The Year in Comments (Washington Post)

The Washington Post offers a round-up of the year in comments.

A Times commenter in rhyme

This is a charming remembrance of Larry Eisenberg, a prolific writer of limericks in the comments sections of The New York Times - and the comments section is filled with limericks in tribute! Writers like Eisenberg and Richard Luettgen make the Times comments worth reading.

Lawyer disbarred for online comments

"A former federal prosecutor has been disbarred for posting anonymous online comments about cases being handled by himself or by his office" - ABA Journal

What is a university obligated to do about online harassment?

A federal appeals court has kept alive a lawsuit from students of the University of Mary Washington who contend that the university did not do enough to protect them from online harassment.

Turning online harassment into art

I have seen several projects like this which try to turn incidents of harassment into art or commentary. It is a way to empower the recipients of online abuse. (I will try to dig out my other examples and add them here.)

This is from Wired: Commenting Back on Online Harassment by Making it into Art.

Trump craves good press from the ‘fake news’ media

A plug for a short article I published in The Conversation about the president's relationship with the media.

The president has attacked the media as “fake news” and journalists as “the enemy of the American people.”

The president’s anti-press assaults are so frequent and potent that newspapers across the United States banded together August 16 to publish simultaneous editorials defending the press’s important watchdog role in democracy.

But for all the president’s complaints, he also craves validation from the media. Trump has given exclusive interviews to The New York Times and, in addition to loving Fox News, reportedly watches CNN and MSNBC every morning.

Trump’s quest for good press is particularly evident in the White House newsletters, a daily email update sent to anyone who cares to subscribe online.

Men still outnumber women in comments

Men still outnumber women as online commenters on media sites. At least, the evidence suggests that.

The Times of London recently reported that while 32 percent of its subscribers are female only 23 percent of its commenters are female. (Of course, some women use male pseudonyms.) Men also comment more frequently. Just under 19 percent of Times comments appear to come from women.

Life as a comment moderator

Catching up on some articles about online comments ...

Atlantic Monthly ended online comments Feb. 2 in favor of an online letters section. (You can read about that here.) One of the magazine's comment moderators wrote about his experience.

"New Hampshire man arrested for posting online comments criticizing a police officer"

This is an article from The Hill about police in Exeter, N.H., arresting someone for criticizing the local police. It is a misdemeanor criminal defamation charge, which I think would be hard to enforce. While criminal defamation statutes remain on the books in many states they are rarely used. Defamation is typically a civil matter under libel statutes. Mark Joseph Stern of Slate says that the actions of the police are "almost certainly" not legal. He added, "The law under which [the man arrested] was charged may be unconstitutional on its face." The New Hampshire ACLU has called for the charges to be dismissed.

A "Squadbox" to address online harassment

This is interesting, and I admit my initial reaction was "This won't work." But on second thought it might work for the right person.

A group of researchers at MIT have developed Squadbox, open source software which is billed as a response to online harassment, but it really is a way to personally deal with harassment - not prevent it or address the abusers. It puts the onus for addressing harassment on the harassed.

The year in comments

News stories about news stories are a year-end tradition in journalism, and often make for interesting reading. We are now seeing the occasional story about the "best of" online comments. Here is "A year in comments" from the Washington Post.

I am a little surprised I could not find more examples, especially from The New York Times.