Yet Another Website Kills Comments, Despite Study Showing You Can Have Civil Comments If You Give A Damn

from the gags-help-communication dept

There's a trend afoot among some website editors to kill the comment section, then proclaim that they've courageously decided to reduce conversation to help improve conversation. It's a random bit of logic we've noted doesn't make any sense if you're interested in actually fostering a local community, and care about not having all conversation outsourced to Facebook. The pretense that you're killing comments because you're nobly trying to further human communications (and not, say, because your website is cheap and lazy) is also disingenuous. That hasn't stopped ReCode, Reuters, Popular Science, or some newspapers from killing comments in order to push humans to the next evolutionary level (or whatever).

This week, yet another website joined the "comments are evil and have no use" parade. In a now familiar treatise, TheWeek.com announced that while editors "truly do value your opinions," you're no longer going to be allowed to express them on their website. According to TheWeek, this nuclear option was required because comments are just filled with horrible, nasty people:

"There was a time — not so long ago! — when the comments sections of news and opinion sites were not only the best place to host these conversations, they were the only place. That is no longer the case. Too often, the comments sections of news sites are hijacked by a small group of pseudonymous commenters who replace smart, thoughtful dialogue with vitriolic personal insults and rote exchanges of partisan acrimony. This small but outspoken group does a disservice to the many intelligent, open-minded people who seek a fair and respectful exchange of ideas in the comments sections of news sites."

Of course if news outlets spent a few minutes actually moderating the comments section and treating it like a valuable community resource (instead of oh, a drunk uncle with a bad goiter and nasty halitosis at your wedding), that probably wouldn't be as big of a problem.

In fact, it's worth noting that a recent paper published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication found that it's not very hard to increase civility in your comment section. In some cases all it took was the writer of the article entering the comment section and treating the people there relatively well, even if they're all busy acting like jackasses:

"One surprisingly easy thing they found that brought civil, relevant comments: the presence of a recognized reporter wading into the comments.

Seventy different political posts were randomly either left to their own wild devices, engaged by an unidentified staffer from the station, or engaged by a prominent political reporter. When the reporter showed up, “incivility decreased by 17 percent and people were 15 percent more likely to use evidence in their comments on the subject matter,” according to the study."

Note by "recognized" the paper just means somebody relatively recognized from the outlet or the reporter themselves. They also tried their very best to actually define "incivility" as a quantifiable metric:

"To develop a list of characteristics that signaled incivility, we drew from past research on the characteristics of uncivil discourse (Papacharissi, 2004; Sobieraj & Berry, 2011). To be coded as uncivil, the comment needed to include one or more of the following attributes: (1) Obscene language / vulgarity (e.g. “A@$#***les”), (2) Insulting language / name calling (e.g. “you idiots”), (3) Ideologically extreme language (e.g. “Liberal potheads”), (4) Stereotyping (e.g. “Deport them illegals”), or (5) An exaggerated argument (e.g. "It’s very easy to solve all of this just keep your legs closed if you don’t want a baby.”). Comments containing any one of these characteristics were coded as uncivil."

Having been a blogger (and a moderator of one of the Internet's larger tech forums) for more than fifteen years, I can anecdotally note that even the biggest jackasses generally do dial back the antisocial angst when you calmly and politely talk to them (whether I've always been able to do that every day without piling on antisocial angst of my own is another discussion). But between actual involvement and reasonable moderation, it's not hard to reclaim a comment section from the encroaching, troll-induced apocalyptic jungle. What websites that close comment sections are doing is telling everyone they don't give quite enough of a shit to work to improve them. Proceeding to proclaim this is just because you really love conversation informs that same community you also think they're kind of stupid.

Filed Under: comments, community, journalism

Sony Demands Twitter User Remove Posts Containing Images Of Leaked Documents

from the goddamn-nails-everywhere!-hand-me-my-hammer! dept

Sony's lawyer, David Boies, recently made an attempt to silence media outlets' coverage of leaked Sony documents. Without stating any legal basis for Sony's demands, Boies' letter ordered journalists to stop reporting on the leaked documents, destroy whatever they had in their possession (as if that effort would make any difference…) and sit on their hands until they received further instructions on what was/wasn't of "public interest" from the studio itself.

Needless to say, the only thing this cease-and-desist managed to do was increase the amount of criticism heaped on Sony's head. Boies presumably is still employed by Sony, as are whichever executives signed off on this suicidal move.

