Colin McEnroe Show: Going Anonymous In The Digital Age
Should online users take ownership of what they say?
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Should online users be allowed to stay anonymous?
Photo:Flickr Creative Commons, NIOSH
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Colin McEnroe Show: Going Anonymous in the Digital Age
Today's show divides my value system. I'm a real first amendment guy. I believe that a greater, unfettered flow of information is almost always good.
So when anonymous commentary became the vogue on the Internet, it didn't bother me very much. Why should the only means of response to journalism be a letter to the editor, cherry picked by the publisher and vetted for identity? Maybe people would reveal really important things in a content where they could be nameless.
I've slowly started to revise the view.
Anonymity encourages trolling, the 'net term to destructive, disruptive comments for which the commenter is rarely held responsible. Anonymous trolls often drive people with more mainstream sensibilities off the comment threads and actual inhibit dialogue.
And as you will see today, the debate rages on.
You can join the conversation. Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
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I think the key responsibility, if one enters into the Internet, is to reveal who you are in the United States because no one is put in jail for their opinion.
-Andrew Keen
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Comments
Anonymity on the web
Very good show. Ms Shultz' stories were compelling and I agree with her. I am one of those people very put off by destructive comments, often not even on the topic. A newspaper reader like myself is very put off by this toxicity.
Listener E-mail from Brian
my community blog The Middletown Eye strikes a great balance...... The editors allow you to post anonymously, but both encourages signing your posts, and moderates the posts to ensure that apropriate community standards are met.
Brian
Listener E-mail from James
I am really enjoying your show today!
Here are a couple of thoughts:
1) If the column people are responding to is a factual news column, doesn't that allow the website to restrict the responders to those who are offering either facts or an analysis of the facts rather than rants, gossip and defamation?
2) I feel that the presence of trolls on websites offered by news organizations is part of a continuous flow that includes "news shows" whose aim is to criticise one or another government official under a thin guise of presenting news. There is usually a lack of factual information and many, many questions which the viewer has that are not explored in any way.
3) There is (or should be) a place for people to react emotionally to "news" there should also be an attempt in such exchanges for people to explore and express the underlying emotional reasons for their biases (I mean bias in the most general sense, as in no one is completely objective)
Thanks for your good work.
Sincerely,
James
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