Here there be Trolls

From a New York Times piece about news sites experimenting with eliminating anonymous comments on their articles:

“Anonymity is just the way things are done. It’s an accepted part of the Internet, but there’s no question that people hide behind anonymity to make vile or controversial comments,” said Arianna Huffington, a founder of The Huffington Post. “I feel that this is almost like an education process. As the rules of the road are changing and the Internet is growing up, the trend is away from anonymity.”

This is a pretty good summary of the debate. Having worked on several projects that sparked significant comments/debate, I've found the Amazon-style model that allows other readers to rank comments really helps. The crowd is damn smart and this frees "editors" from having to constantly police things. Craigslist is particularly good at this.

It helps also to have an "ignore" feature, allowing individual readers to avoid personalities they don't like. Facebook's "block" feature works this way. When you block someone, you can't see them and they can't see you. Even in searches. Most "Trolls" thrive off goading people arguing back... and when the arguments don't happen, they get bored and move elsewhere.

The article misses several things:

1) Anonymity also has an upside--in allowing honesty where it can't be put forth for fear of ramifications. This can be as simple as someone having a really bad experience at a popular restaurant. It can be as complex as an employee "whistleblower" at a corporation. I liken this to journalists protecting their sources. It's important even on the small scale. We don't want to squelch communication here just because someone might write something harshly critical or use offensive language.

2) I think some of these publications underestimate how many of their readers come to see/join in the fight. I've watched many sites shut down debate for the same reason and lose readers. It's like salacious gossip. Collectively, we like it more than we're willing to admit.

3) Given the history of anonymity from the earliest days of public use of the Internet, users always find a way around the system. Those who really want to play Troll will find a way to create fake/anonymous accounts.

That said, transparency rules the day in the professional practice of public relations. The downsides just aren't worth it. Just ask the CEO of Whole Foods.

Edit of one more thing: Adding #4 to my list of 3: There's also an element of audience managing their own reading/participation in the list. Though there are certainly Trolls and those who are hyper-sensitive to them, like all things human interaction, regular conversation participants (whether lurkers or posters) quickly learn to filter out the extreme messages. For instance, it's often reported that regular users of Amazons's comments system will ignore the extreme ratings (5 stars or 9 stars) to gravitate toward those who gave a middle-star rating and thoughtful insight into the value of the item they're reviewing. Audiences are more adept at filtering than we often give them credit for. Though we hear extreme stories in the news (i.e. a girl committing suicide because of mean postings on her Facebook account), those stories make the news specifically because they are exceptions. Not the norm.