The magical Web brings us together

The Chicago Tribune has a public editor, kind of an ombudsman, Timothy McNulty, who writes periodic meta-columns about what goes on inside the newspaper. Pretty interesting stuff, as we get insight into why certain editorial decisions are made, how much discussion goes on about potential controversy, and the care with which content is included (which is probably at least part of the reason McNulty writes these columns, to burnish the newspaper's reputation as a serious place).

From his column today:

Earlier this week, the Tribune shut down comment boards on its Web site for all political news stories. It also took down comments on an opinion column about Muslims, and on a story about the Illinois governor and a story about a violent crime in which a child was killed.

Those are the latest on the list of volatile topics -- including race, immigration and rape -- that bring out anonymous writers who are so nasty, obscene and racist that the boards were beginning to read like a community of foul-mouthed bigots.

The Tribune opened up comments on all news stories a few months ago, and they have been virtually unmoderated. The reasons for doing this, according to a producer for the web site:

[T]here is real value to those who want immediate conversation about news and events.

"People want the ability to talk back and to talk with each other," she said. "This builds community."

It's this attitude on the part of many Webophiles that represents, to me, one of the great misconceptions about the Internet, that the very act of wiring disparate people together will create a critical mass of emergent wonderfulness that will sweep us into a post-national world of peace and brotherhood.

And I'm not overstating it by very much. There actually are people who believe that, by connecting each of us to a massive data pipe, we will understand one another and build communities that transcend our neighborhoods or towns or countries; the ability to be in touch with the great diversity around us will broaden us in unforeseeable ways. These are the folks who believe that "the network is the solution."

What the Tribune has found out should come as no surprise. They discovered,

Anonymity emboldens the cowardly and the liars. In a sense, message boards are the computer equivalent of talk radio, without a three-second delay. Nobody has to give a real name. Users can write just about anything until someone calls them on it or cuts them off.

That's a problem for the Chicago Tribune.

And it's a problem for the rest of us. I will only occasionally look at the comments sections of blogs, and, every time I do, I'm overwhelmed by the ignorant, the rude, even the cutesy showing-off posts that purport to be clever. What could be a medium for serious back-and-forth discussions on the issues of the day (or less important matters, like Ginger vs. Mary Ann) most often turns into a forum of idiots, none of whom has anything useful to contribute.

Far from building community, the Web tends to breed more insularity, as we go to a site for one of two reasons: to have our preconceptions confirmed (- Bush is an idiot - He sure is - Right on, brother), or to be provocative, usually in a content-free way (- Well, I think it's obvious that Bush is the greatest president ever - No, he isn't - Yes he is). In neither case are we doing deep learning, that is, challenging our deeply-held feelings by confronting evidence that contradicts (or, at least, asks us to modify) them.

People like to be heard, especially when their message falls under the imprimatur of a major publication (I've had a couple of letters printed in the Tribune, and I do find that a bit more exciting than is warranted). People are not "contributing" comments on news stories or columns because they want to build a sense of community; they're doing so because they like to hear themselves talk. To expect more than that is pretty naive.