Zeno Group Blog

Anyone who has spent any time reading blogs, news sites and forums knows how often the conversations on these sites degrade into name-calling, insults, accusations, and generally uncivil discourse. The cause of this incivility is widely written and pondered about; I personally believe that the combination of anonymity and the platform provided by the Internet causes people to ignore the decency “filters” they use in everyday life. Real-life social settings carry the threat of repercussion or scorn by your peers if one says something distasteful – not so on the Internet.

I spoke to Jonathan Martin of Politico.com about this at the Politico 2008 Election Conference last Saturday and he mentioned that the Politico editorial staff was confronting this exact issue. As the political fervor increased during the 2008 election, the quality of the comments on Politico’s blogs dropped sharply; readers started attacking the candidates, impugning the writers, and insulting each other’s intelligence. The editors were left wondering; what balance should they strike between allowing the community members to speak their minds and preserving the civility of the conversations.

Politico is not the only publisher facing this issue. Sites have taken various steps to combat the problem: some have banned posting of comments, some require registration and identity confirmation (on the hope that writers will be more civil if it can be tied back to them), and some, like Politico, have no restrictions and let people write what they will. The decision to restrict commenting is especially difficult for journalistic sites, since they exist to disseminate information and foster discussion – not to stifle it.

However, this problem also presents an issue for any company that provides an online forum for its customers. Are you a technology company with an online support forum, a social networking site, or a blog? How do you decide what should be allowed and what “crosses the line”. What do you do when someone writes something negative about your company, in a negative tone (as opposed to a legitimate negative review/experience)? Do you remove it and risk being attacked for censoring criticism, or do you leave it up and allow the quality of the forum to degrade.

There are no simple answers to any of these questions, and the best way to protect yourself and your company from an awkward situation or public relations crisis is to formulate a comprehensive policy before the issues arise. Create a registration process and lay out exactly what you expect from forum members; continually monitor the forums and moderate comments or posts that violate the decency rules; and finally, apply the rules fairly and firmly across the entire community – this consistency will help reinforce the standards across the community and protect you from being accused of censoring posts later on.

As for Politico; they have decided, after much internal debate, to leave the comments unmoderated.

Tags: Online Discussions

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Politics, Social Media . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.