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With ID Comes Online Civility
A while back I accepted a self-identified conservative's request to be my "friend" on Facebook. My goal with Facebook is to coax out a wide range of views in discussions to illustrate how we humans have more in common than we may want to think.
To jump-start conversations, I post links to stories, columns and videos, and sometimes I pose questions about particular issues. Recently I started posting the name, rank and hometown of every American killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I ask only that everyone engage respectfully. The discussions are lively and long, and it's heartening to watch a network of strangers grow into a community of neighbors regardless of what they do for a living or where they call home.
Many express a relief to learn that civil - and informed - discourse is still possible in this country. As one mother posted last week, "I haven't been this tuned into current events since college."
For a while, the conservative I mentioned earlier was a spirited but courteous dissenter. In June, he started to ramp up the rhetoric - and the heat. Some reprimanded him for hurling insults. When I asked him to keep a civil tongue, he backed down and posted an apology.
But there was something about his phrasing once he decided to attack that sounded familiar. I went to The Plain Dealer's Web site, Cleveland.com, where, like most newspapers, we allow anonymous comments that often churn into a vitriolic brew. Sure enough, I spotted identical phrasing, augmented with personal attacks that he knew would have gotten him kicked off my Facebook page.
I sent one of the more offensive posts to him in an e-mail and asked whether it was his. He acknowledged that it was. When he didn't apologize, I decided our Facebook friendship was over.
He behaved so differently when his picture and his name were attached to his opinions on Facebook. I have since added hundreds more "friends" to Facebook, and similar circumstances have unfolded only a handful of times. We get fired up, but we seldom lose sight of our mutual humanity.
Some in the newspaper industry insist we have to allow anonymous comments to generate traffic on our Web sites, which in turn determines what we can charge for online ads. They fear that we'd lose online readership if we required identities with comments. Discussion, they fear, would evaporate.
Anonymity on the Web offends most journalists I know, and not just because their own names go on everything they write. It breaks every rule newspapers have enforced for decades in letters to the editor, which require both a name and a city of residence.
Anonymous comments also alienate many thoughtful readers, who constitute the majority of people who read newspapers. When readers complain to me about ugly comments, I urge them to weigh in, but most balk. It's like trying to persuade your friends to visit a great tavern in a bad neighborhood; they want nothing to do with that side of town.
An editor of another online news site in Cleveland told me his site screens comments before they're posted, in part because he believes the caliber of conversation affects the enthusiasm of advertisers.
"You can't monetize jerks," he said.
My concern is that readers will continue to despair that the worst anonymous comments represent a growing crowd in America. Yet reader response via e-mail and voice mail - and my daily interactions with people on Facebook and around the country - assures me that this is not true.
Most Americans believe civility matters.
They also believe it comes with a name.
26 Comments so far
Show AllI am appropriately posting anonymously. I post with my name on Facebook; I am civil in both places. The difference for me on Facebook is that I have not generated a huge network; but everyone I come in contact with me is within a degree of separation of actually being someone I know. I have noticed the problem cited in this article quite frequently with CD comment posts. For that reason, I often don't read the posts; but I know their character going in when I do. It is definitely more uninhibited. I apprecitate the lack of inhibition, as I have my own thin-skinned side; but I do discuss private matters occasionally a bit more openly than I do on Facebook, where the people I would be discussing are also known to the network. So when my opinions are informed by personal experience, as my most important opinions are likely to be, I like a place where I can freely express them. CD has a wonderful compromise position. The website was improved enormously when it was switched to hiding comments unless you opted to read them. That's the key; we have 2 kinds of discourse in this brave new internet world; one which is a great civil discussion; and another which is frequently vile, but always uninhibited. They both have a role to play. I like both, and will continue using both.
Thoughtful message from Agingpacifist.
This issue reminds me of road rage (or just snotty, ill-mannered drivers). It's easier to be uncivil when you can roll up the window, protected by your steel enclosure, while you hit the gas and never have to explain your behavior.
Liberals seem obsessed with 'civility'. Unfortunately this obsession with 'civility' and niceness is used as justification for their passivity when confronted by government power.
Voting is very 'civil', however it is not near to being enough since our votes are channelled always into 2 corporate controlled political parties. In a system that has lost its real democratic character, such as the American one, one must move beyond common 'civility' to keep from being crushed.
