9 ms·

Facebook now lets users and pages turn off comments on their posts

82 points by edward 6y ago

hnnameblah365 6y ago
It's been interesting to watch the rise and fall of internet comment sections. They used to be found at the bottom of just about every page. But the moderation burden has led to their removal in more and more use cases. News sites started stripping comments from articles so long ago. When you see a comment section on the bottom of an article or blog, it contributes to that feeling that the website hasn't had a remodel in a long time. Like an animated gif spacer from the 90's web. Now we are seeing the social media hubs, technically places that are entirely comment threads, abdicating moderation responsibility to thread creators. Twitter users can hide replies to their tweets. Youtube creators can as well. Now this. Overall a good trend, IMO. Moderation responsibility was so diffused that no one did it well. The emerging pattern is that the site owner can provide global moderation of clear cut illegal activity. This doesn't meet anyone's bar for civil discourse, and there's not a good global solution for how to achieve that, so the site owners will place the next level of moderation in users' hands. This starts to model how it works in the physical world, so I think we're on the right track.
- andybak 6y ago
  It also highlights how valuable communities that do have good moderation can be. HN being the major example. I would probably include some (emphasis on the "some") subreddits. Anywhere else?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Metafilter is one of the long-term survivors; it has been running since 1999: https://www.metafilter.com/19/CatScancom https://www.metafilter.com/19/CatScancom
- datavirtue 6y ago
  I assign very little value to anything on the web that can't be commented on. Sure, a solid piece of journalism does have value but more so if people can add to the conversation. Users should be able to moderate though and moderation points should be earned and spent and provide some context. Users should be able to browse comments based on their preferences, revealing those posts which have been down-voted out of sight, or made anonymously, if they choose.
  - Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
    Everything on the web can be commented on. Post the URL to Reddit, Twitter, wherever. Add your comments underneath. There you go, conversation started. That doesn't mean that the publisher has to host your opinions on their site. It's their site, they choose what to put on it. They're under no obligation to amplify your opinions.
    - datavirtue 6y ago
      I didn't say they were under any obligation. Your strawman is all wet.
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        So, every piece of journalism can have value if it can be commented on some place on the internet, which is pretty much anything with a URL.
  - Emma_Goldman 6y ago
    Your first and second sentence contradict one another. You assign 'very little value to anything that can't be commented on', yet you believe a 'solid piece of journalism does have value', even if it can't be commented on. I would say the overwhelming majority of quality writing on the internet does not accommodate comments, from academic journals, to serious think-pieces and long-form essays.
    - DharmaPolice 6y ago
- uberswe 6y ago
  I still look for comments on any article I find interesting. If the site owner takes the time to moderate the comments you can usually find some really good info there. I like to offer comments on my own sites because it's an easy way for readers to give me feedback and to start a discussion.
  - ep103 6y ago
    They're a great barometer of the quality of the content and dedication of the team running the website to said quality. Its not surprising in the least that Facebook falls short in this metric.
  - rchaud 6y ago
    This is becoming more and more futile as time goes on. 10+ years ago blogs were fun because of the comment section. Each website had its own particular audience who created their own culture in the comments. Now that's pretty much all gone. Most 'blogs' have no personality and are producing the same kind of keyword-researched content every other site is. The writing is dry and lifeless, as if its only purpose is to be picked up by a search engine. Scroll to the bottom, no comments, just a grotesque "share" widget. These sites look and feel like ghost towns now. It's a completely different atmosphere than what internet communities were envisioned to be.
  - pllbnk 6y ago
    For some websites I like reading comment sections too. Perhaps a good moderation strategy would be to have a minimum length rule for each comment? It would not prevent spammers and bots, however putting those aside only people who want to deliver a thought-out message would participate. Not saying there wouldn't be controversial messages though.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  > Like an animated gif spacer from the 90's web. I know what a “GIF spacer” is (a 1x1 pixel image resized to the desired width and height), but what’s an “animated GIF spacer”?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    A small animated gif occupying a space between paragraphs or comments. I've not seen one for a decade, but google provides an example: https://www.oocities.org/itsamemario2000/english.html?202025 https://www.oocities.org/itsamemario2000/english.html?202025 the animated green lines.
  - hnnameblah365 6y ago
    Maybe animated gif horizontal rule is more accurate. One that comes to mind is a lightsaber, laying on its side. Placed between paragraphs (hopefully) about Star Wars. Alternatively, page visitor counters would have been another example of outdated web aesthetics.
- tdeck 6y ago
  > News sites started stripping comments from articles so long ago. When you see a comment section on the bottom of an article or blog, it contributes to that feeling that the website hasn't had a remodel in a long time. I've noticed that this is correlated with AMP adoption. Many news sites still have comments on the "full" page but not the AMP page.
pjc50 6y ago
