Moderation still seems a better choice than banning all anonymous comment
Here are some comments you haven’t read on Mumbrella in the last month:
“This guy is a douche”
“Xxxxx is a prick.”
“I think we all know what she really needs.”
“Boring work.”
“Smug little suit…a nasty performance from the pommy bastard. Self-satisfaction is the order of the day!”
“Same old shit from the Xxxxxx team.”
“He was useless in his last job. He’ll be useless in this one.”
“Moron”
“He really is a sad, abusive, supercilious twat.”
“He seems like a little worm”
You wouldn’t have seen them though, because of our comment moderation policy.
The reason for mentioning this, is that The Australian has today put on the record an issue which has been going on behind the scenes for some months now.
The Communications Council, which represents the advertising industry, would like the trade press, including Mumbrella, Campaign Brief, AdNews and B&T, to ban all anonymous comments. Only those with a pre-registered and checked identity should be allowed to comment, argues the Comms Council.
We first became aware that they were taking an interest in the issue back in July. We were tipped off that it was being discussed by the Comms Council so we asked them for a comment thinking, just as The Australian has today, that it was perhaps worthy of reporting.
The Comms Council firmly denied there was anything going on. But a few weeks later, chairman Anthony Freedman and CEO Daniel Leesong (who abruptly left the organisation last week) dropped by the office.
They asked for the meeting to be off the record. Despite what we felt was somewhat bad faith on the part of the Comms Council regarding their earlier denial, we honoured that request.
I’ll leave the detail of what Freedman and Leesong had to say off the record, but The Australian is accurate in reporting that the Comms Council is arguing that nobody should be allowed to comment anonymously.
I do have some sympathy. It can be too easy for rivals to take easy shots at another agency’s ads. And certainly the worst behaviour tends to come where creative work is being discussed.
The next step was for the Comms Council to organise a sit down between the trade press editors.
I’ve no idea if the others all agreed to attend. Certainly I did, and the meeting was set for a breakfast at Bill’s in Surry Hills on October 20. Late the afternoon before, the meeting was abruptly cancelled and never rearranged. So I’m not entirely sure if this does actually remain formally on the Comms Council’s agenda.
In all honestly, I remain somewhat agnostic on the issue, although I do lean slightly in one direction. Had the meeting taken place, I would have argued that denying users anonymity because of the actions of a minority was probably not the answer.
However, I was, and remain, open to persuasion.
We’ve already moved away from post-moderation, and we now edit comments before they are published.
Post-moderation worked well enough for our first year, when our audience, and the comment community, was smaller. But two incidents in rapid succession occurred. A highly libelous (and needless to say untrue) comment was posted about adman Sean Cummins. It was rapidly removed while only a very small number of people had seen it, but he was still rightly deeply hurt.
And at about the same time, a comment was posted on Mumbrella purporting to be from somebody at one organisation saying something unpleasant about their new boss. What made it even more worrying for me was that there was evidence that it was actually a dirty trick from somebody who had reason to wish us ill. It looked like a clumsy attempt to get us into legal hot water.
So we moved to pre-moderation.
Broadly, our moderation rules are that if comments are negative, they should be about the work or the issue, not the person. So personal abuse is not allowed. And if the comment is negative, it should make a more constructive point than simply “this is shit”.
By the way, a big caveat comes here. Since launching three years ago, we’ve carried 67,956 comments. For the most part, they’ve been moderated by myself or my colleague Robin Hicks. With that volume, sometimes we make mistakes, I’m sure. When that happens, other commenters often alert us to it. Or sometimes we make the judgement call one way, and others disagree. But if ever you spot a comment that you believe is personally abusive, old or new, let us know. If we agreee that it is, it will be removed. (You can email me directly at tim@focalattractions.com.au)
As it happens, I also moderate our sister title Encore. One regular commentator there has set up his own blog in protest at our moderation policy, which he sees as censorship.
So fair to say there is a spectrum of views.
A further point is that there may be an element of shooting the messenger going on. For the most part, these unpleasant comments come from staff at the agencies whose membership make up The Communications Council. I’m not sure many staff take seriously, or are even aware, of The Comms Council’s code of ethics. Particularly point number eight: ” Compete fairly. Be honest in commenting on competitors and our industry. No dirty tricks in new business. No misrepresentation of the capabilities of you (sic) business.” I wonder how many times this clause has been enforced?
And let’s not forget that in a fair number of cases, the real problem is this: the work actually is bad. An agency that has worked hard on it, will often lack the perspective to see that though.
Similarly, I get the sense that these same member organisations do little to stop their staff from spamming our posts with astroturfed positive comments about often average work.
By the way, our view that personal abuse should not be permitted is not shared by all sites. Campaign Brief has posted in recent weeks comments about me that include describing me as a “dung beetle”, that I have “an aggressively unpleasant personality”, “scum”, “short and certainly NOT handsome. I don’t like him. Eeewww”, “Timmy Tabloid is more like Perez Hilton (and just as whiney)”. You’ll forgive me if I don’t actually provide a link to the comment thread in question. I’m not sure if I’m special, or if that policy goes for abuse about their non-rivals too.
So, yes, I do understand what it is like to be the target of anonymous personal abuse.
But I’m still not sure the answer is to take away everybody’s right to comment anonymously because of the behaviour of an angry few.
