In the past, if you didn’t like a news story, you muttered to yourself as you put down the paper or flipped the channel. Only if you were extremely incensed and motivated would you write a letter to the editor (with no such option for TV or radio news). To be published, you had to sign your name and provide contact information proving you were a real human being. There was a real possibility the editor might call you up and confirm that, yes, you did indeed write the diatribe, before running it. There was accountability at many levels, but most importantly, because your name was attached to anything you said.
These days, letters to the editor are soooo 20th century, but comments are 21st. Post an article online, and expect the comments to flow.
This week CBC decided to ditch the comments section on a certain subset of stories – anything applying to indigenous people (aoriginal is apparently no longer cool, according to what was probably the eighth renaming of the federal ministry responsible for our First Nations). It turns out almost any story talking about indigenous issues is apt to get way more than its fair share of racist comments, and trying to police the comments section for such statements is, um, difficult. CBC hopes to figure out a way to get those comments back up in the New Year, presumably by automating a way to censor all the bad things people say.
CBC’s comments section can get pretty wild. In no time flat, you can see 1,925 comments on one story. It’s like a tidal wave.
The biggest problem is anonymity. People will say all sorts of nasty things if no one calls them out on it. But tie it to their name, and it’s a whole new ball game.
That’s especially true today, where a misguided Twitter post, less than 140 characters long, can get you fired or dropped as a political candidate, even if that post was made years ago. These days, you’re just as well to delete everything on your social media accounts (especially Twitter) if you want to keep your job. The first thing some grievance collector will do to out you as a nasty person is seek out any piece of dirt that can be attributed to you, ever, including when you may or may not have been sober.
The solution to CBC’s problem, of course, is to make people accountable, using real names instead of fake ones. When accountability becomes real, most people will keep a civil tongue.
Comments sections are a double-edged sword. They engage your audience, sometimes intensely. In media, that’s always desired (especially if you are selling advertising). But they can be a real headache, too — the aforementioned nastiness in the majority of comments. It becomes non-productive dealing with this.
Personally, I like comments, and often engage in them. But I have always used my own name, just as I do with this weekly column. It has its own comment section.
Facebook has tried to enforce a “real name” policy over the years. It can be used for comment sections, too, resulting in “your name is attached” accountability. That may be the way CBC has to go.
As for the underlying issue of racism directed towards indigenous people, it goes to show there’s a host of issues and resentment on all sides.
Every so often I see a meme online saying something along the lines of “Thank God they didn’t have the Internet when I was young.” There’s a whole generation that might regret their online histories now.
— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