"Comments", free-floating on the bottom of news articles, end up being pretty much the opposite of a community. They're a venue for long running partisan fights. People running pages have realized that they're the equivalent of putting up a sign saying "please tell me I suck" in public - everyone with any kind of complaint is all over them. It's increasingly clear that if you want to have a community on the internet, rather than just host a warzone on your lawn, it has to have defense mechanisms in place. This post from Doreen the other day resonated with me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639182
- amelius 6y ago
  Yeah, comments should be private between the original poster and the poster of the comment.
  - SilasX 6y ago
    It already works that way for stuff you add to "your story". (A feature whose purpose I can never understand except to imitate newer social networks.)
    - anthropodie 6y ago
      For user: the story feature is kinda like blog. They can share their thoughts, images, videos, stuff they are interested in with few clicks. General public never owned anything like blogs because it is not easy to set up as sharing stories. Also, stories actually engages followers/contacts with the content. I think that is why it's popular among users. For companies: Best place to put ads is between stories. You get 100% views for the ads and hence more engagement. That is why every company is running after it.
      - SilasX 6y ago
        Yeah but it appears to be a bit more specialized and narrowly focused than a blog because a) it's apparently deleted after a few minutes or really hard to find after a short interval, and b) responses and reactions are shown only to that person and not the others who view ie. Also I don't know what makes this more true for the story than the feed: "stories actually engages followers/contacts with the content."
dreen 6y ago
The next stage is to let people remove likes and hide share counts. I think we have systems which pay way too much attention to these numbers, considering how trival they are to fake.
- mlacks 6y ago
  i believe that already is being tested in some markets with heir instagram platform.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Correct. Instagram is hiding “true” like counts for everyone but the poster. So, if 2500 people like a post, it’ll just say “Liked by ${RANDOMUSER} and thousands of others”. The full list of people who liked is still available to everyone, just not the exact number (without manual counting (again, unless you’re the poster)).
mlacks 6y ago
Gawker/Kinja - and specifically Jalopnik.com - seemed to have figured out how to build community in the comments. They simply have the author review them in batch form before they make it to the public.
- datavirtue 6y ago
  Slashdot. 1997. Nearly perfect user moderation.
  - jtvjan 6y ago
    If the system was really perfect, they wouldn't have had to start requiring a login to post as AC.
    - datavirtue 6y ago
      Nearly. Not "really." The tragedy of the commons is not solvable. I accept that, and slashdot made it trivial to read without seeing those shit posts. It was probably just filling up their database with racist and faciast novels.
- tsomctl 6y ago
  Jalopnik has it's fair share of memes and repetitive in-jokes (BMW blinkers, Mustangs hopping curbs). But there are are also some pretty insightful and knowledgeable threads. I've seen a couple of technical comments on certain vehicles that I'm absolutely convinced were written by an engineer that designed that vehicle.
sylens 6y ago
The only comments section I have recently seen that were filled with thought provoking, insightful comments and/or constructive criticism were the New York Times and the Athletic. It's no coincidence that both require me to pay to subscribe and get access to them. I'd like to see even more fine grained controls for comments on posts for social media. Facebook should emulate what Twitter has done and let me maintain an "Allow List" of friends that are allowed to comment on my posts, links, etc. The friends system was originally designed the way it was because you weren't supposed to open your Facebook friends to everyone, but 15+ years and the shifting of connections that time brings (good friends may now just be acquaintances) makes this feature a necessity.
- ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  > let me maintain an "Allow List" of friends that are allowed to comment on my posts, links, etc. I like that.
  - DavidPeiffer 6y ago
    Facebook is already an echo chamber. How much would that amplify things? Hypothetically, aunt Joan just shared the post about the Ever Given ship containing tons of children in cages, and it's all Hillary Clinton's fault. Since she only allows her conspiracy theory believing friends to comment on her posts, there's no disagreement about the cause of the Suez Canal blockage. It's accepted as fact among anyone who can comment, and it's uncontested for the ones who could be swayed.
    - KirbyTetro 6y ago
      The Aunt Joans of the world are often presented as the problem here but mainstream news outlets like the New York Times and the Atlantic that have promoted hoaxes like the Iraqi WMD deception and Russiagate hysteria have done immeasurably more damage.
- sol_invictus 6y ago
  This already exists. Remove them from being connections. It's exactly the same outcome - what do you think these people will think when they see one of your posts and notice you've barred them from commenting? I would just remove the connection instantly in that scenario.
Demoneeri 6y ago
Well, it might be a mistake, but I find that the best communities I'm a part of are echo chambers. I like urbanism Facebook groups where we can discuss how to improve a specific intersection, for example. Where we are like-minded people and we try to find the best solution. When we have the same discussion in the neighborhood group, the thread becomes a shouting match with drivers requesting to be able to run through the intersection at full speed with no inconvenience and to get cyclists and pedestrians out of the way. With the usual "they don't pay taxes". So it is less interesting.
nikolay 6y ago
Yet another anti-social feature.
dr-detroit 6y ago
People still go on facebook? Wow. WOOOWWW.
chris_wot 6y ago
Australian news organisations have been asking for this for some time now. Facebook never listened, and is late to the party. Just how many missteps can one company make?

