Online commentators

Everyone knows the internet is a vast and wonderful space to read, write and connect in. But it is also an equally opportune place to get bashed about having an opinion. Because there is such unlimited freedom to speak, there is also an almost equally high level of criticism allowed. And that brings us to that elusive entity of the online world: the commentator.

The Twitter account @AvoidComments was made to encourage people to ignore all possible comments on articles, opinion pieces, news stories, videos and anywhere on the internet where one might encounter a member of the online world airing their thoughts. But why? Why avoid comments in the first place?

Here’s the explanation of the people who made the account, explained in a single, concise tweet: “I saw a sound, well-reasoned argument in an internet comment and it made me reconsider my position – said nobody ever”. But if the words of a fictional twitter account are not enough to make you avoid the comments section, the results of a recently conducted study might. According to a study by Adam Felder discussed in The Atlantic, unpleasant comments beneath an article affect how readers perceive that article. Nasty comments underneath a well-written article will cause the article to be judged as being of lower quality. Because of this, many websites are opting to forgo the comments section altogether, and others heavily moderate their comments section.

Online commentators are an alien entity, with no geographical boundaries and no time restrictions, and most importantly, the option to mask their hateful, grammatically incorrect comments under a cloak of anonymity. According to a Pew Research Centre poll, a quarter of internet users have posted comments anonymously. Anonymous comments are also significantly more likely to be uncivil, as discovered by researcher Arthur Santana.

Combined with the vastness of the internet, the greater web of users are hard to monitor and even harder to control. Websites are now openly banning comments. On such an interactive medium as the internet, it’s interesting to see how this debate will be resolved.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 5^th, 2014.