Sony's legal team is still hoping to shut people up, but it appears to be casting a far wider net. Jason Koebler at Vice reports that a musician who has performed his own digging into the leaked Sony docs and posted the interesting bits to his Twitter account has received legal threats from the studio.

Val Broeksmit, a California-based musician, has been combing through gigabytes worth of documents and has been tweeting out screenshots of leaked emails that he finds newsworthy for a couple weeks now. Amongst those are emails that talk about green lighting upcoming films, paying actors to tweet about films, emails sent to Sony by the purported hackers of the company (the “Guardians of Peace”), and internal bickering.

Last week, Elliott Ingram, a copyright specialist who works with Sony in the United Kingdom, reached out to warn him that if he did not delete the posts, the company would have to ask Twitter to do it for them.

This polite person-to-person request from Ingram was ignored by Broeksmit, despite the fact that it (politely) bandied about a number of legal terms for scariness' sake, like "trade secrets," "copyright" and "privacy laws." Broeksmit says he ignored it because it "didn't come from a Sony Pictures email account."

Because Broeksmit failed to cave, the threats have escalated. Gone is the cheery and accommodating British politeness. In its place is a rehash of the threatening letter sent to journalists last week, full of demands and excess capital letters ("Stolen Information," etc.)

And once again, one of the studio's lawyers (Sean Jaquez) asks for an ultimately meaningless gesture as a sign of compliance/good faith.

The email asks Broeksmit to delete his tweets and to “arrange for and supervise the destruction of all copies of the Stolen Information in your possession [and to] confirm that such restriction has been completed.”

Sure, Sony doesn't actually care if any deletion actually occurs. (Well, it cares a little.) What it wants is a leak-free future. But Broeksmit isn't caving, even if his grasp on the legality of his sharing might be a bit shaky.

“I’m not with a newspaper and I think I can get away with it,” he said. “It’s important—the reason is it’s so new and different from anything we’ve seen before. This is a billion dollar company being made bare to the public. It’s crazy I have these emails, and it’s fascinating to learn how these companies work.”

Confidence is a great thing, but a private citizen generally finds his/her rights to be a bit diminished as compared to the press, rather than vice versa.

Ultimately, it appears Sony will have to talk Twitter into removal of these tweets rather than going straight to the source. It made two pitches and missed with both. Now, it remains to be seen whether Twitter will view Broeksmit's document screenshots are actually infringing on Sony's copyrighted material. As of now, the disputed tweets are still up… and Sony's reputation is still sliding in a downward direction.

Filed Under: david boies, free speech, journalism, sony hack, threats, val broeksmit
Companies: sony pictures

Washington Post Shrugs Off Torture Because, You Know, It Polls Well

from the wait,-what?!? dept

We've written before about Jay Rosen's excellent explanation of "the church of the savvy," in which political reporters seem more focused on describing the "horse race" aspect of politics rather than the truth. It's the old story in which the press ignores, say, a really good concept because "politicians won't support it." A key giveaway for a "savvy" post is to focus on "what the polls say" rather than what reality says. That doesn't mean that polls are never useful or shouldn't be reported on -- but when they get in the way of the actual story, it can make for ridiculous results.

Take, as a quintessential example, the Washington Post's Aaron Blake giving us the latest on torture's polling numbers. Apparently, the polls tell us that Americans are okay with torture (even when they believe it's torture):

A Pew poll shows Americans say, by a two-to-one margin (56-28), say the CIA's interrogation methods after 9/11 "provided intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks."

Similarly, a CBS News poll shows that 57 percent of Americans think waterboarding and other interrogation techniques practiced by the CIA "provide reliable information that helps prevent terrorist attacks" either "often" or "sometimes." Just 8 percent say it "never" provides quality information, while 24 percent say it "rarely" does.

And finally, a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday morning shows people say 53-31 that the CIA's program did "produce important information that could not have been obtained any other way."

Now, an actual reporter might point out that (1) these Americans are wrong and (2) that it doesn't fucking matter whether or not torture works -- it's still reprehensible. But, instead, Blake concludes that, boy, this sure is a loss for the Democrats:

And as long as people believe torturing terrorism detainees leads to valuable information, the CIA's interrogation program — and torture in general — are unlikely to face a major public backlash.

