Teen tragedy and online anonymity
When word of tragedy spreads, such as the news that came out Monday about the deaths of five young people from Amherst -- four perished in a car crash and one died from illness -- it's something we want to talk about. At the water cooler (if those exist anymore), the coffee stand or the lunch table, we all say, "Did you hear? ... One of those girls went to grade school with my niece ... Didn't your neighbor, the math teacher, have him in class a couple of years ago? ... "
And our new gathering spots are online. Today's story on Buffalonews.com about the car crash has more than 65 comments from readers. The stories about both tragedies were much commented upon on this site and on the sites of Western New York's TV stations.
Some of the comments are respectful, some even informative. Others, not so much.
When word first came out about the death of 15-year-old Chelsea Oliver from a then-unspecified disease, some comment writers proclaimed that she died from swine flu. Another commenter responded that he was Oliver's father and that his daughter certainly did NOT die from swine flu. (Today's news story says that Oliver had breathing problems that developed into pneumonia and sepsis, and a connection to swine flu has not been ruled out.)
You know what bothers me the most about the opinions and speculation from those comment writers? The fact that they are anonymous. Anyone writing under a pseudonym can post anything they want in a forum for comments, and as long as they don't use profanity or otherwise violate the posting guidelines, they're free to say anything, with no accountability.
I know that in theory this is free speech and in the marketplace of ideas the truth should somehow rise above the din and the nonsense.
But I contrast this to public conversations that take place in forums such as Facebook, where one's identity is known. I can't post a comment on a Facebook page with a made-up identity such as "HeSaid2009," I can only post one as Greg Connors.
I noticed the same thing a few weeks back, when we were having a national conversation about health care reform. (This was somewhere between our national conversations about David Letterman and John and Kate Plus Eight.) A friend of mine started several discussions on Facebook about health care reform, and the debate was spirited -- occasionally heated -- between friends from each side of the political aisle.
I tend to avoid mentioning politics much on Facebook myself because I don't want to turn my wall into "Crossfire." I have good friends who are liberal and good friends who are conservative, and I see no need to provoke them into verbal sniping.
But you know what? Those debates on my friends' walls about health care stayed respectful because they were commenting under their real names.
The great blogger Seth Godin has written on this topic:
There are Facebook pages dedicated to memorializing the victims of the Clarence car crash and to Chelsea Oliver. If I were one of the parents of any of those children, I probably could not bear to look at those pages for several months. But I would eventually get to them, and when I did I would be glad for the fact that anyone leaving a note would have the guts to attach their real name to it.
--Greg
And our new gathering spots are online. Today's story on Buffalonews.com about the car crash has more than 65 comments from readers. The stories about both tragedies were much commented upon on this site and on the sites of Western New York's TV stations.
Some of the comments are respectful, some even informative. Others, not so much.
When word first came out about the death of 15-year-old Chelsea Oliver from a then-unspecified disease, some comment writers proclaimed that she died from swine flu. Another commenter responded that he was Oliver's father and that his daughter certainly did NOT die from swine flu. (Today's news story says that Oliver had breathing problems that developed into pneumonia and sepsis, and a connection to swine flu has not been ruled out.)
You know what bothers me the most about the opinions and speculation from those comment writers? The fact that they are anonymous. Anyone writing under a pseudonym can post anything they want in a forum for comments, and as long as they don't use profanity or otherwise violate the posting guidelines, they're free to say anything, with no accountability.
I know that in theory this is free speech and in the marketplace of ideas the truth should somehow rise above the din and the nonsense.
But I contrast this to public conversations that take place in forums such as Facebook, where one's identity is known. I can't post a comment on a Facebook page with a made-up identity such as "HeSaid2009," I can only post one as Greg Connors.
I noticed the same thing a few weeks back, when we were having a national conversation about health care reform. (This was somewhere between our national conversations about David Letterman and John and Kate Plus Eight.) A friend of mine started several discussions on Facebook about health care reform, and the debate was spirited -- occasionally heated -- between friends from each side of the political aisle.
I tend to avoid mentioning politics much on Facebook myself because I don't want to turn my wall into "Crossfire." I have good friends who are liberal and good friends who are conservative, and I see no need to provoke them into verbal sniping.
But you know what? Those debates on my friends' walls about health care stayed respectful because they were commenting under their real names.
The great blogger Seth Godin has written on this topic:
"Virus writers are always anonymous. Vicious political lies (with faked photoshop photos of political leaders, or false innuendo about personal lives) are always anonymous as well. Spam is anonymous. eBay fraudsters are anonymous too. It seems as though virtually all of the problems of the Net stem from this one flaw, and its one I’ve riffed on before. If we can eliminate anonymity online, we create a far more civil place."
--Greg
