Autostraddle:: Who the heck are these anonymous Internet commenters, anyway?

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS:

After facing a flurry of offensive and out-of-line comments on a post about Obama’s aunt, Boston.com decided to take a closer look at that special breed of human — the anonymous online commenter. They contacted a whole range of people picked from their database of commenters and asked them to talk to a reporter. Not surprisingly, the true trolls of the bunch declined to be interviewed. But plenty of folks who post frequently, passionately and anonymously did agree. Here’s the conclusions the reporter drew from one subject, Stanley Talabachh:

Overall, he plays by the rules, works hard at this commenter job of his, and, in a way, serves his community. After reading his posts and spending time with him, I believe him when he tells me that, even though he’s anonymous online, he would never write anything that he wouldn’t say “mano a mano.” That, incidentally, strikes me as a pretty good standard for separating the stand-up commenters from the cowardly name-callers.

On most sites, anonymity removes any incentive to be a decent human being. A lot of people feel that compunction anyway, but there are also plenty who have no problems abandoning civility:

Yoshimi25 says that because the Front Burner message board is such an intimate group, the regulars on it tend to behave well, even though they’re anonymous. “Although I can say anything I want without consequences,” she says, “you should behave as though there are consequences.”

That gets to the heart of the problem. The comments sections on many general-interest news sites lack both the carrot and the stick for encouraging responsible behavior. The carrot is the cohesion of a group you don’t want to disappoint, like Yoshimi25’s Front Burner community. The stick is the shame associated with having your real name publicly attached to embarrassing behavior. Without these two levers, the social contract breaks down.

Actually we deal with these issues all the time here at Autostraddle. We’re lucky because we try to build a real sense of community among readers, and we think that gives our comment sections a certain degree of protection from true trolls and flamers. Look at posts that were read mostly by non-Autostraddlers — Riese’s essay on Taylor Swift is perhaps the best example — and you’ll quickly see the difference between those comments and the ones on, say, a typical daily fix. You guys keep each other honest! Isn’t that great!

Anyway, we’re pretty sad that the reporter didn’t get to interview a real troll. Or a real Troll, that would’ve been awesome, too. But you could still consider a few of the interviewees just shy of crazy, and the article is quite fascinating either way.