This is the unhappy reality being confronted by Democrats who had hoped to make a splash with the CIA report.

So the only "reality" in the article is the fact that the public's depraved position is bad for one particular party. Apparently, it's not bad for "humanity" or common sense or human rights or America. It's just bad for one party? Rather than actually educating the public -- which reporters are supposed to be doing -- the focus is just on what these polling numbers mean for torture -- presented in the same way one might discuss the polling numbers for a regular election.

This isn't a political horse race we're talking about here. This is about a fundamental issue of human rights, and the press is acting like all that matters is torture's polling numbers?

Filed Under: aaron blake, church of the savvy, cia, journalism, polling, polls, torture, torture report, washington post
Companies: washington post

Sony Fires Off Letter To Press Outlets Demanding They Cease Publication Of And Destroy Any 'Stolen Information'

from the that-one-time-when-a-major-corporation-shot-itself-in-the-face dept

Sony may have no idea how to how to run a secure enterprise, but it doesn't really take a whole lot of expertise or technical know-how to see that this particular gambit could only backfire.

In a sharply worded letter sent to news organizations, including The New York Times, David Boies, a lawyer for Sony, characterized the documents posted online as “stolen information” and demanded that they be avoided, and destroyed if they had already been downloaded or otherwise acquired.

The studio “does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use” of the information, Mr. Boies wrote in a three-page letter sent Sunday morning to the legal departments of media organizations.

Somebody approved this -- someone higher up than David Boies. And that someone should probably step down and concentrate on staining his yacht deck or seeking to be nominated in the next Congressional election, or whatever it is studio execs do when they've outlived their usefulness.

The letter's wording [pdf link] makes it sound as though the press outlets are doing something illegal (mainly through repetitive use of the word "stolen") but is careful never to make that actual claim. It tries to bluster its way towards legitimacy by inserting a list of "in case of 'stolen' information" requests (worded to look like legal demands) into the letter.

As soon as you suspect that you may have possession of any of the Stolen Information*, we ask that you

(1) notify us using the contact information provided below;

(2) take all reasonable actions to prevent your company and any of your employees, independent contractors, agents, consultants, or anyone who may have access to your files from examining, copying, disseminating, distributing, publishing, downloading,uploading, or making any other use of the Stolen Information;

(3) arrange for and supervise the destruction of all copies of the Stolen Information in your possession or under your control, particularly information protected under US. and foreign legal doctrines protecting attorney-client privileged communications, attorney work product, and related privileges and protections, as well as private financial and other confidential information and communications of current and former personnel and others, confidential personnel data, intellectual property, trade secrets andother business secrets and related communications; and

(4) confirm that such destruction has been completed.**

In addition, if you have provided the Stolen Information to anyone outside of your company, we ask that you provide them with a copy of this letter, and request the destruction of the Stolen Information by the recipient.

[*"Stolen Information" being much more sensitive than your garden variety, lower-case "stolen information," obvs.]
[**"Recycle Bin had little pieces of paper in it, but now appears to be empty."]

I imagine the contact information provided is swiftly being bombarded with ridicule, fake tips, more ridicule, more fake tips and pictures of empty Recycle Bins.

The only threat in the document (other than the overall tone) is this:

If you do not comply with this request, and the Stolen Information is used or disseminated by you in any manner, SPE will have no choice but to hold you responsible for any damage or loss arising from such use or dissemination by you, including any damages or loss to SPE or others, and including, but not limited to, any loss of value of intellectual property and trade secrets resulting from your actions.

OK. Good luck with that. The Supreme Court has already held that this sort of dissemination is protected by the First Amendment. (h/t to Marcia Hofmann)

In a 6-3 opinion delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that the First Amendment protects the disclosure of illegally intercepted communications by parties who did not participate in the illegal interception.

The only mitigating factor is the relative worth of the "stolen information" to the public interest. Much of what's been covered likely isn't and much of what's contained in the files that hasn't been disseminated by press outlets definitely isn't. But there are some revelations that are definitely matters of public interest, not the least of which is the MPAA's plan to throw money at elected officials in exchange for some Google-hassling.

Sony appears to be in full panic mode, but it's tough to sympathize with a corporation that has been hacked 56 times in 12 years but still keeps passwords in a folder labeled "Passwords." This latest move won't earn it anything more than an internetload of derision.

