November 26, 2015

Internet trolls love comment sections because they can be as awful as they want while hiding behind a digital mask of anonymity. But now one newspaper is changing its policy so that commenters' names are exposed, both going forward and retroactively. This, predictably, has a lot of people up in arms.

The Montana Standard has always required users to register with the site by providing their real names. Once commenters are through that process, though, they can use a screen name when they post comments (this is fairly standard stuff). As of Jan. 1, 2016, the Butte, Montana-based newspaper is making all comments, going back years, appear with attributions to commenters' real names.

It’s one thing to tell users that all their future comments will be attached to their real names. But is it fair to suddenly unmask people who believed they were posting anonymously? The Washington Post quotes Paul Levy, of the Public Citizen Consumer Law & Policy Blog, who expressed concern about how this might imperil some long-term users:

It is...quite possible that some of the commenters may have made comments that place their economic or even physical security at risk from the individuals or companies that they criticized in online comments. Or, their comments might have revealed something about their own experiences or past conduct that they were willing to share with the public anonymously, making a valuable contribution to a discussion, but would never have been willing to provide had they known that their own names would be attached. The Standard could be putting livelihoods and more at risk through its retroactive changes.

cont'd...

Link: http://www.alternet.org/media/newspaper-announces-plans-reveal-commenters-real-names-retroactively