This Story Stinks
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Of course the paradise was lost for the oppressing media. Long live the internet.
"Comments from some readers, our research shows, can significantly distort what other readers think was reported in the first place"
Research would show that your lies significantly distort what readers think in the first place.
"But as they say, the genie is out of the bottle."
You would happily undo this whole internet thingie, wouldn't you?
This guy just lauded the internet as a bastion of debate, and then in the same breath bemoaned the fact that the dirty proles get to talk back.
It's not a "debate" if other people don't get a say, it's propaganda...
Civility does not mean blindly agreeing. It means just that: acting civil.
However, what he does argue against is rudeness and insults. Essentially, not debating, but slinging mud.
"Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought."
Simply put, you can act civil even if you disagree. This does provide value. However, when that civility is removed, the results are polarizing.
If you can't see the benefits of civil debate, you are an idiot.
Just to be clear, I did not really mean this:
"If you can't see the benefits of civil debate, you are an idiot."
It was intended to have a tone completely different from the rest of the comment. And so, despite the rest of the comment being sound, this one sentence caused a rift.
So, I did not add it to insult. I added it to make a point, and you highlighted that point so much better than you realized.
That being said, if you can't handle being called an idiot on the internet, you unfortunately probably are an idiot (on the internet).
Forget about what you think of the Times or any other major media outlet for a moment and just focus on the point of the article and you'll see the author makes some great points.
Supposing for a moment that the NYT and other outlets are trustworthy, doing a good journalistic job, etc. This research shows that people who write ignorant comments, especially if they're written in a tone not much different than your own right now to be honest, can distort what others think of the information presented. This is not a good thing. The people who comment based on emotion rather than reason are able to sway people into not only believing something potentially wrong but such comments also take otherwise thoughtful people and get them acting and thinking based on emotion rather than reason.
If you yourself were to make some very good point about topic X that was well-researched and could potentially help to inform and make many peoples' lives better but then some asshole contrarian comes along and makes some emotional appeal that sways people in the opposite direction. How incredibly frustrated would you feel knowing that a potentially enlightening conversation could have ensued but now it's just a rat's nest of ignorance like YouTube?
I don't know how you turned this into a statement against media outlets but this is actually something that applies broadly and is not just harmful for the Times or the other "evil" media outlets.
Crude Comments and Concern: Online Incivility's Effect on Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12009/full
Not paying attention to the publisher, I've gotta say that I find myself agreeing more often than not. Sometimes, comments do great- but anything above a readership in a couple hundred thousand, and suddenly it all goes to hell.
You'll get a mix of misunderstanding, people inserting their own bias, memetic derailing bullshit, and a whole lot of people who think they're experts, for whatever poor reason they found. This isn't because they're trolls, or horrible people; We all have done it. We all do it. It's being human.
But the problem is, finding the signal in all that noise is just impossible given our current means of filtering. Different outlets have tried different ways of getting people to put more thoughts behind their posts- requiring real names, Facebook accounts, hell, entire companies like Disqus have sprung up for the exact purpose of trying to foster better conversations. And while they all make a decent change, none of them even solve a quarter of the problem.
About the only solution I've ever seen, is heavy-handed moderation. But that opens you up to 'censorship' comments, as we've seen here. Personally, I can't help but feel like maybe it'd be better if real, substantive stories and opinion pieces just didn't have comments; If a person wants to respond, let them go through the effort of making their own blog post, and addressing the author with it on Twitter or in e-mail. It'd certainly lead to more productive conversation. It's partly why I wish there were more intellectually-minded Tumblr accounts, as their format for this is perfect, with reblogging.
This isn't to say comments are all bad, or that they don't serve a purpose. Just that sometimes, all this social doesn't actually produce better content.
I do something similar when reading HN. Scrolling through the headlines, I (almost) never click on the link itself. Instead, I open the discussion tabs, make a snap judgement about the quality of the piece from there, and click through only when it's clearly worthwhile. The ease with which this filter can be applied is the most amazing thing. At this point, it feels so fluid and natural that I do it reflexively.
A few years ago news outlets were coming to terms with the idea that there was no front page online. Yes, some readers did go to the outlets home page and decide what to read from there. But more often than not, they were coming directly to a piece that would have been buried in a print edition. The social layer further diminishes editorial control, in that people can further economize their quotient of attention by finding and trusting informal social groups that reduce the megaphone effect enjoyed by the analog press even further.
Heavy handed censorship turns rude commenters who should be simply ignored into internet terrorists, Facebook comments dilutes the conversation by making people self consciously edit themselves and Twitter or Tumblr replies are like shouting into the wind.
Good old semi-anonymous Reddit comments still perform though, even with a user base of millions of bratty kids the best stuff usually floats to the top.
This is not new (go look at some of the early Presidential elections - 1800 is a good start). The only real difference is that science and technology have advanced and people's understanding hasn't kept up. We now have a lot more people commenting on things with whole services built for it.
Its kissing cousin is the "Link Bait Headline". Its basically an aggressive comment used as a title naming some items or concepts people hold dear.
The internet permits you to reply to anything - get a tumblr. If your opinions are valued, you will attract a following.
People have always disagreed with newspapers. It's just that prior to the internet, the overhead to respond was much higher.
I disagree. Oh, I'm sure if you dislike the source, you are more apt to dismiss them. What I disagree with is the nature of these comments and who they are coming from.
Nasty comments are most likely coming from people who disagree with the premise presented in the article, not who is writing the article. There is also the study that shows that other comments will induce you into taking one side or another. Any comment you make can easily be just as volatile.
Point is, the epidemic has nothing to do with the source, but rather, the message. I do not have enough faith that all those nasty comments are from people who've done proper research into what reporters and newspapers strive to do.
In the end, it's easier to blame someone else for your failings at civility.
[1] https://boards.4chan.org/g/ (NSFW)
That would mean that, the best way to influence people is to use expletives. If it's true then there's no wonder so many people are rude on the internet - it's the best way to get your message across!
Incidentally, Chalabi went to MIT and studied under Whitfield Diffie, of Diffie-Hellman key exchange fame.