Filed Under: david boies, emails, first amendment, free speech, journalism, sony emails, sony hack, sony pictures hack, stolen information, threats
Companies: sony, sony pictures

WSJ Writer: All The Failings Of Print Journalism Are The Fault Of The Internet

from the pshh-obviously dept

We've seen this before. Whenever something happens that people don't like and they need a quick repository upon which to place heaping amounts of undue blame, they always seem to choose the internet. Who do we blame for murders? Ghost stories on the internet, obviously! Why is that batshit celebrity's reputation in the pooper? C'mon, all the thetans point to it being the internet's fault, of course! Your South American government is experiencing a bit of the old rebellion-time amongst the citizenry? Yo soy internet (ed: Tim, you never took Spanish in high school, did you?).

But, typically, when somebody swoops in to blame the failings of one thing on a more internet-y thing, there's at least some tangential relationship. Those ghost stories were on an internet site after all, and that celebrity's antics were as well. And it's not like rebellions don't actually use internet services to coordinate protests. But what Edward Kosner of The Wall Street Journal managed to cobble together is truly amazing: high-profile failings in print media recently, notably the Rolling Stone University of Virginia rape story debacle, Newsweek getting the inventor of bitcoin wrong, and the traditional print media's complete failure to report on the known rape accusations against Bill Cosby, are the internet's fault too, even though the screw-ups themselves were within the print media. Confused as to how this could be? Well, Kosner's thesis essentially amounts to: this internet shit is, like, totally fast, and print media is trying to print really fast too, which is why they're screwing up.

To prove how completely unhinged this piece is, take two sections and put them side by side. Take, on one hand, the accusation that print journalists failed to report on Bill Cosby:

And the vastly experienced author of a new 500-page biography of Bill Cosby managed to blow the lead: to leave out detailed accusations by more than a dozen women that the beloved comedian had drugged and raped or otherwise sexually molested them.

And put it alongside his assessment of the real problem:

Quite simply, print editors and their writers, and especially the publications’ proprietors, are being unhinged by the challenge of making a splash in a new world increasingly dominated by the values of digital journalism. Traditional long-form journalism—painstakingly reported, carefully written, rewritten and edited, scrupulously fact-checked—finds itself fighting a losing battle for readers and advertisers. Quick hits, snarky posts and click-bait in the new, ever-expanding cosmos of websites promoted by even quicker teasers on Twitter and Facebook have broadened the audience but shrunk its attention span, sometimes to 140 characters (shorter than this sentence).

Got that? Traditional print journalists failed to report on the splashy story of Bill Cosby's accusers because they're trying to compete with the splashy internet journalists and...wait...what? I'm confused as to why Kosner would offer such a complete counter-example to his entire thesis. It must be a print journalist's thing. I'm just here to be splashy and sarcastic, so let me just say that Kosner is a buffoon and then put this cute picture of a cat in for good internet-y measure.
God bless this guy's stupid little furry face. But, wait, there's more. The only reason the Rolling Stone post was found out to be a big bucket of internet-speed wrongness was, wait for it, because of the internet as well.

Here was a story made to go viral—doing journalistic due diligence on it might blunt its sharp edges and sap its appeal. As it happened, the Rolling Stone piece was undone by old-school reporting by the Washington Post, which has the resources to do its job only because it is being subsidized by the Internet billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who bought the paper from the Graham family last year for $250 million.

Phew, thank god for that internet guy and his filthy, splashy, click-bait-y money, otherwise we wouldn't have had any journalism this Christmas, Virginia. The internet, it would appear, much like beer, is both the cause and solution to all of journalism's problems. It created the crappy Rolling Stone piece, then it fixed it too. It's almost as though the internet isn't really the controlling factor here, only the occasional trappings of lazy journalism. Sometimes that happens on the internet and sometimes it happens in print. All this is really driven home by Kosner's concluding paragraph, which appears to have been written as though all the preceding words had never been uttered.

The new, disruptive pressure of digital publishing on what has come to be thought of as traditional journalism isn’t going to ease anytime soon. Those who are owners or workers in legacy publishing have to understand that they can survive the onslaught—and perhaps eventually thrive—only by maintaining the rigorous standards that once made these publications not only respected but trusted by their readers and advertisers. Desperate times call for disciplined journalism.

In other words, the failings described above are all to do with the journalists in those instances failing their own standards, not because of the scary, super-speedy internet. Come on, WSJ, you guys have editors over there, yes?

