“Ten Comments You Think Are Cool And Insightful But Aren’t” by Mike Arrington of TechCrunch illustrates the importance of conducting yourself in a graceful manner online, whether you use your real name or post anonymously.
Funny thing about the Internet — it comes with a sense of detachment and an illusion of anonymity that makes it much easier to write things that you would not normally say in a face-to-face conversation. I do not mean to say that it makes conversations more honest, but rather it has the tendency to encourage some to lower the bar on tact… sometimes a little bit, and sometimes a whole lot.
TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington summed up ten types of comments that are regularly deleted from his site, one of which is extremely interesting:
[random trolling, often with a wish that we'd die or are unethical in some way] - We get lots of these, and delete as many of them as we can. But first we check the IP address against previous comments left on the site. About once a month we see a really nasty anonymous comment that’s left by an IP address that had always been used by a single named commenter before that. Most of the time we had just posted a critical review of the person’s company right before the comment was left.
We don’t publish the real names of these people, but I do keep a list of people that seem to be really disturbed in some way.
So TechCrunch actively investigates comments that troll the site, threaten its staff or make false allegations. They are often able to uncover the identity of these “anonymous” comment authors and keep a list of who’s who. Anyone who has pitched TechCrunch while secretly playing dirty now knows why they have been ignored.
Arrington’s article is evidence that one should always think before writing online. “Anonymous” is never a ticket to act out because you are not really anonymous… but regardless of that, why say something online when it wouldn’t come to mind in a face-to-face discussion? In the end it might hurt you most of all.
Photo by striatic.
