Do online comment forums have a future? The answer to that question is a definitive maybe.
According to the CBC’s resident pundit Rick Mercer, at one time the idea of a virtual online debate had considerable upside. But that has changed. “The only promise now is that if you read the comments you will despair for society,” he says.
For many news outlets the process of monitoring comments for guideline violations has become a labour intensive process. Wayne Moriarty, the former editor-in-chief of The Province, points out that it was not too long ago when newspapers ventured forth into the exciting new frontier of online commentary. It was like a key to a magical room that was bound to improve the human condition. Unfortunately, he says “that room turned out to be an outhouse.”
Dave Obee, editor-in-chief of the Victoria Times Colonist, says when “the trolls took over the comment areas, reasonable people abandoned the neighbourhood, and the value of the comment section declined even more.” Anne Marie Owens, editor-in-chief at the National Post, says although online comments have opened up an important communication channel, the conversation tends to “careen between incisive and perceptive responses, to vitriolic personal attacks.”
Instead of an exercise in respectable public discourse, online exchanges can be a magnet for the kind of nastiness associated with a barroom brawl. In response to a recent report about disenchanted residents packing up and leaving Squamish, the 70 comments posted on the Chief’s website ranged from polite dialogue to septic name-calling. To wit: some folks referred to fellow discussion participants as “greedy pigs,” “bozos,” “idiots,” “fools,” “losers” and a classic made-in-Squamish moniker, “feral racist socialists.”
To stem the rampant abuse, many publications have outsourced comments to Facebook where there is less anonymity. News organizations using the popular social media gateway report that discussions have become more responsible and there has been a significant increase in visitor traffic.
Still, despite switching to a new platform, the situation can go awry in a hurry. “You begin to wonder: What’s so social about social media?” asks Vancouver Sun columnist Pete Martin in response to the growing list of malicious posts he has encountered on Facebook. And one of the most virulent examples of an online exchange heading south, both literally and figuratively, took place in Missouri recently. In that incident an off-duty police officer fatally shot a man attempting to break into the officer’s home after the two got into a heated argument on Facebook.
As it stands, online comment forums continue to be a canary in the opinion-sharing mineshaft. How long will it be before the toxicity takes its toll and the little yellow birdie follows the dodo into extinction?