I know that in our case we have more intelligent, anonymous commenters than we do unintelligent, anonymous commenters. Many of them have good reasons that mean they would simply be unable to add to the debate if they put their real names to their comments. The likes of Groucho, AdGrunt and Gezza, all add entertaining, irreverent, informative perspectives that Mumbrella would be poorer without. It doesn’t matter that in most cases I don’t know who some of these regular commenters are.
And the case remains that comments from those who share their name do have more credibility.
Which brings me back to moderation. I’d still argue that it remains the least imperfect solution.
But what do you think? For now at least, you don’t have to tell me who you are, to share your view.
Tim Burrowes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I’m with you Tim, and if the argument is to “end online abuse” then I suggest they look some of our mainstream news sites before Mumbrella!
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Okay, so coming from the technology industry, I’ve seen this issue bouncing around for quite some time thinking “don’t worry, they’ll figure it out soon enough”..
But tragically, if this proposed ban on anonymity and even *pseudonymity* comes into place, then we’re all up shit creek.
My strong suggestion for journalism types is to talk to your tech colleagues about how the “moderation problem” is handled in online communities. Specifically, look at sites like Slashdot.org, reddit.com, or any of the huge number of open-source software development communities and see how they do it.
There’s a heck of a lot of experience and knowledge out there. And the solution to this problem already exists.
Before we let anyone use a sledgehammer to crack this nut, and stuff up the whole nature of democratic opinion in the process, let’s look to where the problem is solved.
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Pre-moderation is fine, thought I don’t envy you the workload. Perhaps you could allow commenters to register an account, verify their identity, and skip the moderation queue after demonstrating good faith. It would be a useful way to further build community (though God knows many people don’t want to register yet another account – perhaps ID verification through logging in with Facebook/Twitter/OpenID etc is more desirable).
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I’ve only seen one photo of you, Tim, but I thought you were handsome in a roguish way.
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Tim – really well crafted piece, and I’m not always your biggest fan (said anonymously but in jest!).
If publishers start blocking anonymous commentary, they’re only making it just one step easier for social networks, bloggers and just about everyone else to take market share away from them. It is actually the antithesis of listening to what consumers want in their online media.
Point 6 on their code of ethics says: ‘give clients your best advice’. If not listening to customers’ feedback, limiting their ability to have a say, or simply doing what suits the publisher best is how they do that – then there are rough times ahead for the Communications Council and its members.
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When The Australian signs off all its political commentary as coming from ‘Tony Abbotts’ Propaganda Dept’ then we can start talking about putting the real author’s name to our commentary.
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Have a few specific areas where anonymous comments are allowed (premoderated and with a blanket ban on personal attacks) and areas where they are not. On subjects such as creative work where it’s all subjective, I think it’d be a shame for anonymous comments to go. What do you reckon to that?
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You may find this article published by Screen Hub 4 April last of interest, abd subsequently on the RMIT blog site.
It opens…
In George Orwell’s 1984, Hate Week began on 4 April. So it seems a good week to reflect on the rising incidence of hateful, ignorant and malicious content on the Internet and the Tasmanian Electoral Commission’s attempts to regulate electoral comment in cyberspace.
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The Communications Council are revealing themselves as old fashioned, unrealistic , right wing in the extreme and irrelevant to the 21st century in suggesting banning anonymous comment. Next they will want to pre approve everything. Breathtakingly stupid.
Only content moderation prevents me from using most of the terms listed above about them!
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You may find this article published by Screen Hub 4 April last of interest, and subsequently on the RMIT blog site.
It opens…
In George Orwell’s 1984, Hate Week began on 4 April. So it seems a good week to reflect on the rising incidence of hateful, ignorant and malicious content on the Internet and the Tasmanian Electoral Commission’s attempts to regulate electoral comment in cyberspace.
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I don’t want to comment on trade blogs using my real identity because i don’t want my comments to be affiliated with the organisation i work for.
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I totally agree with moderation! Eg I was surprised by some of the responses around the Lynx article. If personal attacks and abuse are allowed mature business people will not be interested to contribute. Frankly, after what some people called me on that Lynx blog I will think twice about if I want to be part of a conversation on mumbrella again. Sad really….
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Maybe you could ask everyone to submit a picture – and only have good looking people comment
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Tim – this is your blog/site so it is your credibility at stake. If other’s need to hide behind Anon to speak out then go let them start their own blog. Letters to the editor of the print newspapers must have their name/address/contact phone. I’m cool with all that. the internet is losing cred by the minute because of dodgy agenda by dubious authors.
PS – the writer having a (valid) go at The Australian as Abbott’s propaganda deparatment has missed the point though – it is to their credit that they almost always have a by-line for the author.
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I’m glad that moderation has muscled its way a little closer to the centre of this debate. Let’s take it one step further and discuss the broader concept of community management. Which covers setting values, tone, guidelines – and persistently enforcing, demonstrating and guiding users to adhere to them. This is a much more valuable focus than pre-moderation.. as we all know that doesn’t scale.
As JayKay says: “There’s a heck of a lot of experience and knowledge out there. And the solution to this problem already exists.”
During my time as Community Manager of Fairfax’s parenting website Essential Baby, we received in excess of 10,000 posts per day. So I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the trenches and know that cultivating community culture is considerably more vital to a healthy community than moderation alone.
As for the spin-off blog Tim – a common reaction from detractors – see how he copes when he starts facing troublesome content!
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I still recovering from laughing at the thought of a body called ‘The Communications Council’ looking to push through plans to stop anonymous communications on the INTERNET!! I read like one of the best April Fool wind-ups in history. Next you’ll tell me the ACCC is going to take on Google regarding dodgy advertising!!.
