Online Anonymity Lets Users Get Nasty (AKA Internet Trolls)

 My questions: 1) Because it is the internet, does that made rudeness ok? 2) Why do we tolerate online what we wouldn’t in person? 3) Are you listening Gather?

For example, when a California woman recently gave birth to a healthy baby just two days after learning she was pregnant, the sudden change to her life was challenging enough. What April Branum definitely didn't need (or deserve) was the nasty Internet/blog comments:

"A pig is a pig,"  or she should "go on the show 'The Biggest Loser.'"

It is another example of how the anonymity of the Internet has made public a person's thoughts.

Such incidents (and many that have occurred right here on Gather) raise the questions: Is there anything to be done about it? Or is a decline in civil discourse simply the price that we pay for the advance of technology?

"The Internet really amplifies everything," says Jeffrey Cole, of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "We have a lot of opinions out there. All of a sudden there's a place we can go to share them." Add to that the freedom that anonymity provides, he says, and it "can lead to a rowdy Wild West situation, with no one to filter it." (This is where the trolls come in. Their intentions are to disrupt and insult).

"It's all things said reflexively, without thinking," says Cole, who tracks the political and social impact of the Internet as director of Annenberg's Center for the Digital Future.

"My guess is that if you went back to these people, a lot of them would have second thoughts." And if you asked them to add their name, as in a traditional letter to the editor? "They'd be embarrassed."

There are examples everywhere of anonymous comments that cause harm. On even the most innocuous sites — a parenting message board, for example — anonymity often leads to the type of response that would hardly be likely if names were attached. (Sound familiar to anyone here on Gather?)

"People post insults on here left and right," one person wrote Monday on the New York edition of urbanbaby.com, a networking site for new mothers. "It seems the common word these posts have is Fat. Just because someone is overweight, fat, thick whatever you call us, doesn't mean we are ugly, lazy or insecure ... So stop the childish remarks."

News organizations, struggling to find ways to keep their readers involved in an increasingly digital and interactive world, are trying to strike the right balance.

Branum's case fueled debate at the Orange County Register, whose Web site had only recently added a public comment section after news stories. OCRegister.com deputy editor Jeff Light says the site has modified its message board, only six weeks old, in response to staff concerns about inappropriate posts. Now, among other changes, language is more specific about what the site expects from those who post, and how a comment can be deleted. (Anyone paying attention, Gather??)

Yahoo News took down its message boards completely in December, with the goal of finding a new system that doesn't let a small group of vocal users dominate the discourse. (Hmmmmmm……)

"Our hope is to raise the value of the conversation," says Yahoo spokesman Brian Nelson. Harm can also be much greater when people are singled out by name; such attacks can hurt someone's career or home life.

What do we want for Gather?












Adapted from yahoo/JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer