NEWS websites in the country have been adding a feature to their comment sections in the hope of discouraging irresponsible online statements.
The past year has seen a sudden surge in the number of comments posted online to news reports and social media accounts, and with that increase came toxic exchanges, outbursts of harsh, insulting and destructive messages aired in public.
Comments like “I hope you die” or warnings of assassination or rape have been posted in online exchanges on websites, blogs, social networks like Facebook and Twitter, forums and chatrooms. Online comments have been coming out since websites were born decades ago, but the surge in hurtful messages and trolls became noticed in the country only late last year, brought about by the heated electoral contest.
There are many ways to address trolls, or those online comments that seek to demean a person in public. News websites have resorted to at least one – the “View Comments” tab.
Comment sections used to be found in the space below the story on a web page. In these section, readers write their reactions to the news or to the way the article was written. These comment boxes, in many instances, were turned into cesspools of hate words and abuse.
To control the exchanges but without discouraging the airing of sentiments, websites like www.sunstar.com.ph introduced the “View Comments” tab.
Instead of seeing the comments feature immediately at the end of a story, readers would now have to click on the tab to be brought to the comments platform.
Through this simple and additional action, publishers hope trolls would be discouraged and emotional readers get an extra second or two to pause and think before writing to the article author or other commenters.
The “view comments” tab is a middle ground between full and below-the-page comments by readers on one hand and taking down the comment sections totally on the other. Some media organizations are switching off their commenting facility and moving discussions to social media platforms. They are giving up the struggle with reader comments on their websites and letting users discuss stories on social channels instead.
This compromise is a better option to a situation where there is no convention on Internet commenting, no agreed set of behavior online.
There are several measures media companies can take to address this challenge but the “view comments” tab was one done individually and without networks agreeing among themselves.
Aside from Sun.Star, among the other websites adopting this feature are Inquirer and Rappler.
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Novena masses for the Our Lady of Peñafrancia in Cebu are going on at the Capitol parish church.
Daily masses started Friday and will continue until next Sunday, September 25, fiesta day for the Our Lady of Peñafrancia, patroness of Bicolandia. Venue is the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church or Capitol parish.
From Monday to Friday, the novena mass is at 6:15 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, mass is at 5:30 p.m.
Fiesta activities are sponsored by the Bicol Association of Cebu Inc., with Sun.Star as media partner.
(ninicab@sunstar.com.ph)