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Surely the only people who would want to ban anonymous comment would be those who fear comment itself? Especially from their own, or past staff? Must have a look at the web site. Perhaps the board would like to state their individual opinions? We would hate to criticise the wrong people…………………
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I appreciate Mumbrella looking into this. My opinion has been that Mumbrella has missed the mark for some time in fact and still unsure what abusive commentary is.
I don’t think the issue is the anonymity but the content itself.
It may be worth chatting with a professional moderation business that managers the hard core risk issues online like http://www.quiip.com.au. I’m sure there are others. I’ve had to look into this for my own membership site. They seem to be the most aware of online community management issues and how to avoid issues as well as manage them when they are there. The owner Alison has just run a conference on this topic and seems to be a world leader. The industry is pretty new and like you people are feeling their way it seems.
I don’t think it is a subjective subject, as much as you’d like it to be Tim – there’s black and white law that says that what you publish you are responsible for. I have seen many Mumbrella posts that look to me like a legal risk. I also can see that you need to get a feel for where your audience is at with this – but I think Mumbrella is not fully educated about major legal responsibilities and how to draw the line between verbal abuse and freedom of speech.
The examples you’ve raised above that have been edited are clearly NOT OK and it is commendable you have removed them – and prudent. I nearly laughed though at your concern here on this post because I’ve felt that Mumbrella has been far from within the expectations of what I understand is the legal aspect of this.
I’m glad that this issue is of concern now for Mumbrella. Adnews and Australian Creative are both already completely committed to not allowing anonymous posting and more importantly to verbal abuse.
I can assure you that you would attract far more meaningful content if your industry didn’t fear being slaughtered on your site – as is the feedback that I have received over the last couple of years. Food for thought…
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We need to “own” our comments if we put our name to it.
It serves to create an atmosphere of deeper consideration and correctly thought out discussion because there could be something to potentially lose but also things to gain.
It adds respect for our industry and its workers and businesses.
As an analogy, What’s more honorable? A drive by shooting of a competitors grandmother’s home with unmarked plates or an open forum where everybody can participate and spectate with reasoned discussion? Ask yourself, what sort of society would you rather live in? You yourself might end up on the receiving end of that drive by freedom of expression – metaphorically speaking, of course!
Anonymous comments give you complete protection, but what are you hiding from? Yourself? Ignorance? Intolerance? Fear of seemingly larger powers which can and do change society, people and business people from the man at the top, down? Are you merely a bad, weak and mocking joke in the things that you say? Can you hack the mock, back?
Yes – transparency promotes heaps more credibility and intelligence, but sadly, not all readers actually realise this. People respect different things in their own minds and for different reasons.
Remember, most people always “laugh” when they first hear a brilliant idea.. It’s not until they truly understand the ideas implications that the majority of folk then begin to appreciate why it was said, what it really means and the good that it’s for.
This isn’t a bad article Tim – there’s some balance and depth of thought contained within.
Now I would like to post a link.. but apparently, you don’t believe in links on the internet, at least on mumbos comments sections. You find it “spammy” – I find it sharing and it’s also SEO friendly.
cc communications.
(link it up!!)
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I agree Tim. Registering once, would perhaps make people more thoughtful about what they post. As in the offline world, registered users could choose to have their name witheld with a click, but if you are being slanderous, then the aggrieved party should have the right to call you on it.
It’s not worth having a suicide on our hands as in the US.
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It’s a really timely discussion point. So good on u for starting the discussion.
In a modern media world it is all about the conversation. The big C is what industry bodies and media owners should be concerned with. The question to answer about this debate is “what is best for the conversation”.
Signed posts can often be a platform for proselytizing by self absorbed industry “names” (and I could name a few), doing their own grandstanding. But these are never “moderated”. And libelous anonymous posts should also def be screened. That is a no brainer.
So we have two ends of the Conversation Prizm, should we choose media Fascism or media Terrorism? The answer is in neither.
I say go the middle way. Moderate both named and unnamed posts, but establish and make public what your code of moderation is trying to uphold.
Let the open debate be vibrant and unpoliticised by self interest and evil.
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Tim – I’m flattered. And I fail to see why any of this debate should focus on you personally. You’re the messenger, not the message.
Jay Kay – You’re making complete sense to me.
My view is clear. The desire to remove all anonymous commentary is unwise. I can scarcely conceive what practical benefit it will bring. In fact its undertones are rather more sinister – unless we know who you are and what you’re saying, you can’t say it. That’s 1984, my friends. Fuck that.
To echo JK, one should differentiate between the familiar claque of hit-and-run commenters, especially around emotive topics and then the more regular, if pseudonymous long term contributors.
I use a consistent alter-ego in an effort to neutralise puerile ad hominem discussion, but still maintain a continuity of thought and style. For all you know I could be a household name, or simply the bloke who empties the bins. And it shouldn’t matter either way. Tim knows my email address if he needs to have a chat.
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“No misrepresentation of the capabilities of you (sic) business.” – and that comes from the comms council?
What about the well known pitch trick of everyone in the pitch document being promoted a level so the agency can pretend more senior people are on the clients business than really are. and charge more.
Or telling clients that they have 1.5 FTE on their account but actually selling the people at 2.5 so they are always busy and making mistakes, but can’t admit it.
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Don’t worry about the nasty comments at Campaign Brief Tim,
All the negative comments they make about you are probably them projecting.
Creative people in most agencies are prima donna’s who get sheltered from the truth of what clients think of their work.
