UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
More in the ongoing discussion of the damage trolls (and heavy-handed censorship) are doing to online discussion spaces: at Salon yesterday, Colin McEnroe argues persuasively that if internet discussion sites don’t soon deal proactively with “orange-fanged morons” trolling these sites, the promise of the internet as a place for open, fruitful discussion of important issues affecting all of us will be choked in its infancy. As many other observers of the trolling phenomenon note, McEnroe points out that an overwhemling percentage of the online attacks target women.
He writes,
In recent days: a feminist culture critic was driven from her home by violent comments and emails; Jezebel, frustrated by the deaf ear of its Gawker father ship, published an open letter to management begging for help with rape GIF trolls; and over at Reddit, which would seem uniquely well-poised for self-policing its trolls, one subreddit was so overrun that it resorted to (wait for it) publishing an open letter to management begging for help.
McEnroe concludes,
Meanwhile, online publishers need their noses pushed into the following truth: your comment section really does say a lot about your whole operation. If it’s uncivil, indifferent to humanity, hostile to women, sub-literate, sloppily administered and shitty, well, maybe that’s you. I suppose here is the place to say I think Salon’s comments are pretty good. I mean, they’re negative and grumpy but suggestive of a well-informed, keen-eyed reader who inevitably thinks he could have done a much better job with this topic. I’ll take that any day.
But if your comments are full of racist taunts, rape GIFs, blowjob putdowns, and off-topic personal invective, please understand, that stuff is all sitting, metaphorically, in your lobby. You might want to tidy up.
Meanwhile, over at the National Catholic Reporter site, where a longtime commenter who writes exceptionally literate and thoughtful responses to news articles about Catholic issues, Jerry Slevin, recently found himself banned from commenting, other people continue to be given free rein to leave comments full of venom directed at certain targeted minority groups, notably gay folks and women. Just this morning, I opened my email inbox to find an email from a regular commenter at this blog, who also comments on NCR articles.
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