Media Watchdog
Are nasty comments distorting reality?

Are nasty comments distorting reality?

We can always shut down comments on stories and videos, but this would be suicide -a step towards online irrelevance.

Jahanzaib Haque April 14, 2013

The online landscape in Pakistan is not unlike the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) at its current scale. There are almost no laws that govern this space. For better or worse, individuals and groups online act with near impunity, with only the slightest fear of heavy-handed retribution from a largely disinterested, clueless government and its associated agencies.

In this space exists the potential – both good and bad – for the shaping of public perception, particularly on many thorny issues that traditional media dare not touch. It is also here that the greatest potential exists for measurably changing a person’s opinion or perception of reality because of the social nature of the internet.

Despite all the hoopla to the contrary, humans generally trust other humans, and nowhere is this more statistically provable than in the online space.

As a Nielsen study uncovered in 2009, recommendations from personal acquaintances or strangers online are the most trusted forms of advertising. It turned out, 90% of those surveyed said they trusted recommendations from people they know, while 70% trusted opinions posted online by unknown users.

It is this strong bond humans feel in often weak online ties (such as someone you have not met in real life) that drives social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

This phenomenon of online trust has generally been hailed as great news, but it also brings to light a rather troubling reality for reporters, editors, columnists and bloggers alike: comments posted on an article published online can shape public perception of the content, often drastically.

Anyone who reads online regularly has felt the psychological pull of the comments section and wondered about the extent to which comments on an article are having an impact, and now a 2013 study in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication has given us the answer.

In the study, over 1,000 participants were asked to read an article on a fictitious blog explaining the risks and benefits of a new technology product. Half of the participants were exposed to civil reader comments below the article, and the other half to rude comments.

The result?

Uncivil comments not only polarised the readers, they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the story. Those exposed to rude comments ended up with a very polarised understanding of the risks connected with the technology mentioned in the article.

This effect was so pronounced that the researchers later stated,

“Comments from some readers…can significantly distort what other readers think was reported in the first place.”

In short, all the editorial control exercised by an individual blogger, journalist or an entire media group’s staff may have little impact online once those nasty comments start pouring in to reshape perception of the original article.

The added fear for media groups is of comments sections being hijacked in a perception shaping war by those who are highly motivated, those who can pay for it, and those who feel it serves the ‘national interest’, and that extends beyond just Pakistan.

It is well documented that the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the United States Central Command among others have manipulated comments sections on websites in the past to shape online debate to suit their agendas.

As more and more media groups come online, and as internet penetration grows in Pakistan, the issue of losing editorial control and credibility due to the social nature of content published on the web will become a pressing concern.

The option of shutting down comments on some or all stories and videos is always available, but given that a social layer is now integral to an online presence, this would be suicide, or at least a sure step towards online irrelevance.

Alternately, comment moderation is a costly, time consuming solution with human error and individual biases almost as big a problem as the original issue it set out to solve.

It would be safe to say at this stage we can expect a tumultuous ride as online content creators try to forge a working relationship with their comment empowered readers.

A clear cut solution is definitely not at hand.

Read more by Jahanzaib here or follow him on Twitter @jhaque_

COMMENTS (24)

Abid P. Khan | 10 years ago | Reply @Parvez: "....What I do notice is that the first 3 to 5 comments gets the most attention, ...." . No attempt to steer you away from the point under discussion, I noticed the same phenomenon taking place in the Guardian etc. Only the first few count.

Parvez | 11 years ago | Reply @Gp65: I did give you a reply yesterday saying something like ' cut the ET people a little slack, because they too must be having their problems '.............and it vanished. Proving my point ( let's put it down to : it's just that time of the month for them............... :-) Hope this one gets through.

VIEW MORE COMMENTS

Deendayal M.Lulla | 11 years ago | Reply The judiciary does not like comments on its working. That is the reason you have this illogical contempt of court laws. A judge cam take bribe,and can write in the judgement,"A judge may give wrong or right judgment,but then one cannot accuse the judge of being biased. Strange. The age-old philosopher Chanakya has said,:One should even doubt the integrity of a judge" This is not allowed in reality. You post a comment,on the website of a newspaper,and you get the message,"Inappropriate comment",and the comment is deleted. Comments should be welcome,howsover they are. One gets exposed to the variety of opinion. I find it funny,when judges say that commenting on sub-judice matter is interfereing in the administration of justice. A person commenting on does not have any power to write the judgement,then why this illogical statement. God has given me mind,to speak. In London,there is a garden,where you can speak on any subject to your heart's content,. Does not the judge want to work hard if he is exposed to a variety of comments on a case awaiting judgement? God has given my a mind to think,and if I do not think,then am I not commiting contempt of god?

Gp65 | 11 years ago | Reply ET I am responding to someone who wrote to me, pls. Allow. @Parvez: That is certainly a very nice compliment to receive from someone whose comments i myself pay attention to. Thank you for your kind words. I think we are not in disagreement. I too would like the widest range of ideas including those I totally disagree with. I was not asking for more tightness. I was asking for more consistency. Lately 90% of my posts are filtered though they meet all guidelines and i typically have to submit 2-3 times before the post makes it. On the other hand,I see all kind of off topic ad hominen stuff approved and that is my frustration. Someone like@BlackJack who also always posts on point and well informed had complained a couple of weeks back that ET is filtering his posts and I have not seen any posts from him lately and the same thing with@Mirza, so I get the feeling that certain nicks are getting screened out rather than simply implementing their own guidelines which would permit all shades of ideas but keep meanness out. I personally do not even mind some meanness in service of the larger goal of getting all ideas. But the recent changes to the filtering process are not effective in my opinion.

