Internet forums are, in a sense, a grand experiment in free speech. A trip to an open forum on just about any topic—from the new iPhone to Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks—is likely to yield astute critiques and interesting perspectives—as well as lots of irrelevant, incoherent, offensive, and inflammatory banter. Does the value of the open discourse outweigh the negative impact of vitriol? In September 2013, the editors at Popular Science made a tough decision in response to this question and shut down the comments section on the publication’s companion Web site. “It wasn’t a decision we made lightly,” explained online content editor Suzanne LaBarre in a letter to readers. “As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to do the latter” (LaBarre, 2013). Indeed, a recent study indicates that comments can influence the way readers perceive the initial post. Specifically, readers exposed to uncivil remarks and personal attacks made in the comments became more polarized than those who were exposed only to civil discourse in the comments section ( Anderson, Brossard, Scheufele, Xenos, & Ladwig, 2013).
Although civility in the reader comments are a concern for most Web editors, few have gone the route of Popular Science. But many large organizations do try to limit unproductive comment threads by replacing open forums (in which readers are able to comment freely, often anonymously) with moderated forums, which trade complete openness for order. Forum moderators—commonly known as mods—set strict rules for posts, often review all posts before making them public, and have the power to censor or ban specific posts. At The New York Times, comments are reviewed by a team of fourteen moderators who eliminate comments that are offensive, off-topic, or simply insubstantial, in order to keep the commentary focused and productive. Webzine Boing Boing similarly deletes posts that moderators find offensive. “It’s fun to have disagreements,” explains Boing Boing founder Mark Frauenfelder, “but if someone gets nasty, we will kick them out” (Frauenfelder, quoted in Niemann, 2014).