speak to people face to face. This can be a good thing. Many people, myself included, are shy and don’t always feel comfortable saying our real opinions in real life, so the Internet gives us an opportunity that we otherwise wouldn’t have to share our views.
Other people are just plain mean. I am a nice person and would never be cruel to an innocent person, regardless of what other people think of me or whether I would be punished. Not everyone is like this, however. Apparently, there are a large number of people who only act civilly in real life because of the social consequences. When they are on the Internet and there are fewer consequences, these people become completely barbaric, cruel, and abusive. Many (not all) people who comment on news websites fall into this category.
Additionally, most (again, not all) use terrible grammar, spelling, and punctuation, have no original thoughts, and are illogical. It seems that the stupider someone is, the meaner that person is. For example, it seems that almost everyone in the universe (or at least in Massachusetts) hates George W. Bush and Sarah Palin and posts comments online insulting them. What’s the point in saying you hate Bush or Palin if about 100 other people have already said it in the comments on the same article? As another example, there is a person on BostonHerald.com who regularly posts about how great and hilarious it would be if Neil Entwistle was raped in prison and once criticized Entwistle’s lawyer for having defended rape suspects!!! If that isn’t hypocritical, I don’t know what is.
Yvonne Abraham says that the Globe tries to get rid of profane and abusive comments but that some always slip through. Well, the Globe is doing a lot better than the Herald! I’d say that at least 50% of comments on the Herald’s articles are vicious and brainless, and contribute nothing to the “discussion.” I have reported abusive comments numerous times and not one has ever been deleted. The Herald seems to make no effort whatsoever to keep the quality of discourse at an acceptable level. Abuse of innocent people seems to be fine to them.
Both the Globe and the Herald have added the ability to leave comments on articles fairly recently. I actually enjoyed both sites more before they enabled comments. I hardly ever comment on other websites, because I don’t want to interact with vicious bullies. For me, at least, the availability of comments doesn’t improve my experience at all, and some of the comments make me so horrified that my experience is much worse than it would be otherwise. News sites should monitor their comments much more closely, or even better, not allow them in the first place.