Power will mobilize 'uncivil' people and you must deal with it and respond often in kind to keep from appearing like a wimp. The same is true in any dark street corner if you are jumped. Unfortunately many liberals seem to live in nice little tree lined suburbs where the biggest problem for them may be the sound of the neighbors' hired hands using a power motor to cut the lawn. Enter the liberal with a nice request to keep the noise level down... Using this sort of response in today's political dialog can be a big loser.
Totally.
I champion rudeness and challenges to what is deemed proper behaviour.
If we were too mindfull of being civil and never offensive then oppressive social mores and traditions would still be with us.
It's better to have a robust debate and even a rough one than a civil one which doesn't allow for these jack asses on the right to make complete fools of themselves and then turn others against their loony ideas. Free speech if really open can knock these jack asses for al loop. When this jerk apologized he was showing he was afraid his nutty opinions were turning people off. That was pay off time, and you and progressives were then on the offensive about his being offensive. Let these jerks hang themselves.
AD
To some extent I can see the point that the author is trying to make but I personally would go with anonymity for a few reasons.
One is the world wide net is just that, world wide. Not everybody out there is a nice person that has your best interest in mind and wants to be your friend. You post your opinion out there and it may be read by some future or current boss that may not share your political views, and it could cost you a job. Same possibility with a landlord of property you are renting. From personal experience I can tell you some people out there are just plain nuts, so be careful.
These posts can potentially be read by folks that are not the most stable tools in the shed. I don't want some of them showing up at my house because they didn't like something I had to say 6 months ago and I have completely forgotten about. Again some people out there ARE just plain nuts, so be careful.
Putting personal info out there can also open you to personal slander which can be very damaging, as apposed to slander against your internet name which you can easily change. Again some people...
I see people post full names out here, occasionally with addresses. To me this is more info than I need to share an opinion with you. I really don't care what your last name is. A first name is nice, and sometimes a state is nice. But even that is more info than is needed. For example I spent almost my entire life in CT and have only been in NC for less than a year. So some people see the name and think cool a liberal southerner, well not exactly...
Remember these are just words typed into the ether. If you see somebody being a jerk beyond what is reasonable, you can call them on it, if they continue, just ignore their writing. Nobody is forcing you to read it, and ignoring an obnoxious poster can really drive them nuts, which is yet one more good reason for anonymity...
So to me anyway I can see almost no value of putting your personal info up on the WWW, and a lot of good reasons not to.
Just my two cents worth on the subject.
"These posts can potentially be read by folks that are not the most stable tools in the shed. I don't want some of them showing up at my house because they didn't like something I had to say 6 months ago and I have completely forgotten about. Again some people out there ARE just plain nuts, so be careful. . . . So to me anyway I can see almost no value of putting your personal info up on the WWW, and a lot of good reasons not to."
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Yep. You've identified some key issues here. I've a very unusual name--in the USA. I no longer post it in full, or any but the most trivial personal information, because I've nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Not to mention that your ideas about which information you want publicly available might change. The internet has a longer memory than you'd think. For example, those pages of personal information you decided to remove from your website can be found on the Wayback Machine at http://www.archive.org/index.php
Better safe than sorry.
Online anonymity is a lot like web porn: it allows for narcissistic behavior that is frowned upon in polite company. Much like pornography has exploded with the advent of technology that allows the consumer to enjoy it in the privacy and anonymity of their own home, so too has vitriol...as the perpetrators do not face the social stigmas such behavior engendered before.
Life is complicated. Discourse that strives to understand these complications is civil by necessity. But not as dictated by polite sensibilities, but instead, as dictated by the intrinsic difficulties of presenting valid points. Arguments which fail to recognize pertinent considerations, and/or those shrouded in verbose vagueness, or comments with no argument at all, are the problem. A lack of truth is therefore essentially the problem, not anonymity. Claiming for example, that U.S. health-care costs are twice those of most other developed nations, due to administrative ineffeciencies, without considering the prevelance rates of diet-related diseases, is in essence a falsehood. But calling those responsible for this falsehood "IGNORANT LIARS", (or whatever), is not as effective as pointing out that the prevelance rates of diabetes is 300% higher in the U.S. than in Switzerland. And obviously a nation with more per capita illness will have higher per capita costs etc., and; when a person's argument contains indisputable truths, all else becomes an unwanted distraction. So the problem has much more to with content than it does anything else.
