4 ms·

There's a huge load of hypocrisy, when you write articles critical of other people. But will not let your self be criticized on what you just wrote. Given how

There's a huge load of hypocrisy, when you write articles critical of other people. But will not let your self be criticized on what you just wrote. Given how skewed and inaccurate the articles are becoming. At least the comments can point outright lies and biases. It somewhat levels the playing field. So I'm of the opposite opinion. I think comments should be possible on all news articles. If you're given section 230 protection, you must allow all public comments. However, I would allow moderation in the style slashdot does. Where you slide a bar, to determine how much moderation you want.

throwaway2048 6y ago
There is a difference between substantive criticism and monkeys flinging shit at a wall. Section 230 says nothing about "you must allow all public comments." Its not very long, go read it. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
- yspeak 6y ago
  Thanks I've never read 230 before. This is why I love HN. Who would have thought or considered to read it ? And of course we do want moderation because moderation done right will generate a consistent, knowledgeable (moderate even ?) editorial voice, just what 230 envisioned, not the messy internet we have now.
orhmeh09 6y ago
One of the things I miss from Slashdot moderation is the tag that would accompany the score — Informative, Funny, etc. I’ve never really seen it take off anywhere, and hashtags or emoticons don’t convey the same.
- theamk 6y ago
  I think what makes Slashdot tags work is that they are not assigned by the comment's author -- the community decides on what is funny/insightful instead. When the ratings are assigned by users (like github comment "reactions") they are sometimes pretty helpful.
uniqueid 6y ago
I know that in theory you're defending the right of people to speak truth to power, but in practice you're just defending the right of people to scribble cartoon tits and dicks on a toilet stall. Almost no comments on the internet advance humanity in any way.
- dukeofdoom 6y ago
  That can't be true. Even if you just look at this site, ycombinator. There are comments on here that save people time and inform them all the time. Some of these people are advancing humanity, if by no other way, than by building technology.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- garbagetime 6y ago
  There are countless brilliant comments on the internet.
theamk 6y ago
I see no hypocrisy here -- a lot of information is, and was, only one-way. Town criers in the ancient times, teachers, theaters, art galleries, books, newspapers, radio/TV. The idea that one "must allow all public comments" if you talk about other people is a pretty weird one. Things generally do not work this way in real world, and I see no obvious reason why it should be different online.
- dukeofdoom 6y ago
  Well, I think you are unnecessarily advocating for a form of Authoritarianism. The powerful get a microphone. But the public will not get a voice. I personally think it enhances democracy to allow public comments on articles.
  - theamk 6y ago
    Imagine you are an artist and you have your own space, maybe a small table at the fairgrounds where you are selling your pictures from. Would you allow random people to attach notes to your pictures -- the notes that everyone who wants to look your pictures would see? Or will you say, "this is my table and I decide what goes here"? If the later, does this make you undemocratic authoritarian? It is not just "the powerful" who "get a microphone". Anyone can speak out. There are tons of places where we one comment on articles -- we are on one of those. And getting your own site is pretty easy, too.
    - jiofih 6y ago
      News is not art. It is part of public discourse and has entirely different dynamics.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    Anyone can run a blog or so for free. I lose very little sleep over awful people promoting their awful views on blogs, but I get quite annoyed when I read a news article and want to hear opinions on it (even ones I may disagree strongly with), but the legitimate opinions are downed out by abusive assholes spamming hate speech or endlessly trolling. A lot of those people are just bullies trying to drive others away so they can 'own' the comment section.
Barrin92 6y ago
>There's a huge load of hypocrisy, when you write articles critical of other people. But will not let your self be criticized on what you just wrote. I'm fairly certain virtually every newspaper on this planet will gladly give someone who is subject of criticism a page to respond, however nobody who is serious thinks that means you need to give anonymous trolls a place on your website to argue on that person's behalf. Secondly, that is not how 230 works. 230 grants platforms the right to moderate their sites and be shielded from liability. (or else Hackernews, which you are commenting on right now, would cease to exist).
- ufmace 6y ago
  > I'm fairly certain virtually every newspaper on this planet will gladly give someone who is subject of criticism a page to respond Are you familiar with the James Bennet / Tom Cotton incident at the New York Times? The self-proclaimed Paper of Record forced their editorial page editor, James Bennet, to resign for publishing an op-ed by sitting US Senator Tom Cotton advocating for a position supported by a majority of the US population - that we allow US Military to assist local police in dealing with out-of-control riots. We are way, way past the era of giving people who are the subjects of criticism space to respond.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    Yes I'm aware and I personally disagree with how that case was handled. However, the context of the thread here is reader comments. My point was, a person of public interest and subject of an article ought to have a right to respond,that's good journalistic practise and generally happens today still. Joe Schmoe from the comment section doesn't, and never had, and it's not a reasonable thing to demand. Just a few years ago readers got to write letters to newspapers, and when the newspapers thought the comments had something particularly thoughtful to say they'd publish them at their discretion. But the quality of user comments in general is so low, there's no reasonable case to be made that they all ought to stay up.
irjustin 6y ago
I think if the news organization is willing to go all in on moderation your comment makes a lot of sense, but if you can't/aren't willing to put the resources in, the idealism is rapidly lost today. NYTimes has quite a good comment system with decent moderation. If you present dissenting views, that's fantastic if it's well presented. Contrast Fox News comment area and you get a mix of lies, mud slinging, and lots of left vs right blame game. Well presented/thought out comments on Fox almost never surface. With News orgs, the further left or further right you go, it seems to only get worse. So while I agree with you in idealism, practically speaking, it's never was as simple as throwing up a Disqus comment section.
the_why_of_y 6y ago
> If you're given section 230 protection, you must allow all public comments. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello... If you said "Section 230 was designed to encourage websites to be neutral common carriers" You are exactly 100% wrong. We've already covered why it does not require neutrality above, but it was also intended as the opposite of requiring websites to be "common carriers."

