The NOLA.com folks are amazing. I had one rep call me because they tracked a racially offensive comment to my place of employment, which is predominantly Black. They wanted ME, as a director, to do something about it. I wished them luck on their hunt. Hilarious.If this is true, I would regard it as very positive that NOLA.com has gotten proactive about tracking down users responsible for hate speech and creating some accountability for their user's offensive comments.
This is a blog to highlight and discuss offensive, irresponsible, and inappropriate comments on NOLA.com's Times Picayune website. The blog is not an exhaustive daily monitor of offensive content on NOLA.com but instead the few comments posted and discussed here are exemplary of thousands of similar comments posted on the website.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
NOLA.com Will Call Your Boss
The following comment appeared on a post regarding NO Comment on the Louisiana Justice Institute's Blog:
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Excuse me, but if this is true, this only demonstrates that nola.com's comment moderation is even more of a joke than any of us thought possible. If anybody got fired as a result of this kind of hunt, such "proactivity" would likely be reexamined in court due to a lawsuit by the wronged party.
ReplyDeleteMake no mistake, I'm not supporting the hatemongers. I'm saying that comment moderators need to do their jobs. Block these bigots, certainly. Don't give them this outlet online. But if it turns out the source of the IP address was incorrectly traced and someone's out on the street as a result, this "proactivity" would be backfiring big time.
Report repeat offenders to the Simon Wiesenthal Center or other like organizations that monitor this garbage. Don't target those who might be innocent.
There is an interesting discussion of this post over at http://librarychronicles.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html#4348268329121372064.
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote there, trying to make myself more clear:
I think it is positive that NOLA.com is doing something to create accountability. But I am not sure that the first step - or any step - should involve taking actions that could lose someone their job. To me the real issues are anonymity, which the internet has proven that many people can't be responsible with and therefore, don't deserve AND moderation, which in my view should be conducted prior to a comment posting (though this is likely only necessary if comments are anonymous).
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