This piece was published on the blog St. Jezabel. Re-published here with permission.
So you can no longer leave a
comment on News24 articles
unless you are posting via your Facebook account. This is problematic for
me because I haven’t had a Facebook account since that time that Mark
Zuckerberg called us all retards, because that’s just not polite and politeness
is my most basic requirement from friends.
Anyway, this little development (which
actually happened in October 2011, but I have been really busy) got me thinking about how, maybe too slowly for
us to really notice, the internet is becoming a scary place to be yourself.
Think about what the internet represents
for you. Personally, I have grown to think of it as a number of things.
Things
The Internet Is:
1. My boyfriend
2. My mom/dad/encyclopaedia
3. An infinitely gigantic, magically
self-replenishing lucky packet of awesome stuff and occasionally ladies wearing
squids in unconventional ways
But, it’s also:
4. A revolution for free speech
The internet has come to be, probably more
than any other medium in the history of our communication, a completely
revolutionary opportunity for people to interact freely.
Why is this important? Because the leaps
and bounds in our evolution were all made when human beings from different
cultures and ideologies came face-to-face with one another. Confrontation has
been one of the single most important factors in our evolution as a species. It
has challenged people, changed the way they see their world, and continually
forced people to evolve, ever since we crawled out of the primordial soup.
This is what Judge Stewart R. Dalzell said about the internet as a medium for free speech,
and why limiting the ways in which people can use it as such is
“constitutionally intolerable”:
Some
of the dialogue on the Internet surely tests the limits of conventional
discourse. Speech on the Internet can be unfiltered, unpolished, and
unconventional, even emotionally charged, sexually explicit, and vulgar – in a
word, "indecent" in many communities. But we should expect such
speech to occur in a medium in which citizens from all walks of life have a
voice. We should also protect the autonomy that such a medium confers to
ordinary people as well as media magnates.
What we can take from that is that this
isn’t as much an issue of anonymity, as it is one of autonomy.
News24 claims that their policy of
allowing only comments that are made via the Facebook comments system is to “to
weed out internet trolls”.
Admittedly, it’s a nice idea. No one with
half a brain likes to read the facile tirade of the internet troll, which often
includes racist, sexist or otherwise derogatory remarks and which quickly
drives the conversation into a poo sling-off. I can only think of a handful of
examples where flinging poo actually got us anywhere as a society.
However, trolls aside, one of the myriad
problems with this execution is that if you don’t have a Facebook account, you
just can’t comment. Your opinion/rant/solution to Global Warming presented in
rhyming couplets will not appear on News24's comments. Sorry. If you aren’t on
Facebook, your opinion – as far as News24 and their readers will ever know –
simply does not exist.
Aside from weeding-out racists and getting
free advertising on Facebook (you have to allow the News24 app to post as you
every time you comment) News24 claims that it wants to “improve the quality of
user-interaction”.
Aw, you guys. It’s for us? Well, gol-lee.
(Keep in mind, will you, that the noble
idea of “we’re protecting you guys from the bad people” is an oft-quoted reason
to stomp on people’s freedom. Let’s look at some examples from history):
Which brings me to the final Thing That
The Internet Is:
5. An illusion
We have so many options. We’re consumers,
we’re bred to process choices faster than Korean ladies with festering lungs
are popping together iPhones. The net seems like an all-you-can-eat buffet of
freedom. But, necessarily, your choices (from your browser to your
relationship status) are being made from a pool of options that have been
pre-selected. Who’s the dude deciding what those options are?
“Sure we want your opinion, as long as
you use Facebook!”
is tantamount to saying
“Sure we want your opinion, as long as
it's something we all agree with!”
Unfortunately, offering real options in
this instance (the choice of commenting via any platform, or even anonymously)
means that the autonomy thus allowed works to enable free speech as well as
abuse.
So we have to weigh up our options. Do we
decide to ignore internet trolls? Do we collectively, as a group of people who
care enough to make comments that make sense, who are interested in dialogue
and the possibilities it presents for societal change, decide that we are going
to learn to not take the bait anymore? Is it better to let someone else build a
wall and decide which opinions get through for us?
Okay, we’re going to have to learn how to
behave ourselves in this little sandpit. But, to paraphrase Judge Dalzell, the
strength of the internet is chaos. And the strength of our liberty depends upon
the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered freedom of speech.
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.