Internet trolls, anonymity and The First Amendment

[Thoughtful Thug]

SAN DIEGO, September 26, 2011 – When the Internet was new, its nature bred the protective philosophy of embracing anonymity as a counterweight to the potential for sacrificing some of your personal privacy to participate.

The Internet has matured. Anonymity has become counterproductive and even damaging. If you’re willing to stand up and render a public opinion, you should reveal your identity. The time has come to limit the ability of people to remain anonymous.

In the early days of the experiment called America, the right to send in an anonymous letter to the editor was considered a hallmark of the constitutional right to free speech. Opinions under pseudonyms were common. Beginning in the Cold War era, newspaper editors developed a dislike for them because individuals could spew any sort of unfounded opinion without consequences and without backing an opinion up with any hard facts.

By the 1970s, editors started insisting that people identify themselves if they wanted the privilege of stating their views in a public forum. By 2000, most newspapers refused to accept anonymous letters to the editor in all but a few special cases.

When traditional newspapers started publishing online, they bumped up against established online rules of engagement. In their zeal to embrace this new model of information dissemination, editors once again accepted anonymous comments. In many cases they naively thought it would foster a positive sense of community and encourage greater reader engagement by allowing the ability to comment on virtually any news article.

Readers engaged, all right. Early adopters were iconoclasts, rule breakers and social misfits. Nerds targeted in the real world by bullies could push back without facing any personal risk. Anonymity plus anger bred boldness in the form of bad behavior. And so, the Troll was born.


Internet trolls are not charming little toys. They can do a lot of harm. Credit: K. Fawcett
The Urban Dictionary added the definition of Troll in this context back in 2002 as "One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a news group or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument."

Anonymous commenting should become a thing of the past. Anonymity allows trolls to breed. Let’s admit it, chalk it up to being a good idea that failed, and end the practice.

News organizations should be the first to insist people reveal their identities in exchange for the privilege of reaching a large audience under their brand banner. Right behind them should be review-based websites that allow people to post anonymous reviews and recommendations.

Those arguing for anonymity claim that free speech will be squelched because individuals might fear reprisals at work or among friends and family when their personal opinions are made public. Some speech doesn’t deserve a forum. Anonymity creates real and lasting harm when people are hit with false accusations and name-calling attacks. There is no way to tell if a damning restaurant review is written by a competitor or disgruntled employee.

When our nation was being formed, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin stood behind their incendiary, treasonous views in public even at the risk of being hanged for what they said.

So when did Americans become so timid about expressing themselves? Americans used to be known for endless courage in stating their views and being forthright to a fault. They would stand up for their beliefs. Now everyone wants to hide behind their cybermama’s skirt. Man up, trolls.

Newspapers across the country including Boston Globe, Buffalo News, Des Moines Register, Las Vegas Sun, Raleigh News & Observer, San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Reuters news service no longer allow anonymous comments online. They are finally ready to take action because advertisers are speaking up. They don’t like buying space when their products might appear next to incendiary and even offensive material in the form of comment pages.

Many newspapers have decided to use Facebook as a commenting system since most people on Facebook use their real name and often a photo of themselves. Others give priority to comments where the writer reveals his or her identity voluntarily. Still others are charging a fee for the ability to comment on stories. A few have decided they will eliminate the ability to comment at all.

Better that fewer comments of higher quality are published, and the opinions given more weight accordingly. One dose of invective can poison many reasonable arguments.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but not anonymity on someone else's website. If you want to be anonymous, create your own blog and become the modern version of a Colonial pamphleteer. Some high quality pamphlets were originally written anonymously, like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (although he later chose to out himself), but most went into the trashcan of history. Just like those long forgotten pamphleteers, modern anonymous blogsites full of insults and rants will not long be remembered.

Gayle Falkenthal

What do you think? Should we all give up our identity whenever we make a comment on a newspaper online?

Note:
Talley v. California

Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States voided a Los Angeles city ordinance which forbade the distribution of any handbills in any place under any circumstances if the handbills did not contain the name and address of the person for whom it was prepared, distributed, or sponsored.
Talley is often cited for the proposition that identification requirements burden speech.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Sounds like an anonymous internet person insulted her somewhere and she got butthurt about it. Anonymity is the great strength of the internet, it allows you to judge someone's words on their own merits instead of saying "I know this guy is 15 so his comments are wrong" before even reading it. Any website that tries to require non-anonymity is not a site I will ever post on.

 

[IglooDame]

You mean other than IP source tracking/logging?

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

Well it depend on whether our ISP provide the name and location to whoever is doing the data mining...

It's kinda scary I guess... :/

 

[squadbroken]

Newspapers across the country including Boston Globe, Buffalo News, Des Moines Register, Las Vegas Sun, Raleigh News & Observer, San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Reuters news service no longer allow anonymous comments online. They are finally ready to take action because advertisers are speaking up. They don’t like buying space when their products might appear next to incendiary and even offensive material in the form of comment pages.