throwaway2048 6y ago

There is a difference between substantive criticism and monkeys flinging shit at a wall. Section 230 says nothing about "you must allow all public comments." Its not very long, go read it. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

yspeak 6y ago
Thanks I've never read 230 before. This is why I love HN. Who would have thought or considered to read it ? And of course we do want moderation because moderation done right will generate a consistent, knowledgeable (moderate even ?) editorial voice, just what 230 envisioned, not the messy internet we have now.

orhmeh09 6y ago

One of the things I miss from Slashdot moderation is the tag that would accompany the score — Informative, Funny, etc. I’ve never really seen it take off anywhere, and hashtags or emoticons don’t convey the same.

theamk 6y ago
I think what makes Slashdot tags work is that they are not assigned by the comment's author -- the community decides on what is funny/insightful instead. When the ratings are assigned by users (like github comment "reactions") they are sometimes pretty helpful.

uniqueid 6y ago

I know that in theory you're defending the right of people to speak truth to power, but in practice you're just defending the right of people to scribble cartoon tits and dicks on a toilet stall. Almost no comments on the internet advance humanity in any way.

dukeofdoom 6y ago
That can't be true. Even if you just look at this site, ycombinator. There are comments on here that save people time and inform them all the time. Some of these people are advancing humanity, if by no other way, than by building technology.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
garbagetime 6y ago
There are countless brilliant comments on the internet.

theamk 6y ago

I see no hypocrisy here -- a lot of information is, and was, only one-way. Town criers in the ancient times, teachers, theaters, art galleries, books, newspapers, radio/TV. The idea that one "must allow all public comments" if you talk about other people is a pretty weird one. Things generally do not work this way in real world, and I see no obvious reason why it should be different online.

dukeofdoom 6y ago
Well, I think you are unnecessarily advocating for a form of Authoritarianism. The powerful get a microphone. But the public will not get a voice. I personally think it enhances democracy to allow public comments on articles.
- theamk 6y ago
  Imagine you are an artist and you have your own space, maybe a small table at the fairgrounds where you are selling your pictures from. Would you allow random people to attach notes to your pictures -- the notes that everyone who wants to look your pictures would see? Or will you say, "this is my table and I decide what goes here"? If the later, does this make you undemocratic authoritarian? It is not just "the powerful" who "get a microphone". Anyone can speak out. There are tons of places where we one comment on articles -- we are on one of those. And getting your own site is pretty easy, too.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    News is not art. It is part of public discourse and has entirely different dynamics.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Anyone can run a blog or so for free. I lose very little sleep over awful people promoting their awful views on blogs, but I get quite annoyed when I read a news article and want to hear opinions on it (even ones I may disagree strongly with), but the legitimate opinions are downed out by abusive assholes spamming hate speech or endlessly trolling. A lot of those people are just bullies trying to drive others away so they can 'own' the comment section.

Barrin92 6y ago

>There's a huge load of hypocrisy, when you write articles critical of other people. But will not let your self be criticized on what you just wrote. I'm fairly certain virtually every newspaper on this planet will gladly give someone who is subject of criticism a page to respond, however nobody who is serious thinks that means you need to give anonymous trolls a place on your website to argue on that person's behalf. Secondly, that is not how 230 works. 230 grants platforms the right to moderate their sites and be shielded from liability. (or else Hackernews, which you are commenting on right now, would cease to exist).

ufmace 6y ago
> I'm fairly certain virtually every newspaper on this planet will gladly give someone who is subject of criticism a page to respond Are you familiar with the James Bennet / Tom Cotton incident at the New York Times? The self-proclaimed Paper of Record forced their editorial page editor, James Bennet, to resign for publishing an op-ed by sitting US Senator Tom Cotton advocating for a position supported by a majority of the US population - that we allow US Military to assist local police in dealing with out-of-control riots. We are way, way past the era of giving people who are the subjects of criticism space to respond.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  Yes I'm aware and I personally disagree with how that case was handled. However, the context of the thread here is reader comments. My point was, a person of public interest and subject of an article ought to have a right to respond,that's good journalistic practise and generally happens today still. Joe Schmoe from the comment section doesn't, and never had, and it's not a reasonable thing to demand. Just a few years ago readers got to write letters to newspapers, and when the newspapers thought the comments had something particularly thoughtful to say they'd publish them at their discretion. But the quality of user comments in general is so low, there's no reasonable case to be made that they all ought to stay up.

irjustin 6y ago

I think if the news organization is willing to go all in on moderation your comment makes a lot of sense, but if you can't/aren't willing to put the resources in, the idealism is rapidly lost today. NYTimes has quite a good comment system with decent moderation. If you present dissenting views, that's fantastic if it's well presented. Contrast Fox News comment area and you get a mix of lies, mud slinging, and lots of left vs right blame game. Well presented/thought out comments on Fox almost never surface. With News orgs, the further left or further right you go, it seems to only get worse. So while I agree with you in idealism, practically speaking, it's never was as simple as throwing up a Disqus comment section.

the_why_of_y 6y ago

> If you're given section 230 protection, you must allow all public comments. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello... If you said "Section 230 was designed to encourage websites to be neutral common carriers" You are exactly 100% wrong. We've already covered why it does not require neutrality above, but it was also intended as the opposite of requiring websites to be "common carriers."