Author Topic: Good Question: Why Are There So Many Mean, Anonymous Commenters Online?  (Read 1234 times)

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Offline AlanS

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Can't be because the government gives us so many reasons to rant.

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Novelist Anne Rice, best known for her books about vampires, has signed onto a petition asking Amazon.com to stop allowing people to post anonymous reviews. In an interview with the Guardian, Rice says the “anti-author gangsters” make her a victim of bullying.

It doesn’t take long to find a cruel, anonymous comment on everything from newspaper websites to Yelp and Amazon.

“That’s the stupidest book I’ve ever read,” wrote one person while reviewing a novel on Amazon.

Well-known vlogger, ZE Frank, recently taped a YouTube video responding to online critics. In it, he says: “For example, some young gentleman said he wanted to punch me in the face because my voice was so annoying.”

A Pew Research study found 25 percent of people admit to posting anonymous comments online. A communications professor at the University of Houston studying the issue found anonymity contributes to less civil discourse. He looked at online comments in newspapers for more than a year and half and found 53 percent of comments were uncivil in papers that allowed anonymity. That percentage dropped to 29 percent when newspapers required names or links to Facebook accounts.

“I think people are also much more inclined to comment about something if they have a complaint. Sometimes it’s the only way you feel that you can be heard, so it winds up feeling like online comment sections are filled with negativity,” said Shayla Thiel-Stern, a professor of new media and culture at the University of Minnesota.

Though she says it’s hard to study, Thiel-Stern believes anonymous online posters are generally a small group with a loud voice.

“We just don’t know,” she said.

That research difficulty was acknowledged in a 2013 study that found writing and reading online rants was unhealthy and the people that do it are generally angrier.

“It’s just people trying to get a rise out of folks, trying to get other trolls to come out and hijack a conversation,” said Sam McConnell of Minneapolis.

Thiel-Stern says anonymity makes it easier for some people to post things they normally might not.

“I don’t think we’re getting meaner as a society,” she said. “I think social media emphasizes some of that meanness.”

Websites are able to allow as many or as few comments as they like, the posters are still held to same defamation standards.

“A lot of people think the internet is anything goes. That’s just not true,” said University of Minnesota journalism professor Amy Kristin Sanders. “Any actionable speech printed in a newspaper would be actionable online as well.”

She does acknowledge, though, legally finding out the identity of an anonymous poster can be difficult, because there is no national legal standard for what is necessary in the courts to unmask an identity.



We're meanies.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

Thomas Jefferson

Offline Weisshaupt

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Of course we are "meanies" - simply telling the left they can't have what they want is something they consider "mean"
So every time you point out you are a independent individual with inalienable rights, you are being mean.
Every time you point out reality,   that resources are finite and that you can't have your cake and eat it too, or that  there are consequences to bad behavior, you are being mean. (or hateful, or racist, or bigoted)

They have to dismiss what you are saying because the alternative is actually listening to and responding to what you say.

Offline ChrstnHsbndFthr

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Anonymity is the epitome of free speech.  Not that I believe any of us are truly anonymous, even on the internet.  But, in the beginning, our founders remained anonymous as long as possible. And even when they were advocating for freedom, and the establishment of a constitutional republic, they did it anonymously. 

I see this petition and others like it as an effort to kill free speech. They only want us to say what is acceptable. No.
“My mission today is to go forth and tell people about why I follow Christ and also what the Bible teaches, and part of that teaching is that women and men are meant to be together.

“However, I would never treat anyone with disrespect just because they are different from me. We are all created by the Almighty and like Him, I love all of humanity. We would all be better off if we loved God and loved each other.”
Phil Robertson an elder in the church of Christ

Offline Libertas

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Idiots.

Do these people know who "Publius" is in our history?  Do they have any clue?

Nobody is a bigger bully than a progressive...so when opportunity knocks...give them a good push!

We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.

Offline oldcoastie6468

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I am proud to be a "meanie"!!
U.S. Coast Guard veteran, 1964-1968

Will Rogers never met Barack Obama. He would not like Obama.

I hate liberals. Liberalism is a disease that causes severe brain damage after it tries to suck knowledge and history out of yours.

Online Pandora

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Rice says the “anti-author gangsters” make her a victim of bullying.

Oh good grief, woman.  Grow up.
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

"Let us assume for the moment everything you say about me is true. That just makes your problem bigger, doesn't it?"

Offline Glock32

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Vampire novels, the literary fodder of teenage fat girls. Anne Rice is also largely responsible for this neo-eroticism that has become associated with the modern vampire genre (particularly homoeroticism), so basically you can read right between the lines and you just know she is linked with the whole "anti-bullying" movement and other fashionably queer causes of the day.

I can't believe what a bunch of soft pansies the people of this country have turned into. Putin, the Chinese, and the Musloids have quite correctly figured out that the feckless Obama is merely representative of an equally feckless population.
"The Fourth Estate is less honorable than the First Profession."

- Yours Truly

Offline Alphabet Soup

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The prevailing feeeeeeeeling is that those who post anonymously wouldn't dare repeat their comments in person. That may be true - but not universal. I have no problem speaking my mind (it gets me into trouble all the time!) but the main reason why I post anonymously is because of cowards who would damage me behind my back.

Anyone who has had a campaign sign stolen  or a bumper sticker resulting in a keyed car (that eliminates leftists who are perpetrators but not victims) knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Offline oldcoastie6468

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The prevailing feeeeeeeeling is that those who post anonymously wouldn't dare repeat their comments in person. That may be true - but not universal. I have no problem speaking my mind (it gets me into trouble all the time!) but the main reason why I post anonymously is because of cowards who would damage me behind my back.

Same here. In person I'll tell it like it is, but not on the 'net, with all of its goofballs.
U.S. Coast Guard veteran, 1964-1968

Will Rogers never met Barack Obama. He would not like Obama.

I hate liberals. Liberalism is a disease that causes severe brain damage after it tries to suck knowledge and history out of yours.

Offline Libertas

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I agree, I hold back a bit online.  People who know me...sometimes don't publically admit knowing me.   ;D
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.