82 points by edward 6y ago

It's been interesting to watch the rise and fall of internet comment sections. They used to be found at the bottom of just about every page. But the moderation burden has led to their removal in more and more use cases. News sites started stripping comments from articles so long ago. When you see a comment section on the bottom of an article or blog, it contributes to that feeling that the website hasn't had a remodel in a long time. Like an animated gif spacer from the 90's web. Now we are seeing the social media hubs, technically places that are entirely comment threads, abdicating moderation responsibility to thread creators. Twitter users can hide replies to their tweets. Youtube creators can as well. Now this. Overall a good trend, IMO. Moderation responsibility was so diffused that no one did it well. The emerging pattern is that the site owner can provide global moderation of clear cut illegal activity. This doesn't meet anyone's bar for civil discourse, and there's not a good global solution for how to achieve that, so the site owners will place the next level of moderation in users' hands. This starts to model how it works in the physical world, so I think we're on the right track.

andybak 6y ago
It also highlights how valuable communities that do have good moderation can be. HN being the major example. I would probably include some (emphasis on the "some") subreddits. Anywhere else?
- pjc50 6y ago
  Metafilter is one of the long-term survivors; it has been running since 1999: https://www.metafilter.com/19/CatScancom https://www.metafilter.com/19/CatScancom
datavirtue 6y ago
I assign very little value to anything on the web that can't be commented on. Sure, a solid piece of journalism does have value but more so if people can add to the conversation. Users should be able to moderate though and moderation points should be earned and spent and provide some context. Users should be able to browse comments based on their preferences, revealing those posts which have been down-voted out of sight, or made anonymously, if they choose.
- Doctor_Fegg 6y ago
  Everything on the web can be commented on. Post the URL to Reddit, Twitter, wherever. Add your comments underneath. There you go, conversation started. That doesn't mean that the publisher has to host your opinions on their site. It's their site, they choose what to put on it. They're under no obligation to amplify your opinions.
  - datavirtue 6y ago
    I didn't say they were under any obligation. Your strawman is all wet.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      So, every piece of journalism can have value if it can be commented on some place on the internet, which is pretty much anything with a URL.
- Emma_Goldman 6y ago
  Your first and second sentence contradict one another. You assign 'very little value to anything that can't be commented on', yet you believe a 'solid piece of journalism does have value', even if it can't be commented on. I would say the overwhelming majority of quality writing on the internet does not accommodate comments, from academic journals, to serious think-pieces and long-form essays.
  - DharmaPolice 6y ago
uberswe 6y ago
I still look for comments on any article I find interesting. If the site owner takes the time to moderate the comments you can usually find some really good info there. I like to offer comments on my own sites because it's an easy way for readers to give me feedback and to start a discussion.
- ep103 6y ago
  They're a great barometer of the quality of the content and dedication of the team running the website to said quality. Its not surprising in the least that Facebook falls short in this metric.
- rchaud 6y ago