Filed Under: competition, ed kosner, edward kosner, get off my lawn, internet, journalism, print

Connecticut Judge Reverses His Prior Restraint Ruling, But For Reasons He Wants Kept Secret

from the transparency-please? dept

We recently wrote about how a judge in Connecticut's New Britain Superior Court, Stephen Frazzini, apparently was somewhat confused by the concept of prior restraint and the First Amendment in issuing an injunction barring the publication of an article by the Connecticut Law Tribune concerning documents in a case that had been posted to a public docket. As we noted, this is classic prior restraint, and the Connecticut Law Tribune protested. It appears that Judge Frazzini has realized the error of his ways and has vacated the original order, but has apparently kept his reasoning under seal, and won't even allow the publication's lawyer to let the publication know the details:

Superior Court Judge Stephen Frazzini has vacated his order forbidding The Law Tribune from publishing a story about a child custody case. Daniel Klau, the Hartford lawyer who has been representing the Law Tribune, said the judge issued "a nine-page order, explaining why he vacated his injunction." The entire order, like the other rulings in this matter, remain under seal, and Klau has been ordered not disclose them to his client.

Later in the article, Klau notes that he's "moving to unseal the court record of the proceedings" so that hopefully the details will become public.

To be fair, the article does note that Frazzini himself may have realized the problems with the initial order on his own, calling a hearing, asking both parties to discuss if his original order was Constitutional. Other statements from the judge certainly suggest a recognition that his original ruling was a mistake on multiple levels:

At the Dec. 1 hearing, to illustrate his concern about the constitutionality of his injunction, Frazzini read from part of his still-sealed order, in which he quotes U.S. Supreme Court decisions, CBS v. Davis (1994), and Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart (1976). Those decisions warn that any prior restraint of expression bears a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity. Parties wishing to block publication also carry a heavy burden of justifying the imposition of such a restraint, and judges should impose it only when an "evil" is both grave and certain to occur, Frazzini noted. Finally, the judge noted, any remedy that included prior restraint needs to be "narrowly tailored" for the least intrusion upon speech and press freedom.

The judge also said he is vexed by the continued existence on other websites of the court document that is at the focus of the Law Tribune article and the target of the injunction. One of the blogs that link to the court document is associated with The Washington Post. The judge wondered aloud how he could prohibit publication of confidential details by the Washington Post or the New York Times, even if he did have "long arm" jurisdiction. And why should the Connecticut Law Tribune be enjoined from publishing what every other newspaper could freely publish?

The situation isn't over yet, however, as the state Supreme Court is likely going to hear an appeal, though there's some confusion about the process given the new move to vacate the original order:

In the meantime, the state Supreme Court said it would hear appeals in the case, bypassing the state Appellate Court. The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut has already filed an amicus brief to the court on behalf of the Law Tribune and its right to publish. Joining that brief are two open government organizations, three media organizations and more than a dozen media outlets. The filing argues that barring the Law Tribune from publishing the story "is absolutely prohibited by the free speech and press sections of the Connecticut Constitution."

Either way, there's no doubt that the information in the case may be sensitive -- involving children -- but that still shouldn't lead to prior restraint.

Filed Under: connecticut, free speech, journalism, prior restraint, stephen frazzini
Companies: connecticut law tribune

Connecticut Court Ignores First Amendment, Blocks Paper From Publishing Article Based On Public Court Document

from the prior-restraint dept

I'm always amazed that there are judges out there who don't appear to understand even the very basics about the First Amendment. And yet, we get cases like this one in Connecticut last week, in which a New Britain Superior Court judge, Stephen Frazzini, apparently had never come across the concept of prior restraint, and ordered an injunction against the Connecticut Law Tribune barring it from publishing an article based on a public court document:

Daniel J. Klau, the newspaper's lawyer, said he has already filed an appeal. He and other media law attorneys say this appears to be an extraordinarily rare case of prior restraint on free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. They say that normally pre-publication court orders have been deemed constitutional only in matters of extreme threats to public safety, on the level of national security.

Frazzini's oral ruling is currently sealed, but Klau said he is working to have it unsealed. "I am actually under a restraining order about what I can tell my own client. There are some things that I can share," said Klau, of the Hartford office of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter. "What the Law Tribune can say," he said, "is that in a child protection case on the juvenile court docket, the court granted a party's request for an injunction barring the Connecticut Law Tribune from publishing information that it lawfully obtained about the case."