Our beliefs and opinions should carry the basic message of dignity to other readers. If our opinions are based in what we believe to be the truth, then we have a duty to share them firmly and with respect. If our words cause us to lose our job or apartment or friend based on content and merit, well, then welcome the change, as disruptive as it may be. To trade your truth for a small reward of comfort is something you will most likely live to regret. We are a human community where individuals are free to explore their need to belong with others of like mind. Dignity and respect to others and a genuine caring for all to thrive and prosper. Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love...
little miss muffett here gets upset
tough shit lady
the internet is not your living room - you don't like it then move on
quit bitichin about bitchin cause it aint bitchin
feel me
You solved your problem without censorship. Why are you pushing for online censorship like conservatives who want to control you do?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Ms. Schultz is married to one of the power elite and should keep to her sanitized Facebook crowd where she can delete "friends" at will, and to the editorial pages of newspapers.
There should be free and open uncensored arguments and debates on the web as well as more well-mannered, rule oriented sites. They both serve their purposes and they can both coexist on the web.
Personally, I find it more satisfying after decades of watching right-wingers dish out their drivel--with NO platform for public response anywhere--to see them hoisted on their own dubious petards when they become too abusive and wild in their think-tank re-echoed, sloganistic, parallel historical mythology rants. There are several well informed writers who regularly post on CD who provide better and more interesting analysis and comments on contemporary events than the corporate talking heads and they usuallly spot and de-fang hateful fascists and their admirers pretty quickly with the cogency of their counter-arguments.
Yeah, I'm with the troublemakers in the comments.
I am also skeptical of a nice-nelly concept of cyberetiquette that proponents insist on standardizing.
I realize that from an administrator's perspective, there are always problems with excessive madness or badness compromising comments threads.
And, as this writer exemplifies, there are those who clearly prefer a sanitized forum.
Unfortunately, the oppressive smoothing down of rough edges-- by peers or administrators-- invariably leads to flat, banal, and insipid discussion.
In this context, I think the better standard is: if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Only 14 comments. Dull story, I guess, and one that confronts the forum in which it's published. But how right she is. I've mentioned this a few times on CD message boards, but there are no takers.
Stop making excuses for anonymity. Nobody is coming to your house. I've been "out" for a long time, and I stay "out," and nobody comes to my house. Nobody calls my phone. I fly regularly and I'm not on the watch list. I don't even get my bags opened. Nobody is censoring you, and nobody is asking you to censor yourself -- anything worth saying is worth identifying yourself as the person who said it. And deep down you know it -- if somebody turned one of your "anonymous" posts into a hit movie or song, you'd be all over the place making sure you get paid, and making sure you get on talk shows to become known as the person who originated the brilliant idea, and trying to get a column on the Huffington Post. It is you who are censoring the power of your message by refusing to stand behind it with your real self. That's why our government and power elites don't even bother pushing their full Orwellian capacities. They can depend on us to remain hidden.
The winners in the world use their names and show themselves in public. Imagine where we'd be if Ralph Nader had started publishing his points about the inherent dangers of car construction in a series of 145 character tweets under the pseudonym "Captain Seatbelt." They came after him, and they came after him hard -- but the couldn't get him, and more people of good will joined in what he was doing, and by the 1970's consumer safety and product recalls at manufacturer's expense were the new normal. Jesus Christ, enough with the anonymity crap. You're lying to yourself. Nobody is coming after you. But nobody is listening to you, either, because you're all talking to (and insulting) each other in a secret little ether world where people are not physically tangible and nothing physically tangible gets accomplished.
Why wasn't Rush Limbaugh afraid when he started mouthing off on low-budget cable way back when? Now he runs the world. Why wasn't Abbie Hoffman afraid when he started mouthing off a generation earlier? Did he not take on the Chicago Police and win? Where would we be if people refused to become firefighters because some fires are unpredictable, and getting killed isn't unheard of?
What a bunch of cowardly lions. Grow a pair, will you? Vast numbers of real people are really dying all over the world because you won't stand up for them. The Earth that sustains our very lives is overheating right in front of our eyes because you won't stand up for it. If you want things to change, you have to have a name, and a face, and think of others as much as you think of yourself. Use your real name and start doing something with you real life. Do the opposite of protecting your identity. Make yourself public. There are nervous people of good will who feel alone, who are afraid of going out on a limb, and as more of us step forward, they'll see that they have the safety of numbers, and they will step forward too. There are good people struggling to bring movements out of this virtual netherworld, but you're all afraid to come out for the fight, and nothing gets off the ground.