Yeah, here's the kernel of truth in this waste of bandwidth.

Would've saved a few minutes if the PR drone who wrote this article just said "anonymity is bad because advertisers don't like it".

 

[Flying Pig]

Sounds like an anonymous internet person insulted her somewhere and she got butthurt about it. Anonymity is the great strength of the internet, it allows you to judge someone's words on their own merits instead of saying "I know this guy is 15 so his comments are wrong" before even reading it. Any website that tries to require non-anonymity is not a site I will ever post on.

I quite like the system of posting on things with your facebook account; I'm quite careful to maintain good personal anonymity on sites like this because I end up writing a lot about myself, and I don't neccessarily want that linked to a face for a variety of reasons, but wouldn't object to making comments on, say, newspaper articles under my real name.

 

[Formaldehyde]

When I was in high school, I wrote a letter to the St Pete Times about the UK invasion of Anguilla wondering why it wasn't receiving any more attention.


Link to video.

At 6 O'clock in the morning, it is a little difficult for any of us to capture the full comedy of the situation, but this must be one of the most musical comedy landings there have ever been in the history of the British services.

In the 5th boat ashore, ITN: the full measure of the bloodiness of the combat.

My parents had a cow because they knew nothing about it until they were told by neighbors, who were offering compliments about their child whose letter had appeared in the morning paper.

 

[bombshoo]

It isn't like you can't just make a fake account and post the same incendiary crap. Short of forcing us to have some sort of internet I.D. (more than just IP addresses) to post on websites, you can't really get rid of anonymity.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

You mean other than IP source tracking/logging?

A few extra-knowledgeable people being able to trace you if they have enough free time and inclination to do so is a far cry from just telling everyone straight out who you are. But you know that, so I'm not sure what your objective was in posting this. The two situations are self evidently non-comparable.

 

[warpus]

For newspaper articles, I don't mind. Allowing anonymous comments usually leads to the youtube effect... Not that this really helps, but it does a bit.

And if you want to be anonymous, just make a fake account..

 

[Flying Pig]

It isn't like you can't just make a fake account and post the same incendiary crap. Short of forcing us to have some sort of internet I.D. to post on websites, you can't really get rid of anonymity.

The CFC system's really good, I think, because I can post things without it coming back to Mr 'Pig' of Colchester, UK, but I'm still accountable for what I say because people build up a picture of what 'Flying Pig' is like. Of course this relies on all of us knowing each other, which wouldn't happen in the internet at large.

 

[aelf]

Much ado about nothing. Why do these old farts or internet noobs read comments that they know will be crappy anyway, except for purposes of entertainment? Else, is she seriously suggesting that Youtube, for example, require people to supply their real names before they can comment because Youtube comments are famously crappy? Since when did she get the job of ensuring quality control on the internet?

I don't know why journalists have such a hard time dealing with the nature of the internet. It's like some kind inflated sense of pride in their vocation or something. Just read about the whole Max Gogarty debacle for some entertaining examples of how traditional media completely fail at handling the internet and its users.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Just read about the whole Max Gogarty debacle for some entertaining examples of how traditional media completely fail at handling the internet and its users.

I dont really understand that article. What exactly was it about?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Being an anonymous jerk is just way too easy . It's more of a challenge to be positive and "nice" when there is no chance of reward.

 

[aelf]

I dont really understand that article. What exactly was it about?

The article explains it quite well, I thought.

In any case, my take on it is that traditional media completely failed to predict the likely reaction to Max Gogarty's awful travel blog and then proceeded to try and counter the comments with holier-than-thou responses (as if the media itself is not mean - yeah, right) and then practically surrendered. They completely failed in every conceivable manner.

 

[Verarde]

Interesting article. Can't say I agree on its maturity, but the Internet is establishing itself as a discussion arena.

 

[Oruc]

We need forced anonymity, especially in forums to get rid of all the circle-jerking.

 

[Arwon]

There's a difference between anonymity and pseudonymity that needs to be borne in mind when talking about the internet. I have a consistent online identity at this site, which can be held to account over time and challenged on its views, etc. Most bloggers have the same.

 

[bhsup]

Is the OP (and a lot of you guys) confusing the WWW with the internet? Anonymity certainly wasn't the norm before the explosion of the WWW in 94.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yeah I noticed that oddity in the article. I remember reading somewhere that when Google put up the Usenet archives there was a bit of a fuss as a lot of people used their real names on it never expecting it to get so popular.

As for the anonymity thing, there are places where its useful and places where its harmful; I cant go into much detail about it but right now I'm having some issues with the "harmful" side.