Yes, since it involves juvenile court, it's likely part of the issue involved in protecting the privacy of a child. But, again, this was information that was already filed in a public docket. If there was concern about privacy, it should have been dealt with prior to a public filing. To then issue an injunction, barring the publication of an article, is classic prior restraint and is clearly unconstitutional.

Filed Under: connecticut, first amendment, free speech, journalism, prior restraint
Companies: connecticut law tribune

Canadian Newspaper Under Investigation For Violating Ban On Publishing Names Of Child Pornography Victims

from the where-good-intentions-meet-the-friction-of-real-life dept

A Canadian newspaper is under investigation for violating a court-ordered ban on publishing the names of child pornography victims. The Chronicle Herald covered the sentencing of a young man on child pornography distribution charges but included the name of his victim, Rehtaeh Parsons.

Rehtaeh Parsons was 15 when the then-17-year-old young man sent a photo of him having sex with her to two other females. Parsons was apparently unaware she was being sexually assaulted. The photo showed not only the young man's actions, but her vomiting out a window.

The subsequent distribution of these photos, along with additional harassment from both the participants and Parsons' peers, eventually led to her suicide. Her suicide then prompted Nova Scotia's legislators to enact an extremely unfortunate cyberbullying law in late 2013, nearly two years after the incident and four months after Parsons took her own life.

In May of 2014, the legally-ordained ban was upheld, forbidding anyone or any media entity from publishing Parsons' name, despite objections from Rehtaeh's parents, who were actively seeking an exception from this part of Canada's child pornography laws. But the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had decided to pursue child pornography charges rather than sexual assault charges and the resulting indictments dragged Retaeh's name under the cover of this ban.

The Chronicle Herald's story on the guilty plea entered by of one of the two perpetrators (whose names are still being withheld because they were minors at the time) leads off with this editor's note:

We’ve decided to publish the name of the victim in this story, despite a court-ordered ban. We believe it’s in the public interest in this unique case, given the widespread recognition of Rehtaeh Parsons’ name, and given the good that can come, and has already come, from free public debate over sexual consent and the other elements of her story.

Rehtaeh’s parents want her name printed, and Judge Jamie Campbell, who upheld the publication ban, wrote in his decision that “the ban serves no purpose,” though he had no choice but to uphold it. Waiving Rehtaeh’s privacy rights “would be a good thing, if it could be done just for this case, just this once,” the judge wrote.

It is difficult for readers to follow a news story when the name associated with it is omitted, and we want to inform Nova Scotians of the outcome of this legal case. We would like to reassure other crime victims that their own court-ordered privacy rights will be respected as always.

As is noted here, Parsons' parents fought to keep her from being "forgotten" by this ban, but to no avail. The Parsons' have given their blanket permission for publication, but that has had no effect on whatever sort of busybody it is that reads this disclaimer and still files a complaint. An accompanying story notes that the Chronicle Herald is being investigated by local law enforcement.

Police have launched an investigation into a possible breach of a publication ban after a major news outlet in Halifax published the name of a teenage girl at the centre of a high-profile child pornography case.

Const. Pierre Bourdages said Tuesday that they had received several reports from citizens complaining about the use of the girl’s name, which is subject to a publication ban under the Criminal Code.

“There’s already been a number of complaints filed with the department in relation to this article,” he said.

“There’s an alleged breach of the publication ban … so we have an investigation ongoing now.”

Now, it would seem that the only party with any true claim over Parsons' name would be her parents, but apparently, certain members of the public feel otherwise. The good news is that this isn't the police's first run-in with the publication ban and they seem to be handling other cases in a responsible manner using context and common sense, rather than blindly asserting that "The law is the law" and punishing those who violate the letter, rather than the spirit.

“Investigators considered whether the victim’s name was used in connection with the child pornography charges as well as the overall context in which her name was used,” police said in a statement.

Based on that and consultation with the Crown, charges were not laid, police said.

Even the prosecutor seems uninterested in laying charges just to be laying charges.

Chris Hansen of the province’s Public Prosecution Service said they consulted police in the seven previous instances, but concluded that there was either not a likely chance of conviction or that if there was, it was not in the public interest to pursue it.

