State your case: Facebook comments
The case for comment moderation:
It isn’t news that online comment sections are plagued with incivility and vitriolic discussions, but things are getting out of hand. Gone are the days when one could engage in a productive conversation without resorting to ad hominem attacks.
To borrow from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” — something is rotten in the state of Facebook.
While Facebook is not the only medium suffering from a crisis of civility, it certainly boasts the largest user base. Nearly everyone — including their dogs — has an account and spends countless hours scrolling and voicing their opinions. Mind you, the word “opinion” is used loosely, since contributing to comment sections has devolved into digital slugfests.
This is where things get tricky; how do you separate the toxic discourse from the everyday debate? The problem isn’t with the general public’s collective penchant for spirited dialogue, it’s with the prevalence of mean-spirited and hateful trolling. A large population on Facebook gets its kicks by attacking fellow users’ by hurling insults.
Rather than forming logical rebuttals, social media conversations are riddled with words such as “snowflake,” “deplorable” and the ubiquitous “moron” or “loser.” It is no longer required to provide facts or reason to prove a point, just the right meme or snarky remark.
Not only does this hostility create an unstable online environment, it also fosters the spread of misinformation, further weaponizing the rhetoric on either side of the political spectrum. Trust in opposing viewpoints is nearly impossible to achieve when one or both sides vilify the other and their “news” sources claim everything the “opposition” says are lies.
Cyberbullying. According to the website dosomething.org, about 37 percent of youth between the ages of 12 and 17 have been bullied online. A 2012 study published in The Journal of Social Psychology reported that 30 percent of people experienced cyberbullying at work.
So what can be done?
Obviously any alterations to the current public commenting system will cause people to accuse the platform of infringing on their First Amendment rights, although that argument isn’t technically correct. Facebook is a private company, one that exists outside of the government protections reserved for citizens, religious groups and the press.
If anything, Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to fact-check political ads and selective banning practices are antithetical to the First Amendment. There are, however, reasonable options which may encourage users to think twice about what they say online.
First, increase the number of moderators in each comment section and require real-time feedback. No one likes to be policed while having a discussion, but having moderators give feedback in public chat groups will drastically cut down on unnecessary trolling and unwanted misbehavior.
Second, overhaul fact-checking methods. This would tie into the first suggestion, as the real-time moderators would provide links within the comment sections giving an alternate, more factual account than a potentially false article a commenter references. Also, Facebook does need to fact check political ads to hold accountable those seeking to occupy roles in government where trust and honesty is vital to public support.
Lastly, placing a limit on time between comments would be a good way to foster a less turbulent environment. Too often, trolls filibuster their way through a discussion by posting memes and one-word comments to drown out any opposition and making them wait a minute would allow others to be involved as well.
It is a sad indictment on society when a simple concept such as social media has been clouded by hostile people, which is why something needs to be done. Civility and those who hold it dear need to take back Facebook.
Scott Froehlich is a junior who is studying print journalism. He moved to Logan with his wife and son from Price, Utah, where they attended school at Utah State University Eastern. His passions include hockey and politics, both of which are contact sports.
The case against comment moderation:
Facebook should allow users to continue to comment on other people’s posts. Taking away the commenting function on Facebook would be taking away the freedom of speech, which is unconstitutional. On top of that, removing the commenting function would prevent positive interactions, debates and perspectives from surfacing on the social media platform.
Everyone deserves to be heard, whether they’re right or not. Having the freedom of speech is a unique right that should not be taken for granted. Of course, the freedom of speech also comes with a few caveats.
The comment section is driven by the people and people aren’t always bad. Comment sections provide “a forum for people who might feel uncomfortable sharing their opinions offline either due to social or legal repercussions.” In other words, comment sections give a voice to the voiceless. How could we possibly justify getting rid of comment sections or censoring comment sections if they give people the opportunity to speak up?
Perhaps it would be helpful to remember why we have Facebook in the first place. Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder and CEO of Facebook said, “the thing that we are trying to do at Facebook, is just to help people connect and communicate more efficiently … it was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.”
If the goal of Facebook is for users to be more open and connected with each other, censoring comments would run completely counter to that goal. How can we possibly be connected to each other if we aren’t allowed to have open dialogue in comment sections? Blocking comments restricts Facebook users from openly conversing and debating in a constructive manner.
Of course, there will always be people who refuse to debate or discuss things in a reasonable, kind way. Journalists, who often write their opinions online, are on the receiving end of internet abuse more than most. According to Wired, “the current process goes like this: Journalist writes an article. Article is published. People write comments. Journalist peeks at the comments, and sees a lot of meanness and abuse.” But that isn’t the end of the story. There are a few different endings, but I only know the ending of mine.
I wrote an opinion piece for the Statesman not too long ago that got quite a few negative comments. People criticized my ability to write and declared that I am a person of “no knowledge.” In fact, one individual said that I was selling my soul, and the soul of America, for the sake of party loyalty. All of these things were said over Facebook, because I had an opinion about something and wrote about it.
The people who wrote unkind things about me didn’t even know me. Reading those comments impacted me on a very personal level. I started to wonder if I should be writing at all. Still, no matter how unkind someone’s words are, the first amendment entitles them to vocalize their opinion. They are allowed to say them. The negativity we see in comment sections on Facebook are simply reflections of larger societal problems, such as abuse, bullying and bigotry. The problem is not the comment sections, it’s the people commenting.
At the end of the day, I agree with Justin Ellis, who states, “I don’t know that you can engineer around bad habits of a community. I just don’t think that’s gonna work. I think you actually need to establish norms of behavior that people will follow because they care about the space.” In other words, people follow social norms. The unkindness in comment sections is not reason to remove comment sections altogether; that doesn’t fix the problem. By removing comment sections we will continue to be guilty of rewarding the bullying and verbally abusive language that takes place on Facebook. Instead of taking the easy way out and removing the commenting function, we need to learn how to stand up for each other. We need to stop letting the bullies win.
Emily White is a junior studying English and broadcast journalism. She is from Kaysville, Utah, and spends her time reading, writing and listening to podcasts.
The featured graphic for this article was made by cartoonist Keith Wilson. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily match his own.