  This is becoming more and more futile as time goes on. 10+ years ago blogs were fun because of the comment section. Each website had its own particular audience who created their own culture in the comments. Now that's pretty much all gone. Most 'blogs' have no personality and are producing the same kind of keyword-researched content every other site is. The writing is dry and lifeless, as if its only purpose is to be picked up by a search engine. Scroll to the bottom, no comments, just a grotesque "share" widget. These sites look and feel like ghost towns now. It's a completely different atmosphere than what internet communities were envisioned to be.
- pllbnk 6y ago
  For some websites I like reading comment sections too. Perhaps a good moderation strategy would be to have a minimum length rule for each comment? It would not prevent spammers and bots, however putting those aside only people who want to deliver a thought-out message would participate. Not saying there wouldn't be controversial messages though.
colejohnson66 6y ago
> Like an animated gif spacer from the 90's web. I know what a “GIF spacer” is (a 1x1 pixel image resized to the desired width and height), but what’s an “animated GIF spacer”?
- pjc50 6y ago
  A small animated gif occupying a space between paragraphs or comments. I've not seen one for a decade, but google provides an example: https://www.oocities.org/itsamemario2000/english.html?202025 https://www.oocities.org/itsamemario2000/english.html?202025 the animated green lines.
- hnnameblah365 6y ago
  Maybe animated gif horizontal rule is more accurate. One that comes to mind is a lightsaber, laying on its side. Placed between paragraphs (hopefully) about Star Wars. Alternatively, page visitor counters would have been another example of outdated web aesthetics.
tdeck 6y ago
> News sites started stripping comments from articles so long ago. When you see a comment section on the bottom of an article or blog, it contributes to that feeling that the website hasn't had a remodel in a long time. I've noticed that this is correlated with AMP adoption. Many news sites still have comments on the "full" page but not the AMP page.

pjc50 6y ago

"Comments", free-floating on the bottom of news articles, end up being pretty much the opposite of a community. They're a venue for long running partisan fights. People running pages have realized that they're the equivalent of putting up a sign saying "please tell me I suck" in public - everyone with any kind of complaint is all over them. It's increasingly clear that if you want to have a community on the internet, rather than just host a warzone on your lawn, it has to have defense mechanisms in place. This post from Doreen the other day resonated with me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639182

amelius 6y ago
Yeah, comments should be private between the original poster and the poster of the comment.
- SilasX 6y ago
  It already works that way for stuff you add to "your story". (A feature whose purpose I can never understand except to imitate newer social networks.)
  - anthropodie 6y ago
    For user: the story feature is kinda like blog. They can share their thoughts, images, videos, stuff they are interested in with few clicks. General public never owned anything like blogs because it is not easy to set up as sharing stories. Also, stories actually engages followers/contacts with the content. I think that is why it's popular among users. For companies: Best place to put ads is between stories. You get 100% views for the ads and hence more engagement. That is why every company is running after it.
    - SilasX 6y ago
      Yeah but it appears to be a bit more specialized and narrowly focused than a blog because a) it's apparently deleted after a few minutes or really hard to find after a short interval, and b) responses and reactions are shown only to that person and not the others who view ie. Also I don't know what makes this more true for the story than the feed: "stories actually engages followers/contacts with the content."