She said they considered several factors, including the past publicity and widespread publication of her name, the wishes of her family to have her name published and the possibility that it would facilitate public debate on a “serious societal issue.”

It's refreshing to see this recognition that the law isn't always binary. The Parsons' have repeatedly stated they don't want their daughter's name removed from additional coverage of this case. The judge upholding the ban also noted that exceptions were needed but wasn't something that could be handled from the court's end. Meddling citizens with no actual stake in the matter may be trying to make things more difficult for the press by complaining about ban violations, but so far it appears they won't be receiving any help from those actually charged with enforcing the law.

Filed Under: canada, child porn, free speech, harassment, journalism, rehtaeh parsons, reporting, sexual assault

Reuters, Re/code Care So Very Much About 'Conversation' That They're Asking Commenters To Leave

from the baby-and-the-bathwater dept

A little more than a year ago, Popular Science announced they were shutting of news story comments, stating that comments were "bad for science." Earlier this month Reuters Digital Executive Editor Dan Colarusso also announced that the company would also be eliminating comments from news stories. Comments, Colarusso proclaimed, were no longer necessary thanks to the rise of social media. Reuters still values conversation about the news, he insisted, but the old-fashioned idea of allowing users to directly comment on stories must give way to "new realities of behavior in the marketplace":

"Much of the well-informed and articulate discussion around news, as well as criticism or praise for stories, has moved to social media and online forums. Those communities offer vibrant conversation and, importantly, are self-policed by participants to keep on the fringes those who would abuse the privilege of commenting."

That's a lovely way of saying that Reuters didn't care enough about its readers to pay for moderators. This is the same Reuters that a few years ago threw the baby out with the bathwater when they banned anonymous commenters, ignoring the fact that anonymity isn't synonymous with jackassery, and can often allow people to give valuable insight they might not be comfortable with otherwise.

On the heels of the Reuters announcement the folks over at Re/code this week announced a similar plan, again insisting that social media is a good enough replacement for direct, on-site reader feedback:

"Our writers are all active on services like Twitter and Facebook, and our official Re/code accounts on social media post our stories all day long. Readers aren’t shy about offering their opinions to us on these and other social media services, and you are likelier to be able to interact with us there. In effect, we believe that social media is the new arena for commenting, replacing the old onsite approach that dates back many years."

Should you visit Re/code now, you're informed that your comments are considered so important, you're encouraged to leave:This sudden disdain for traditional comments raises the question: is Facebook somehow immune to stupid comments? Is forcing all news conversation on to Facebook's terms really an improvement in meaningful dialogue? The rush to declare the comment section dead seems to ignore the fact that on-site comments create value by building a sense of local community, something GigaOM's Mathew Ingram recently put rather succinctly:

"The bottom line is that if the discussion and debate and interaction around a news story occurs somewhere else, then soon the readers who are interested in that engagement will start to think of the platform where it occurs as the important part of the relationship — not the site that actually created the content."

Offloading moderation costs to social media websites is of course their prerogative, but I find the pretense that this is about some kind of concern for an evolution in conversation to be disingenuous. It's like a local bar owner saying they value intelligent conversation so much they'd really prefer it if patrons held their conversation at the massive stadium down the street. It's a way to keep your readers -- both the obnoxious ones and those offering interesting insight and corrections -- at arms length. The fact these announcements tend to be dripping with disdain for site readership doesn't generate the impression that participatory feedback is actually welcome.

That's not to say comments aren't frequently a raging cacophony of nitwits, partisan blowhards and spambots when moderated poorly. However, there's a number of older tech communities like Slashdot that have been able to moderate communities and cultivate intelligent conversation for more than a decade on a fraction of the budget of Re/Code and Reuters. Sites like Reddit and Gawker have similarly tinkered with community self-regulation and systems that work to dull the boldest bullhorns in said nitwit cacophony. This sudden trend toward waving your face like a Southern belle at the overwhelming and brutish nature of Internet conversation seems dramatic. We're herding a few jackasses here, not splitting the atom.

Obviously news comments are an ongoing evolution, and it takes a little work to cultivate meaningful conversation. But offloading your Viagra spam and bile-soaked comment section to Facebook because you can't be bothered to hire moderators is a cop out and it's lazy. Pretending you're doing it because you value conversation adds insult to injury. What Popular Science, Reuters and Re/Code are really saying is that they don't care enough about their communities -- or those regulars who do stop by to have intelligent conversation -- to pay somebody to weed the garden.

