Monitoring comments

The common practice on many online news sites has been to allow anonymous comments at the end of articles. This encourages involvement, promotes lively discussion and, to be honest, without the anonymous option we all know the number participants in these comment forums would drop steeply.

I'm still concerned about the random commenter who opts for the personal attacks. Anonymous comments opens the door for inflammatory language that few would use if held accountable. I don't like some of the things I've seen, for sure.

Here's a recent comment I was made aware of on a college newspaper site: “What a shame. This story breaks my heart. (NAME OMITTED) is a meth cook and dealer. I think (NAME OMITTED) stumbled on (NAME OMITTED) meth lab at the school, and he had her killed. Her boyfriend the surveyor was in my class last summer, he was in on it, but he tried to pick a fight with me to get me kicked out of school. For everyone out there who wants to go to (SCHOOL OMITTED), don't. Most of the teachers there are not real teachers, they are meth dealers. (NAME OMITTED) is nothing but a low life meth cook who has put peoples sons and daughters at lives at risk, and I believe he is responable for (NAME OMITTED) death.”

That's some serious stuff there. It was actually posted. Does it have any truth to it? I really don't know.

The paper was asked to remove this comment. After some checking around about common practices and legalities, I'm told they did remove it.

Here is one example of a portion of a student newspaper policy:

We will delete comments, without notice, that:

* Are fraudulent, unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, offensive, pornographic, profane, sexually explicit or indecent
* Threaten, invite, or encourage violence
* Are derogatory of others on the basis of political affiliation, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual preference or disability
* Constitute or encourage conduct that would violate any local, state, national or international laws
* Violate, plagiarize or infringe the rights of third parties including, copyright, trademark, trade secret, confidentiality, contract, patent, or rights of privacy
* Contain advertising
* Are by commenters who misidentify or misrepresent themselves
* Contain personal information (addresses, phone numbers, etc) about the comment's author or others

The best policies I have been made aware of do allow comments - from anyone. They also have staff members who regularly check the comments - they do not preview them - for problems. If a problem is detected, they may be removed.

Reasons for allowing live, anonymous commenting are actually numerous: Promoting lively discussion is the obvious one.

Another reason is that newspapers are actually less liable legally if they do not get into the business of previewing, or editing, the comment contents. Section 230 of the Communications Decency ACt of 1996 protects providers of interactive Internet forums from liability. That protection could be lost if you preview the posts before publishing them.

So, while the temptation may be difficult to resist, allowing open commenting is better for all in the long run. Let the comments fly!