And as Campaign Brief is more creative oriented I think than Mumbrella which has a much wider audience from what I see, you tend to get nastier comments.
Being a creative must be hard as very few other professions get their work criticised and rejected as an everyday part of their lives.
Account management, clients etc don’t have to put up with that all the time.
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Anonymity promotes honesty . With real identies people will be afraid to comment.
Australia is a small country and advertising/media are small industries – people will be afraid they’ll never work again if they annoy the powerful.
As a client I have been slagged off on industry blogs for my ads (including this one) saying they were ruining good ideas, bad song choice, dull, will never work, stereotypical, mainstream etc……
Frankly who cares.
I know that not everybody likes the same things so when I launch a new ad, I expect some people to slag it and me off. Doesn’t bother me really
Of course, I don’t like people being gratuitiously mean and personal but you don’t allow vicious comments, but I have no problem with the current level of moderation.
And as a gay man who has been on the internet since its inception, i am used to anonymous people in chat rooms telling me they would like to kill me, kick my head in etc etc, purely because I am gay. There’s a lot of nastiness out there, but I can handle the death threats verbal abuse, because as a gay man at times on the wild wild internet, that’s what happens.
So really, what’s said on Mumbrella is nothing in comparison.
by the way, what’s wrong with saying “Boring work”? Isn’t that a valid subjetctive comment?
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The real story (This was not a comms council initiative):
http://www.adnews.com.au/adnew.....-anonymous
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Really, Batman?
If it wasn’t a Comms Council initiative, how come the post you link to said that AdNews launch their (super lame) ‘I ain’t afraid of no troll’ stunt at the end of August and the Comms Council has been talking about this since July?
And while we’re at it, what exactly is AdNews doing? Having a moderation policy and asking people to supply an email address. Not checking it, not registering them. Whoop-de-fucking-do. You’ve really solved that problem, haven’t you?
It’s embarrassing that you even think you’re doing any different to online publishers the world over.
By the way, had a legal letter from the owners of the trademark on the Ghostbusters logo yet?
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Slightly off topic, but apologies for some odd times of posting on some comments.
We moved to new hosting at the weekend and it threw a couple of things off.
I think we’ve now manually fixed the times, but to avert any conspiracy theories about how people apparently managed to comment before the post was live, if there are any discrepancies, that’s why.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I like to think people can judge the value of my comments by the words written not by my face or reputation.
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In Anne Summer’s October 2011 profile of Andrew Bolt in The Monthly, Phil Gardner (ed chief of Herald and Weekly Times) was quoted on p.26 as saying, “We are moving towards a position of having greater control over what people leave on our website and we will be in a position to trace back comments if we have to.”
Only Sunday 6 Nov 2011 Andrew Bolt announced a more stringent approach to moderation of comments on the Andrew Bolt Blog:
http://blogs.news.com.au/heral.....ry_to_you/
This may have been a (News Ltd Senior-management-driven?) response to the Submissions I made to the Independent Media Inquiry — which analysed five key News Ld blogs (including the Andrew Bolt juggernaut) — and found there were over 1.9 million comments made since 2006, with over 97,000 of these include words which could have defamatory meanings importantly dependent of course on the context (marker words analysed were Corrupt, Deceit, Deceptive, Dishonest, Fraud, Incompetent, Lying, Untrustworthy, Untruthful).
I provided a courtesy copy of my submissions to Mr Bolt and News Ltd on Saturday 5 Nov 2011, and Mr Bolt wrote on the next day:
“First, for legal self-protection, I am not able to moderate my blog any longer. All comments must go through our moderating team.
Second, again for legal reasons, and because this blog has become the target of lawfare, our moderators are understandably very, very careful when going through the comments. This means delays and a touchiness about publishing anything remotely dangerous.”
My Submissions can be read at:
http://www.courtrules.net.au/News.aspx
My News Ltd blog analysis was also drawn on by invited witness Prof Robert Manne for his personal evidence to the Melbourne hearing on 8 Nov 2011 — as acknowledged in the last two paragraphs of The Monthly and ABC Drum:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3654470.html
There has also been a curious situation with Delays in Publication of Submissions to the Media Inquiry.
I have documented the situation at this link:
http://www.courtrules.net.au/News/PubDelays.aspx
As of 14 Nov 2011 there is now an Admin Appeals Tribunal (AAT) application for its jurisdiction to review the decision on the merits of Senator Stephen Conroy’s Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy not actually publishing Submissions.
For reasons unknown, my Submissions for instance have not actually been published by the Media Inquiry Secretariat.
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If you want to make a comment, be brave and make it. Why hide behind an anonymous label or are you just scared that someone will hear your comments. Or maybe you are just too scared to say what you really think. Tim, people should identify themselves before they post.
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I was shocked by what Campaign Brief allows to be published.
I thought they had cleaned up their act.
The fact that Mumbrella and AdNews have both addresses this and Campaign brief stays silent says it all.
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Ever thought of limiting the length of comments?
Eheu! One needs to be a speed reader for some of these ten paragraph jobs on here?
Do kids do precis in school anymore?
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Just a thought, if the likes of YouTube and Facebook get away without pre-moderation then I think Mumbrella can too.
But from a content perspective, filtering out the crap makes for a better read.
I do like the idea of registrations (and all other functions) that allow a user to qualify him/self in terms of identiy, engagment, peer feedback, etc…
Which would be a step towards what Alison Michalk is talking about which, if executed well, will present you with additional opportunities.