Filed Under: comments, community, conversation, journalism, social media
Companies: re/code, reuters

Yet Another Study Shows US Satire Programs Do A Better Job Informing Viewers Than Actual News Outlets

from the honey-makes-the-medicine-go-down dept

By now it's sadly clear that the nation's satirical news programs do a significantly better job at reporting the news than most of the nation's actual news outlets, despite a fraction of the budget and experience. John Oliver's recent analysis of Miss America scholarship claims, for example, contained more original reporting in a fifteen minute segment than most Apple regurgitation blogs manage to stumble through in an entire year's worth of gadget lust. Not only are satirists now doing a better job unearthing the truth, they're doing a better job explaining complex issues. Case in point: a study earlier this year out of the University of Pennsylvania suggested that Stephen Colbert explained campaign financing more effectively than most beat reporters. Of course a 2012 Pew study suggested many cable news viewers were less informed than those who watched no news at all, suggesting it's not too difficult to beat many modern news outlets at their own game when the standards bar is set ankle height.

Satire's continued rise as one of the country's most effective and influential original reporting platforms was again on display courtesy of John Oliver's fantastic net neutrality rant, which not only explained the issue in effective detail, it captured the attention of the dingo-staffed FCC itself (as these recent FOIA-obtained internal FCC memos indicate). It also helped spur the lion's share of the four million net neutrality comments filed with the agency, blurring the line between not only satire and journalism, but consumer advocacy and activism.

This month a new study (pdf) out of the University of Delaware once again highlights how viewers of satirical programs are significantly better informed on the subject of net neutrality than those who watch traditional news programs:

"The survey also reveals that viewers of satirical shows such as John Oliver's Last Week Tonight and The Colbert Report are far more aware of the issue than consumers of traditional news sources...Opposition to the creation of "fast lanes" is strongest (86%) among those who say they have heard a lot about the proposed rules, but most Americans say they have heard little or nothing about the topic. The University of Delaware research found that only 10% of Americans have heard a lot about how "the U.S. government is considering new rules for ISPs." Another 39% have heard a little, whereas fully half (50%) have heard nothing at all about the topic."

Of course a big reason major news outlets aren't adequately informing their viewership on net neutrality is because they're simply not mentioning it. A Pew study from earlier this year studied net neutrality coverage among twenty-three major newspapers and cable news networks, and found most simply didn't discuss the issue this year. That trend continued this month when the President's clear support of Title II rules barely made a dent on major networks like Fox News and CNN, and when it did -- often saw either misleading and inaccurate analysis, or an over-emphasis on inane aspects of the discussion (like what Donald Trump has to say about the issue).

Traditionally, folks like Jon Stewart have denied that satire can be journalism, largely because while clinical presentation of facts easily offends the nation's roaming partisan-cheerleader zombie hordes, a humorous presentation of those same facts magically defuses, creating a narrow-minded stupidity firewall through which truth can function (or as my less verbose grandmother used to say, honey makes the medicine go down). In a New York Times article posted over the weekend, Oliver follows Stewart's lead, stating that what his show is doing is not journalism:

"So, I asked Mr. Oliver: Is he engaging in a kind of new journalism? He muttered an oath, the kind he can say on HBO for comic emphasis, but we don’t say here, adding, "No!" "We are making jokes about the news and sometimes we need to research things deeply to understand them, but it’s always in service of a joke. If you make jokes about animals, that does not make you a zoologist."

While Oliver's presentation of the facts utilizes satire and humor, Oliver's staff has had previous stints at New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, and what they're doing is absolutely and undeniably investigative journalism. Unless of course you're an iron-headed, old guard news industry employee who still believes only Walter Cronkite's talking head has been mystically ordained with the authority to inform the lowly plebeians.

In the end though who really cares if you call this flavor of reporting "journalism," "investigative comedy," or "donkey walnuts." The sole purpose of journalism is to accurately inform and deliver the truth. That's something that has been increasingly lost with the rise of tepid, he said, she said news reporting that sacrifices truth for the bland, unoffensive illusion of balance -- in the process helping to make stupidity fashionable and facts negotiable. It really doesn't matter if it's satirists, comedians, or male strippers stepping up and trying to fix the broken news industry -- just as long as somebody, somewhere is trying to.

Filed Under: journalism, net neutrality, satire