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Despite what is said on news sites around the Internet, a movement against anonymous comments section has slowly gathered steam over the past few years. In August 2013, the New York state legislature even debated an ambitious bill that would have required all website administrators to pull down anonymous comments from "social networks, blogs, forums, message boards or any other discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages." https://www.theguardian.com/technology/us-news-blog/2012/may/23/anonymous-comment-ban-new-york
If everyone were to sit back and think about it, is allowing "strangers" to comment their opinion online for anyone to see worth the time? Ultimately, whether people believe it or not, the negative comments wrote online either anonymously or not, is cyber bullying.
From experience, I have watched people I know, friends, family, and even myself at times re-read every little thing I write before posting, afraid of what people's response may be. As a writer myself, I truly believe it should not be an option to leave your opinion online.
Posting a nasty personal comment or an insulting book review online- whether you're keeping yourself protected or not, is morally questionable. Although in some cases, we want people to contribute to the conversation, if the conversation is worth having. However not everyone that has something to contribute is something you, as a reader would want to hear. Disallowing comments being made online such as on blogs, articles or book reviews could cut back on the amount of cyber bullying and cyber-harassment within online journalism.
I've never really been a fan of the comments section. When writing on sites which allow comments to be made, it's the writer's choice to either read them or pretend they're not there however, avoiding them is quite difficult, if I say so myself.
The question that tends to be floating around recently is, "Will there ever be an end to comments being available online?" Honestly, probably not. Although these negative comments may bring the writer's down and make others mad, there are positive comments within the negativity and cyber-harrasment as well. Feedback from your readers is very important as a writer and without that, how can we receive the confidence we need to continue the inclined progress with our writing?
People remain people, whether behind keyboards or at your dinner table. That means we can and do take action and decide what kind of spaces we want to create; it's for this reason, comment systems have blocking tools and some social media sites have restrictions.
When it comes to online newspapers, comments are thought to be an added value- providing another reason to read. You come for the article and stay for the interesting discussion. The only problem is, there is no interesting discussion. Almost never.
The debate whether the "cyber-harrasment" should be stopped or not because of people needing feedback on their online writing, is ongoing.
No matter who you are or what you're writing about, there will always be at least one person disagreeing with your opinion- and that's how the comments section will help them get their opinion publicized to you and your readers.
-T