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It’s funny @Lawrence, I went through a similar registration process on another industry site recently. Since I’m always fully transparent about who I am and happy to stand by my comments I do this as a matter of course. If you enter the registration criteria properly it seems that a link to the website is embedded. Some anon bloggers gave me schtick about it, claiming I was self promoting! How does that figure?! What a warped view of it, I thought.
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@mumbrella – is there a link to your comment moderation policy on your site anywhere? I’d be interested in reading the detail
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Hi AJ,
That’s a good question. I could point to a number of posts where I’ve written about it as it’s evolved, but there’s not a reference page where it is formally summed up. There probably should be.
In fairness to the Comms Council, I may give it a bit of time to have another go at getting the editors together before doing so.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Since about June 2011 Andrew Bolt Blog does not accept contributions that include a Surname for the contributor.
As detailed in my First Submission to the Media Inquiry (see p.8):
http://www.courtrules.net.au/P.....Dot-AU.pdf
The following explanatory note from a Moderator on the Andrew Bolt Blog was posted in a comment thread:
“It has been decided that when moderating, surnames on any comments will be deleted. Deleting surnames will avoid problems with some people posting comments in other people’s names.”
This practice would reduce the possibility of identity theft, if that was a problem at all. It would also reduce the defamation exposure for News Limited that could arise from defamatory comments being posted by others about a person who had identified themselves on the Blog using their real name.
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Moderated publications, which allow anonymous posts / pseudonyms are totally fine.
Before you pick on sites like Mumbrella News Ltd, aim a little higher. In fact why not pick on somebody far bigger than you, like Google?
Go To YouTube and watch videos such as ‘drummers in chicago’ and look at the most popular comments. YouTube needs serious moderation. Do no evil? YouTube turns into a racist slag fest on nearly every mainstream thread[, sadly. I am wondering, which media institution might be responsible for helping to create such hatred in our society..?
Tim has learned a lot since Mumbrella’s launch and the anonymous posts and free flowing points of view (which are definitely becoming less crass and spiteful for sure) are great and engage his audience very well.
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@Anne Miles, you can’t win!
I guess it depends on the website and the type of community culture that emerges, and it’s up to the website owner to shape that.
It would be interesting to see what kind of comments (and volume of comments) would appear on this site if people were only allowed to post using their Facebook credentails.
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@Lawrence – I suspect YouTube & Facebook have budgets for legal counsel that are slightly larger than Mumbrella’s 😉
@AJ @Tim Yes a lack of a visible moderation policy or guidelines is the stuff of Community Management nightmares!
@Christopher Copywriter & @Carole Goldsmith – can I ask if you’re referring to Mumbrella only or anonymity in general? There are myriad examples of how anonymity is valuable (see Craig Thomler’s recent post). For example in the recent discussions about maternity leave – you might not be able to speak of a personal experience without indirectly identifying (and therefore defaming) employers. Yet it’s an extremely valuable discussion. Sometimes breaking down social barriers, stereotypes, pre-conceived notions etc allows us to have meaningful contributions on a level playing field. That’s the beauty of the internet.
Although AdGrunt summed it up:
“The desire to remove all anonymous commentary is unwise. I can scarcely conceive what practical benefit it will bring. In fact its undertones are rather more sinister – unless we know who you are and what you’re saying, you can’t say it. That’s 1984, my friends. Fuck that.”
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No not Facebook credentials please, I do not use Facebook as I find it a waste of time
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Hey,
Anonymous comments – There Fucking Awesome!!!
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Let’s be open about this, there’s a lot of dirty laundry taking the form of comments on Mumbrella/Campaign Brief posts. Agencies don’t like that so they’re proposing to shut it down.
Taking a totally non-biased opinion, I believe that airing these issues with current/ex employees is constructive. The feedback is valuable and inadvertantly gets agencies thinking about the way they treat their people. Truth be known, many agencies treat their employees appallingly. If the Comms Council got around to the subject of “job satisfaction’ they might find this a non issue.
3 more things, Tim its your website so you can do WTF you want with it.
just the mere notion of the Comms Council attempting censorship is an oxymoron.
Freedom of speech is an Australian right. Only Steven Conroy can take that away from us. Gattaca!
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So will ad agencies then not do anon positive comments on youtube clips of their ads etc?
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@Carole Goldsmith, Facebook’s policy is that people sign up using their real names. This happens most of the time, so a ‘Facebook log in’ option is just an example of having a system in place to ensure people are using their real names.
Some Twitter handles are ‘verified’. I’m not entirely sure how they do this, but if a celeb isn’t verified I’m not going to be 100% sure that it’s a genuine account.
Mumbrella could implement all sorts of verification systems and models to allow totally anonymous posts, anonymous posts by registered (and verified users), verfired users only, etc… but I think the system works well for them. Also considering that implementing something good will not be cheap.
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Everybody calm down and meet me in the boardroom.
Ok….after some thought, and weeks of posting, I know what we should do about the anonymous blogging issue. Nothing. It’s fixing itself. Can’t you feel that
the more opinion(nice or nasty) there is in the industry blogosphere, the more it’s losing it’s currency? Like printed money in pre-war Germany.
There’s valued opinion and now,de-valued opinion. Anything on an anonymous blog is the latter. Not totally worthless, but seriously devalued.
So when you get done on a posting (as I’m about to), remember that this is de-valued opinion. It’s a new variety we all have to adapt to. I mean seriously people, only a dumb fucken dorks like you guys would take de-valued opinion to heart! Getting the hang of it?
Ok, off you go everybody and happily trash each other and the bogging currency.