dreen 6y ago

The next stage is to let people remove likes and hide share counts. I think we have systems which pay way too much attention to these numbers, considering how trival they are to fake.

mlacks 6y ago
i believe that already is being tested in some markets with heir instagram platform.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Correct. Instagram is hiding “true” like counts for everyone but the poster. So, if 2500 people like a post, it’ll just say “Liked by ${RANDOMUSER} and thousands of others”. The full list of people who liked is still available to everyone, just not the exact number (without manual counting (again, unless you’re the poster)).

mlacks 6y ago

Gawker/Kinja - and specifically Jalopnik.com - seemed to have figured out how to build community in the comments. They simply have the author review them in batch form before they make it to the public.

datavirtue 6y ago
Slashdot. 1997. Nearly perfect user moderation.
- jtvjan 6y ago
  If the system was really perfect, they wouldn't have had to start requiring a login to post as AC.
  - datavirtue 6y ago
    Nearly. Not "really." The tragedy of the commons is not solvable. I accept that, and slashdot made it trivial to read without seeing those shit posts. It was probably just filling up their database with racist and faciast novels.
tsomctl 6y ago
Jalopnik has it's fair share of memes and repetitive in-jokes (BMW blinkers, Mustangs hopping curbs). But there are are also some pretty insightful and knowledgeable threads. I've seen a couple of technical comments on certain vehicles that I'm absolutely convinced were written by an engineer that designed that vehicle.

sylens 6y ago

The only comments section I have recently seen that were filled with thought provoking, insightful comments and/or constructive criticism were the New York Times and the Athletic. It's no coincidence that both require me to pay to subscribe and get access to them. I'd like to see even more fine grained controls for comments on posts for social media. Facebook should emulate what Twitter has done and let me maintain an "Allow List" of friends that are allowed to comment on my posts, links, etc. The friends system was originally designed the way it was because you weren't supposed to open your Facebook friends to everyone, but 15+ years and the shifting of connections that time brings (good friends may now just be acquaintances) makes this feature a necessity.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
> let me maintain an "Allow List" of friends that are allowed to comment on my posts, links, etc. I like that.
- DavidPeiffer 6y ago
  Facebook is already an echo chamber. How much would that amplify things? Hypothetically, aunt Joan just shared the post about the Ever Given ship containing tons of children in cages, and it's all Hillary Clinton's fault. Since she only allows her conspiracy theory believing friends to comment on her posts, there's no disagreement about the cause of the Suez Canal blockage. It's accepted as fact among anyone who can comment, and it's uncontested for the ones who could be swayed.
  - KirbyTetro 6y ago
    The Aunt Joans of the world are often presented as the problem here but mainstream news outlets like the New York Times and the Atlantic that have promoted hoaxes like the Iraqi WMD deception and Russiagate hysteria have done immeasurably more damage.
sol_invictus 6y ago
This already exists. Remove them from being connections. It's exactly the same outcome - what do you think these people will think when they see one of your posts and notice you've barred them from commenting? I would just remove the connection instantly in that scenario.

Demoneeri 6y ago

Well, it might be a mistake, but I find that the best communities I'm a part of are echo chambers. I like urbanism Facebook groups where we can discuss how to improve a specific intersection, for example. Where we are like-minded people and we try to find the best solution. When we have the same discussion in the neighborhood group, the thread becomes a shouting match with drivers requesting to be able to run through the intersection at full speed with no inconvenience and to get cyclists and pedestrians out of the way. With the usual "they don't pay taxes". So it is less interesting.

nikolay 6y ago

Yet another anti-social feature.

dr-detroit 6y ago

People still go on facebook? Wow. WOOOWWW.

chris_wot 6y ago

Australian news organisations have been asking for this for some time now. Facebook never listened, and is late to the party. Just how many missteps can one company make?