There are hundreds of people who post here. I challenge ten of you to put up your real name and home town. If nobody comes to your house or threatens you on the phone withing two weeks, I challenge you further to change your user name to your real name for all future posts. Maybe this will be where it begins.
Steve Greenfield
New Paltz, NY
www.commonplans.blogspot.com
www.eisenhowerproject.org
I agree with your comment and have in fact removed what I said about "words being dangerous" from my comment. I did not put much effort into my contention. Not to say I have a GOOD excuse but I really never gave this "anonymity thing" much thought; but then, until recently, I have not frequented a site such as this one. From what I have seen here I still contend that content is primary although, as you suggested, taking responsibility for one's comments should have an affect on that. Good comment.
Ray L. Love
Copperas Cove, Texas
rllove55@g-mail.com
We're off to a good start. 9 to go.
I spend my Thanksgivings in Round Rock with my in-laws. Maybe we'll meet up one day.
Steve
"Stop making excuses for anonymity. Nobody is coming to your house. I've been "out" for a long time, and I stay "out," and nobody comes to my house. Nobody calls my phone. "
Good for you (so far), luck has been on your side. Several years ago I volunteered for a public access TV station. I did a science show which had nothing to do with politics and offended no one. Someone watching the show with nothing better to do looked me up in the phone book and I spent the next month getting harassing calls in the middle of the night.
I was also the target of a workplace mobbing, which fundamentally changed how I look at people in general. For those of you, like I at that time, that have never heard of a mobbing, should research the subject a bit. As I unfortunately found out we are all just one "nut job" away from having that most unpleasant of experiences.
Those are just two of several less than enjoyable experiences I've had when dealing with the public.
I did a simple cost benefit analysis of using my name on internet sites. I have no interest in being a Rush Limbaugh type celebrity. I have no intention of profiting from what I am doing in any way so see no benefit putting too much of my identity out there and deal with any unpleasantness that may entail.
I am simply exchanging ideas with other people. I have no grandiose opinion of myself or my ability to change the world. Nor do I have a big ego so I don't have the need to get credit for any interesting insights I may have. Besides does it really matter that a persons name is attached to a thought? Have you ever read an insightful or moving poem, or idea that just happened to be anonymous? Did it's anonymity take anything away from it?
So wether Steve Greenfield or Henry8's name is attached to insightful post makes absolutely no difference to me. And I hate to break the news to everyone but most likely if I share an idea that I read here with someone else, I will do it simply as "Hey I read this interesting thing on Common Dreams the other day".
The two of us have based our choice to be anonymous or not by our past experiences which have obviously been quite different. I am not passing judgement on you choice and I would appreciate the same consideration from you.
I've had people threaten me. I've had my photo and address posted on the front page of Storm Front because I was fighting neonazi recruitment in my town. Their point person here was called Yankee Jim (Jim Leshkevich, he used his real name frequently enough), and as uncomfortable as I was with the threat, so much more so was I when he murdered his wife and killed himself a year or so ago. You can find all of this on Google or here http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=225x1818 and www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=173424) I've also had people pull guns while I was demonstrating against the wars. That's just how it goes. Otherwise, we all stay indoors and type. Imagine where the labor and racial equality movements would be if they had all stayed indoors and typed.
I'm not telling you it can't be rough out there. It is. It always has been. I am telling you that you're around 2000 times more likely to be hit by a cab when you step off the curb than you are to be harmed for using your name in your activism. You're also 2000 times less likely to succeed if you don't. Everyone who needs a cab hails one, despite the risk. But when we want to change the world, we stay indoors and type behind a nickname.
I have to judge your choice, not as a person but as an activist, because I believe in doing things that work. Typing on Common Dreams and Huff Post anonymously does nothing. Being out in the real world, even if it means taking a risk far lower than that entailed in hailing a cab, gets things done.
This article concerned anonymity's effect on online civility, and that is what my responses were concerned with. I am not an activist, let me repeat that I AM NOT AN ACTIVIST. Do you understand... not an activist... I post here for a combination self education and entertainment, and don't want to deal with a bunch of B/S by putting my personal information out on the WWW because, all together now: I AM NOT AN ACTIVIST.