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Gentlemen, do you really have to use the F word in your postings. Some of us really do not like that and we switch off and do not even read what you are writing. Say what you think but a bit of courtesy with the language please!!!
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I read today Simon Canning’s report that the Comm’s Council wants blasphemy to be moderated on blogs as well. And they also want fines for people who take their shirts off at concerts.
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@Carole – I think you should be less judgemental about the F word, “Facebook”
It’s all part of the rich tapestry of social media that this blog is also part of.
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AdGrunt whoever you are – you know what F word I am referring to and it is not Facebook. Show some manners. in my world the F word does not exist so please restrain from using words that offend.
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@Caroline: What a fabulous combination of censorship (don’y say fuck) and sexism (Gentlemen don’t say fuck)
For your next trick?
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Tim,
I’ve been meaning to talk to you about an idea for the worst of anonymous comments.
Let people who put their name to a comment post as much as they want for free. If someone has a good reason to post anonymously, charge them $2.
It will keep the veil of anonymity when it’s needed and weed out all the riff raff.
David
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The comments are usually more interesting and readable than the original opinion methinks..
I enjoy the diverse points of view and reading a wide spectrum of literary styles through digi-chit-chat to serious and worthy commentary. We are i-peeps that’s what we do.
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David dear old thing,
That one will not work. It’s almost as dumb as getting one’s ample knickers in a knot over the “F” word.
The online consumer has five eyes.
I won’t pay
I won’t watch
I won’t wait
I want to create
and
I want to be heard
Try again with the above in mind.
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The idea that comments are a free-for-all and should not be edited (or “censored”) blows my mind. I run a site with around 1.5m page views a month; I delete or edit maybe a third of all comments. Mostly for the reasons stated above, but also sometimes because I simply don’t agree with what is being said.
I often get emails from irate commenters who think that they have a right to say whatever they like—on a website that is my own personal property, and takes up a lot of my time. It’s democracy gone mad.
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This may be a silly question to people who understand things better .. but why does it matter?
The Comms Council would like to make a certain policy. So what? Why does it matter what policy the Comms Council has? Is Mumbrella obliged to follow those policies?
The thing I love about anonymous posting is that it means that you are no longer evaluating the information based on the reputation of the person – it is purely down to whether the comments make sense on their own.
That’s why whenever I’ve commented here and said things that are pretty pointed (even pointing out that some companies are acting illegally) I’ve always backed it up with references to both the law and the behaviour .. so you can view the information for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
Anne Mile’s post above is a good counter example. Simple statements are made in her post like ” there’s black and white law that says that what you publish you are responsible for.”. Fine. But without some references we’ll just have to take it on Anne’s reputation.
But this doesn’t mesh with NSW law, nor the proposed united Commonwealth law.
To quote:
“A separate defence would cater for defendants who are not authors of the published matter; for instance, a newspaper that publishes a letter to the editor. It would be a defence to show that:
• the published matter related to ‘a matter of public interest’
• it amounted to opinion
• it did not purport to be the opinion of the defendants, or their agents or employees, and
• there was no reasonable cause to believe that it was not the honest opinion of the author. ”
Promised reference here: http://bit.ly/uYheEH
This is why I like anonymous comments – if I was relying on my reputation my counter argument might be ‘You are wrong’. The very fact my reputation is zero (because the comment is anonymous) means that you’ll have to come up with a counter argument giving facts … not just saying ‘someone important disagrees’.
See ?
Long live anonymous commenting!
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and long live the sort of common sense shown by ‘It-must-be-true-its-on-the-internet ‘ above………………
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@It-Must-Be_True_On-The-Internet. . I think the experts such as Quiip could add to this too. Here are my grounds for my comment – and fair enough to call me on it. I’m happy to oblige and I’m happy to put my name to what I say. Of course I don’t pretend to be a lawyer but I needed to be aware enough to manage my own community, Commercial Ideas Network and make decisions about fair moderation. I also have experience of my own in relation to verbal abuse (in written form) and have had legal advice. Failing giving you the exact section of the law that a lawyer used to inform me, here are some relevant sources that summarise the advice. Sorry to those that hate lots of reading – I’ve been called to point and need the space.
I do appreciate that any of this discussion is mute until a legal case is precedence. I’m looking forward to the day when accountability will be in place. Currently this new law mentioned above as evidence @6.59 is not in place and it is only proposed (as far as I can tell anyway), and so much more discussion from either party is probably pointless.
Freedom of speech: “Australians are free, within the bounds of the law, to say or write what we think privately or publicly, about the government, or about any topic. We do not censor the media and may criticise the government without fear of arrest. Free speech comes from facts, not rumours, AND THE INTENTION MUST BE CONSTRUCTIVE AND NOT TO BE HARM. There are laws to protect a person’s good name and integrity against false information. There are laws against saying or writing things to INCITE HATRED against others because of their culture, ethnicity or background. Freedom of speech is not an excuse to harm others.”
Australian Government interpretation of the Law on Freedom of Speech found here:
http://www.immi.gov.au/living-.....eedoms.htm
As quoted in the PROPOSED law mentioned above @6.59 re: the responsibility of the publisher the part of the document that was not stated above to make the issue complete:
“The Act would grant a right of action against any person who PUBLISHES matter [edit] 2 The cause of action would arise against each PUBLISHER of the matter.1 There would, however, be an exception for some unintentional publications.’
