By DORY MacMILLAN – Features Editor
Online commentary is provided to spawn debate over controversial topics, not to insult other commentators. This is something that needs to be more often remembered.
Finally, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution has been proved! Sorry, non-believers: you’re wrong; man most certainly shares a common ancestor with apes.
If you are curious about how I know, take a minute and journey online to onlineathens.com, the online edition of the Athens Banner-Herald, which serves as the city’s premier website for news and uncivil discourse.
Online Athens offers the ability to comment on articles by creating an account. These accounts have the option of being totally private, allowing for made-up and random user names. An enormous amount of power is given to those with private accounts, allowing anonymity to be a common shroud for the terrible, immature comments people make.
There are countless examples of the inappropriate and rude behavior of the commenters on various posts.
Recently, hundreds of comments were made about an article written by Lee Shearer, headlined, “Rules for undocumented students hit teachers too.”
Regardless of your personal stance on immigration, the discourse was uncivil and rather pathetic. For the most part, a group of adults were commenting, calling each other names and acting remarkably like primates—without any human-like compassion or common sense.
“Cowards? Yeah, I’ll bet you are really brave. You wouldn’t have the guts to say that to somebody’s face. The wonderful Internet. Gotta love it,” wrote one frequent commenter, arguing vehemently with another person.
Later on, this user also threatened to beat up someone else, claiming they were sexist.
Awesome. This is just one example of the many adults online that are actually children. Or not even children…more like apes.
I believe in online commentary. I believe in freedom of speech. Even though I might spend my life yelling at the top of my lungs in support of something you might yell against at the top of yours, I want to protect your right to disagree.
But, what good does it do to be uncivil? Maybe the commenting draws more readers to the website—this has to be the reason Online Athens does not censor more comments. Still, there is a remarkable loss of integrity and humanity.
I’ll offer a general rule of thumb, although it is something that should go unsaid: stop monkeying around and debate the issues. Anonymity is not an excuse to act without compassion.