One of the reasons I am NOT an activist is because our government doesn't give a rats butt of what we think. Remember the world wide protests before we went into Iraq. Yup did a lot of good. We still went in. You know why? Because they don't care what anybody thinks, not you, not me, not the rest of the world.
The overwhelming majority of people didn't want the banks bailed out. That didn't matter either. Because they don't care what we think. The majority of people want a public health care plan, and we can see how that is going. See a pattern developing here.
I applaud you for being an activist, even though I am not one, (remember), but if you really want to see how things get done in the "real world" watch the lobbying that the corporations do. That's the real way things get done in D.C. now a days. The only political bones that may be thrown our way will be the ones that don't concern the big corporations.
Now I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone so I can go back to the cowardly, pointless, meaningless, anonymous life that I lead, and thank you in advance for your compliance with my request.
Sincerely
Still not an Activist NC-Tom
I hope you realize, since I'm not writing to you personally via email, that, like the editors of CD and the author of the article, I'm writing to the readership. I also know I changed her subject with my original post. That's largely because so much of what's written about in CD, both by authors and posters, is activism-oriented. Of course you have every right to not be an activist, and you also happen to be one of the civil posters, so in your case use of a nickname doesn't support the author's thesis, either.
But I disagree with you about whether activism can succeed. We haven't had any in a long time, not since the No Nukes days. Nor have we developed a progressive popular culture in the wake of our successes in the '50s through '70s, while the Fundamentalist Christians and the Limbaugh-Fox News nexus have worked tirelessly, and quite successfully, to do just that. That's why it's going to be very hard to undo them, whereas it was very easy to undo us.
Sure, those things you mention are happening despite public opposition. But there's a difference between polled opposition and active opposition. One thing we all conveniently forget during our anti-Obama indignation is that he specifically said "now make me do it." He was telling us something important when he said that. All the people who wanted to make him do things got very busy getting all over him. The problem is none of them were progressive. We did our typical "we won the election, let's go home." So a good share of the blame does lie with the progressive sector of the population. Some of us are lazy. Some of us take too much for granted. Most of us are a combination of both. The smart, winning movements understand their work begins the day after Election Day. The losing ones think that's the day to go on vacation. That's how it was when progressives were winning, and that's how it is for the thirty-odd years that we're losing. It's only a no-win situation if we all agree to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy, not unlike all those people who want single payer who are instead fighting for the "public option" because they're buying into the "politically feasible" argument the centrists invented as a strategy to defeat the progressives. Stopping abortion isn't politically feasible, either, but you don't see the anti-abortion people arguing for sex ed and birth control as a way of reducing the need for abortion. They go all out, and in recent times the idea of overturning Roe V. Wade seems perilously feasible.
So you don't have to be an activist, but somebody out there does. And if anyone out there does want to be an activist, I'm telling you that you're going to have to start using your names. And while I certainly won't tell you to be civil towards your opponents, just as Alinsky advised, being civil towards your friends is a good idea. And a person doesn't have to agree with you on everything to be your friend. 80% is about as good as it gets, and that's pretty damn good, because 80% is a lot better than nothing, which is where we're starting. So be vile towards your enemies, and civil towards your friends, and pay more attention to figuring out which is which.
Steve
Does the fact that congressmen and senators address themselves as "Honorable" make their actions any more palitable? I think not.
Civility is a goal to be strived for. On occassion there may be that one individual intent upon shock, but they're usually taken down by the moderator. I agree with Yr Obd't Servant on this. Roll with the punches
Will you put my name in your mind,your book,your gun?It matters not for death is a new adventure.Civility has nothing to do with opinions and I enjoy giving the finger in cyberspace to any and all whom I think deserve it and will take my lumps also with that attitude.Use my first name to sign all comments and have posted my personal bonifieds before and see no reason at all do do it every time as "mustbefree" says it for me all the time.Post on Huffpo also and my moniker is freedomis and wouldn't think of changing either one.Been a private person for 73 years.Tony
Anonymity on the Web offends most journalists I know, and not just because their own names go on everything they write.
Too bad anonymity on Capitol Hill doesn't offend most politicians when bills are passed without names attached to them.