Additionally: ‘The defence would NOT BE AVAILABLE if the plaintiff can show that the defendant did not publish the matter in good faith for the information of the public or the advancement of education.” I argue that Mumbrella’s or any online media outlet that chooses to allow abusive commentary is not doing so in good faith nor for the advancement of education.
Additionally and concurrently there are laws on what is deemed verbal abuse and I don’t see why a publication would be exempt from allowing that to go on. Whilst this is part of family law this is my understanding of the situation: ‘5.23 There are, however, a number of federal offences which could potentially fall within the ambit of family violence and give rise to a protection order. For example, conduct such as threatening behaviour or harassment that can form the basis for a protection order can also fall within the ambit of the following federal offences:
using a carriage service to make a threat;[23]
using a CARRIAGE SERVICE TO MENACE,HARASS OR CAUSE OFFENCE;[24]
using a postal or similar service to make a threat;[25] and
using a postal or similar service to menace, harass or cause offence.[26]’
SOURCE: http://www.alrc.gov.au/publica.....tion/curre
Bullying:
“Bullying is a form of aggressive behavior, which may manifest as abusive treatment, the use of force or coercion to affect others,[2] particularly when habitual and involving an IMBALANCE OF POWER’ (I believe that the media have an imbalance of power in such cases and would argue that this applies here)
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying
Verbal Abuse:
Verbal abuse is a form of abusive behavior involving the use of language. It is a form of profanity that can occur with or without the use of expletives. Whilst oral communication is the most common form of verbal abuse, it includes abusive words in WRITTEN form.
Verbal abuse is a pattern of behavior that can seriously interfere with one’s positive emotional development and can lead to significant detriment to one’s self-esteem, emotional well-being, and physical state. It has been further described as an ongoing emotional environment organized by the abuser for the purposes of control.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....al_attacks
I haven’t noted Mumbrella’s policy on moderation, nor their policy on whether the blog comments can reflect their own views selectively, or be edited by them to reflect their own views, or to incite a certain opinion by their readers, nor if they publish their own comments anonymously or with a changed name to incite a certain response in their community – therefore potentially crossing a line as to whether the above reference from @6.59 can in fact be sustained.
So, at this point I do feel the facts support my point – that publishers are responsible for what they publish – until a case is proven either way.
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Anne,
You’ve missed the point of the article about accommodating Anonymity, Free Speech and Moderation.
You’ve come at this from a presumption of prohibition, ignoring the moderation question at hand.
You’re appear to be taking a ramble through the legal terms you’ve heard, applying your own whimsical interpretation of what are quite precise legal terms.
If the difference between calling someone a feckless idiot on an Internet mong board and threatening someone, by phone, email or Facebook, to kill someone’s family if their dog doesn’t stop barking, then you need to have a reality check.
Perhaps stick to the basic concepts, rather than attempting a mock trial.
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Can someone please explain to me how removing anonymity removes someones freedom of speech. If someone can’t express their opinion when they have to be upfront on who they are the only thing that they have had removed is their balls.
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Fraser,
Let me help: http://bit.ly/uA07rQ
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Anne – you want an actual example of case law?
What about .16 Collins .v. Ryan?
To quote: (Ref: .http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/.....s/DP32CHP9)
“Collins v Ryan, an interlocutory decision of Hunt J, the requirement of belief in the truth was discussed in the context of letters to the editor published by a newspaper defendant. Where such letters contain statements of opinion, the defence of comment of a stranger will normally apply. Where they contain statements of fact, however, the defence of comment is unavailable. Hunt J held that it was arguably reasonable for the defendant to provide a forum in which members of the public may not only express their opinions, but also express and debate factual issues, even where the publisher does not honestly believe in the truth of the facts asserted.”
I suspect you may have fallen for a common fallacy when you received legal advice on how to act for your own forum.
Good legal advice isn’t about telling you what the law permits you to do .. it is all about advising you how to act to get maximum use of the law. Nuisance suits are a real hazard … not so much the risk that you will lose them .. but the risk that you’ll have to expend an awful lot of resources coping with the nuisance.
So a good lawyer gives you advice on how to protect you from those .. not necessarily on how the full spectrum of the law will treat such cases.
To look at one thing that wasn’t mentioned .. paradoxically in Australia we’ve had cases where the more offensive and libellous the comments are actually gave *more* protection to the publisher from being sued .. rather than less! (I bet your lawyer didn’t mention that!)
That seems bizarre and counter-intuitive – but just look at what happened when Mr Naoum sued over a website which compared him to a mafia leader and accused him of being a spy .. as well as being hypocritical, conceited, narcissistic and a bully.
According to your legal advice .. that was pretty much an open & shut case – right? Wrong. The court rule that because the claims were so ‘unstructured and irrelevant’ that they would be recognised by any objective reader as not ”emanating from an untroubled mind”. He even appealed and lost.
(Note – Just google some key phrases from the paragraph above. You’ll see plenty of newspaper articles about it. Mostly because after the poor guy lost he had to pay the legal fees of the loony/’troubled mind’ who was ranting about him. (Talk about adding injury to insult!) So he tried to argue diplomatic immunity .. which was laughable (and unsuccessful). But I still feel sorry for the poor guy)
One of many writeups on the case: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cons.....172en.html
Anyway, thanks for the great discussion.
Mac
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(PS: In a ‘tip of the hat’ to your argument against anonymity I signed my name above. But I still believe strongly in the many virtues of anonymous arguments)
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thanks for the tip @Adgrunt and all valid reasons for specific websites although I am still struggling to find any valid reasons in the link for the connection between anonymity and loss of freedom of speach in a marketing/communication blog.
