Image by Rob McMahon

Behind the anonymity of commenting, people hate others. It is disgusting… Keith Bilous, ICUC Moderation Services.

From letters to the editors, to the first call-in radio show there have been forums for people to share their opinions with the world on the issues. Today there was an article by the Canadian Press on 24 Hours Vancouver’s website about the number and ugly nature of comments being left on news websites after stories were published about the apparent lack of French in the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

At a recent FreshMediaMe event I asked a question of the panel about how we could go about raising the level of discourse. A representative of CBC was on the panel and he mentioned that when any story is posted on their website about First Nations the most vicious attacks come out and their monitoring company has a lot of work to do. The suggestion was to flag the comments as inappropriate so that a moderator could remove them. But there has to be more we can do.

Unlike newspapers that have editors to review content and radio stations that have producers that can screen callers, the web in most cases is unfiltered. Comments that are inappropriate generally need to be flagged or caught by a service to be removed.

I have to agree with Bilous that the anonymity of the web allows people to show their ugly side without signing their names. I equate this type of behaviour to the anti-Olympic protesters that covered their faces before smashing store windows, threatening pedestrians and vandalizing cars and buses.

Late last year, the Wall Street Journal posted an excellent opinion piece by Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and Andrea Weckerle, founder and president of CiviliNation on cybercivility. They made some excellent suggestions on improving the level of discourse on the Internet:

1. We need to create an online culture in which every person can participate in an open and rational exchange of ideas and information without fear of being the target of unwarranted abuse, harassment or lies.
2. individuals appalled at the degeneration of online civility need to speak out, to show that this type of behavior will no longer be tolerated. This includes flagging comments as inappropriate.
3. People need to know how to differentiate between information that is published on legitimate sites that follow defined standards and also possibly a professional code of ethics, and information published in places like gossip sites whose only goal is to post the most outrageous headlines and stories in order to increase traffic.
4. Adult targets of online hostility deserve a national support network.
5. Online hostility is cross-jurisdictional. We might need laws that directly address this challenge.

I strongly urge all upstanding cybercitizens to be transparent and respectful in your posts, call out those who use the Internet to propagate hate and support organizations that work to create an online culture where everyone can feel safe.

You can also follow CiviliNation on Twitter.