The internet has always been a medium that allows privacy for its users. We have all enjoyed the notion of being able to do almost anything online without having to reveal our identity. As a result of this, many users have chosen to express themselves in ways that are obscene and inappropriate. And with such behaviour becoming more prominent, many news websites are considering pulling back on allowing anonymous comments.
Disallowing anonymous comments is not a bad idea considering some of the contents that are being posted in comment fields. With things like bigotry, swearing (scroll to the bottom) and explicit sexual comments, these contents can and will deface the image of news organizations.
Asking readers to register with their email address and to post a real picture versus an avatar may be one step in the right direction to avoid insanity. However, it will take more than just that to weed out the corrupted commenters. Nowadays, commenters are becoming more and more clever in posting explicit contents (scroll all the to the bottom) without being noticed. And so, news papers will have to invest in more sophisticated tools that will filter out such comments.
Many readers may argue that it is their freedom of speech which I agree. But it is not about the readers as much as it is about the reputation of the news paper. Further more, if readers are bold enough to spill their guts then they should be bold enough to show their faces.
andrewbeckfordweekly 