I can;t recall any blogs on mumbrella, B&T or Adnews that are on whistelblowing, human rights, domestic violence or political/economic retribution/harassment
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@ItMustBeTrueItsOnTheInternet Amazing case – thanks for sharing. Great insights.
So far nothing has changed my view on how I choose to moderate my own community. The community has been formed by people that wanted to be transparent and support each other to grow as an industry. That’s a choice for that community. At the same time I’m not saying that Mumbrella should stop anonymous commentary altogether but as @ItMustBeTrueItsOnTheInternet says, when we’re deciding if commentary is valid and can be respected it is hard to take anonymous comments seriously, and I’ll call people on this personally when that happens.
However, I’m not actually saying that Mumbrella should stop anonymous commentary altogether – my issue is about the type of content that I feel steps into being abusive; and being anonymous does seem to inflate it (observation).
I’d be interested to see if the type of content that Mumbrella has edited out ‘He is a douche’ etc. could be linked to someone of a ‘troubled mind’. I doubt it is out-there far enough, if that article is anything to go by. I agree with and respect Mumbrella taking those out. As a professional dealing with human psychology to a degree, they are enough to harm someone emotionally, and it seems to me that they are considered verbal abuse and possibly defamation in some cases by law.
I don’t care if people swear and rant and rave about themselves or the world in general on someone else’s blog; about political issues, or their own beliefs of any kind – it is only when it is directed as harm to someone else that I have the issue and as far as I can tell unless it is totally ridiculous, then my understanding is correct. Thanks for the reassurance.
My belief is that Mumbrella still has a way to go to get the balance right at times. They are not alone of course. This is a good exercise in the community helping to get that boundary right – so kudos to Tim. Without reading back over it all here, my impression is that this particular blog is well within the right balance to me – some good discussion with healthy disagreement and discussion. I would certainly take someone more seriously if they are transparent though – hence me calling people on that from time to time. It is a great example of a well managed blog post, I feel, to date.
Even though I agree with having free speech – I also love the point @fraser makes – its not exactly world peace here, hey?!
As far as whistle blowing goes though – we haven’t heard the full story about the Communications Council and Daniel Leesong’s prompt departure or how the replacement CEO’s position could have been misconstrued as permanent – so perhaps some anonymity may encourage that?! ;o)
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Fraser, I’m not sure what sites you think should / shouldn’t be included. You’re the one drawing that line.
EFF seem to be suggesting that it is a universal tenet. I’d agree.
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REF: Bullying behaviour in the moderation context.
Can it be thus defined? when the potential ‘victim’ has willingly joined and become part of an online discussion thread in full knowledge of what to expect?
Too many rules and lack of humour/respect for difference is going to end up with flat beige comments.
If that happens . . . I’m off.
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If we let ex-pat English editors dictate low and purely abusive styles of communication amongst our Australian media communicators we allow them to lock up our minds in a regressive and unproductive culture of time wasting negative dribble. Our society will never advance this way. Australians need to think intelligently and globally if we’re to improve our lot in the information age. It’s a no brainer however creative, common and offensive the low brow arguments might strain to be.
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I’ll throw another spanner in the works and remind people that no-one can enforce or regulate “real identities”. So really this debate is about choosing between anonymity or fake profiles. Either way I can guarantee a moderation queue.
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Spot on @Alison. It simply moves from one to the other.
Then it really comes back to the moderation of what content gets through as the only purposeful exercise left.
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I am a member of a local (to me) forum, a technical site, whirlpool, twitter, LinkedIn, Google plus and I run 3 blogs (I neglect two regularly). In all of my dealings online, I don’t swear. the worst from me is “firetruck” or B*st*rd – as my comments are read by the world, which I always need to remember.
The forum doesn’t get many comments from me as they are emotive moderators, and there is no emotion in moderation.
I am a core member of the technical site and have to moderate against a set of rules around language, spam, factual information and relevance.
Whirlpool is moderation without mercy, so it is always on topic when I visit.
LinkedIn has a report this post option, so I can get sin binned if I say the wrong thing.
Google plus? No clue. not said anything that warranted moderation yet.
Twitter is self moderation, my followers and friends let me know if something is off.
My 3 blogs are moderated by me – the comments are approved after I apply the technical site’s guidelines, so if it is emotive but not nasty, it goes up. If it is just plain rude, it doesn’t.
As for comments I make on other sites, they are constructive, and need to identify specific things. This site is new to me, so if this comment is too far off topic, I will know why it didn’t appear here.
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On our website we still indulge ourselves and allow post-moderation and use of non-ISP addresses to register. However I can see that there are situations in which all posts should be moderated in advance of posting has value.
Our membership at Australian Opinion is mostly of a ‘mature’ age, so perhaps yours is of a younger and more volatile group? I *do* however use post-moderation on my personal blog so perhaps it’s a more a case of ‘horses for courses’??
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What if you got a hot tip on a huge social media spend scandal / failure? But no one is willing to discuss it, talk about it, explain it, analyse the failures to the marketing community. You don’t have to be a “propstar” to know what I’m talking about. What if someone just wanted someone else to disclose the truth. As Marketers why can we be honest about the failures and report on it – seems like Mumbrella keeps the hot news under the umbrella.
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What about this – “Jetztar blows millions in failed social media experiment” would you publish this for example?
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Sorry dear. You’re a bit late and no-one is left. We’re all at Christmas piss-ups.
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If you have a hot tip, why not email Tim?
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