Via Neil Harding, this comment from Jonathan Freedland in the Groan:
So you’re at a public meeting on, say, the war in Iraq and the main speaker has just sat down. Someone in the audience rises to declare the speaker is talking crap, but that’s typical of him because he knows nothing and it’s a scandal that he’s paid for the rubbish he turns out. A second man agrees that the speech was trash, but tells the first man he should crawl back under his stone because he never says anything worth listening to. A third man wonders why the speaker didn’t mention Israel, especially given his Zionist-sounding last name.
The first man is now shouting at the second man, insulting him for insulting him first. A woman gets up to make a point about the war in Iraq, but she is rapidly drowned out by a fourth and fifth man now debating Israel and the Palestinians. A sixth man compares the speaker to Hitler and proceeds to read out a 1,500-word article he read somewhere six years ago. If that has an oddly familiar ring, it may be because you’re spending a lot of time online, specifically in the new and still lawless world known as the blogosphere.
Well, that’s a fine start, one huge straw man that would keep the crows off a whole collective farm… As Neil points out, the Internet is not a public meeting and one voice is as loud as another and it is a simple matter to ignore the tedious, the trite and the misinformed should we choose. Freedland argues, as have those who are putting forward the code of conduct proposition that the world of blogging needs control or regulation. It assumes that a community exists, yet in reality this is raw individualism, a collection of individual voices. How, exactly, do you regulate that – other than with a very heavy hand?
But this freedom has a downside. Check out the Guardian’s Comment is Free site and you’ll see it for yourself. Yes, the place is humming with debate, borne out by its nomination for a prestigious Webby award yesterday. But it won’t take you long to run into some serious vitriol.
Well, if we are going to regard CiF as an example of blogging at its best (it isn’t by a long chalk) then perhaps we should look a little more closely at the quality of the contributors. Sure, there’s vitriol and the tin foil hat element; but when half arsed twats spout utter bollocks as, for example, Oliver Kamm did the other day, then it is hardly surprising when people vent their spleen. In the two and a half years I’ve been blogging, I’ve only once deleted a comment. That was when Bob Piper crossed the line from dissent to trolling. Deletion with a warning is how I deal with trolls; others differ. Neil for example, is remarkably tolerant of abusive comment. Although to be fair, if you proclaim to the world that people should be prepared to sacrifice their privacy for the sake of government efficiency, tolerance of the inevitable flack is probably a prerequisite. 
Political debate is not characterised by politeness; it never has been. Think for example, of the pamphleteers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose vitriolic outpourings helped colour popular opinion and contributed to the Glorious Revolution and the overthrow of James II. Hardly polite discourse. Take a peek at the House of Commons today. Polite discourse? Civility? Do me a favour. Politics is full of passion and passion has a way of running away with itself. People let rip when they are inflamed with it. So what?
But that advantage is surely out- weighed by the risk that the blogo-sphere, which could be a new, revolutionary public space, instead becomes a stale, claustrophobic environment, appealing chiefly to a certain kind of aggressive, point-scoring male – and utterly off-putting to everyone else.
Evidence, please?
This is something, as regular readers will know, that the Guardian has grappled with, working hard to ensure racist or offensive remarks don’t linger on the Comment is Free website. The aim is not so far from Wales and O’Reilly’s: to devise a method of moderation which doesn’t undermine the essential freedom of the medium. But how?
Without wishing to state the blindingly obvious; each blogger moderates according to his or her individual policy based upon what they find acceptable. That wasn’t too difficult, now, was it?
My immediate hunch is that the anonymity of the web is the problem. People do not tend to call each other Nazis in public meetings, or on radio phone-ins, because other people would know who they were. But if you’re called DaffyDuck you can insult whoever you like. If democracy means anything it means accountability – and that should include accountability for our own words.
Bollocks! Freedland conveniently glosses over the fact that some people have lost their jobs as a consequence of their on-line activities. A degree of anonymity is essential for those who need to keep their real and on-line lives separate for the protection of the former. Others, like Neil have no problem with using their real names. I prefer a translucent cloak – if you really want to know who I am, finding out isn’t going to prove too difficult. Some, though, have no option but to remain entirely anonymous. To deny them the right to express themselves because they do not wish to expose their real life identities is iniquitous.
Rather than some top-down system, it may have to be web users themselves who crack it, by coming to regard their online reputation as seriously as their offline one.
As I pointed out earlier, there really is no need. I control what happens here based upon what I am prepared to accept.
At present, you can be an irascible, misogynistic anti-semite online with little or no consequence.
So what? That’s what freedom of expression means; some people voice opinions the rest of us find repugnant.
But what if that began to affect the rest of your online life? Note how careful people are to be well-regarded on eBay, where money is at stake. Might it not be possible to have a single online identity, one that you cared about, even if it had little connection to your identity in the real world?
It is probable that most of us already do. But, again, so what? Perhaps Freedland would like us all issued with an Identity Card. Has he finally found a use for the solution that has desperately been seeking a problem to solve all this time?
Neil Levine, formerly of Clara.net, wonders about a system of comment credits, earned by the ratings of other users. High credit would give you an enhanced standing online, perhaps pushing your comments to the top of any thread. If other users deemed you out of line, your status would fall.
Oh give me a break, please! What a stupid, half arsed idea. I am not a child and will not be patronised like one. For fuck’s sake! I certainly won’t be playing this game. And can these people not see the blatant opportunity for abuse in such a pathetic system? Anyone who tries this on me can stick it where the sun don’t shine. Only a half-wit would think this a good thing.
It’s a smart idea and doubtless there will be others.
Point made…