Parvez | 11 years ago | Reply @Gp65: If ET tightens up its act, the whole thing will become very straight laced and serious and good lord I would hate that. Let the reader decided and let ET be as OPEN has they possibly can. I think of it as a process of educating readers, like me. I don't want to get into a fight with you because I'll loose, so let me say that in my first comment you figure prominently in the 2 Indians I mentioned, you're not even number 3........peace !

shakeel | 11 years ago | Reply @Antebellum: + @ SHAHID completely agree to both of you,,,

Confused | 11 years ago | Reply @Talat, @Antebellum Excuse me, do you two seriously believe that anything not praising pakistan is some kind of Indian conspiracy?

Gp65 | 11 years ago | Reply I do think that arbitrariness is introduced in your filtering process by focussing on opinions instead of limiting it to the objective criteria laid out in your comment guidelines. I have seen Indians and Pakistanis complain, so this does not appear to be based n national origin. But if you followed your own stated guidelines I.e. no foul language, no off topic posts, no blanket disrespectful statement for any religion, language or nationality, no ad hominem attacks - then the complaints of arbitrariness would reduce greatly. What is frustrating is that all kinds of off topic posts, ad hominem attacks somehow get through while sometimes simple fact based polite rebuttals are screened out. From time to time we also feel that certain nicks are screened out regardless of the content. Submitting identical comment under my regular nick gets rejected and under a different nick gets accepted. It should not be that way.

Parvez | 11 years ago | Reply To a certain extent you spelt out what has been agitating at the back of my mind for quite some time. My exposure is primarily with ET and I think it's ' comment police ' are doing a brilliant job considering the difficult task at hand. What I do notice is that the first 3 to 5 comments gets the most attention, validating what you have said, and this is a shame. But if one is a little more discerning you tend to look for those names who you think make sense. Like with our Indian friends, apart from 2 or possibly 3 worth reading, the rest are rather predictable.

Sigh. | 11 years ago | Reply After reading this, that troll person needs sympathy.

Black Widow | 11 years ago | Reply Posting comments is a privilege and not a right ! That being said, if this privilege is provided, then it should also be accepted that the moderators shall be receiving many differing points of view about a particular subject, "Jitnay Mun Utni Baatein" kind of a situation. Sadly speaking, the moderators at ET are the worst at moderating comments. They're probably not paid enough or not trained well ! Their scanners and criteria for moderating comments are so biased to say the least. They must have been editors of "Evening Special" before their job at ET.

Something Clever | 11 years ago | Reply If you're informed or half way intelligent, it doesn't matter. If you take everything everyone says as fact rather than opinion, the person is a little stupid and it still doesn't matter because that means whoever gets the last word in will set their belief and they're always looking for someone else to react rather than react themselves. Censorship is a tool for the weak minded, submissive and irresponsible that should not be encouraged in any thinking adult.

Umair | 11 years ago | Reply To be honest, I don't really like the comment moderation onExpress Tribune. Comments take hours to be approved and the "recommend" system is somewhat clumsy. You can actually recommend something multiple times by just refreshing the page. Why not use Discus or a system like Huffington Post? I work as a web design consultant and implementing these really isn't that difficult.

Omar | 11 years ago | Reply Frankly Jehanzeb, I don't think we need a "clear cut solution". Your job is to report news. Your job isn't to make sure we understand it the way you want us to. This is the responsibility of the individual reader. Frankly the one study you posted isn't particularly compelling. Technology articles and articles on more contentious issues such as politics are completely different. More likely this would just be used to censor people who don't take the mainstream stance on a political issue. Your jobs isn't to mollycoddle us. It is to provide us the news. Of course, that doesn't mean we can't find a compromise. The Huffington post has an excellent commenting system which relies on the users to ferret out useful comments. I think the tribune would benefit immensely from putting it in.

cautious | 11 years ago | Reply Censorship is tough to manage - hard to censor without bringing your own bias to the table. Articles themselves can be very unbalanced and loaded with bias. Best censorship policy is to keep it simple - censor out foul language, off topic, and otherwise obvious offensive language - otherwise let people have their say. Comments tend to balance out and changing someones opinion via comments is tougher than author implies.

Ali tanoli | 11 years ago | Reply Its a reallty and face it even in most educated civilzed societes have more hate comments than indian pakistani newspapers together. for example look it any american news paper on muslim news if there respected dept does those then its a shame on freedom of speech.

Shahid | 11 years ago | Reply Talking about ET, I think they themselves are to take some blame. In order to show that they have a wider ( international to be more precise ) readership ,and are that are very ' enlightened ' they will publish anything if the contributor has an Indian sounding name or the comments are anti Pakistan, against religion etc. You are likely to get away with any comments if you pose as an ' international reader ' .

Talat Haque | 11 years ago | Reply Food for thought!

TrueBlue43 | 11 years ago | Reply The option of shutting down comments on some or all stories and videos is always available, but given that a social layer is now integral to an online presence, this would be suicide, or at least a sure step towards online irrelevance. True dat .... Alternately, comment moderation is a costly, time consuming solution with human error and individual biases almost as big a problem as the original issue it set out to solve. Can't agree as the solution has to come from this area ..... Management can chose to slow down the pace of allowing the comments, take their time, and invlove the writers for keeping the article's overall intent intact ..... It is very easy to get carried away in the race of getting the maximum comments ..... sounds like fake ratings TV channles are after all the time ..... I wouldn't blame ET entirely here as the balance between making-economic-sense & keeping the original intent of the article intact should be balanced ...... cheers

Sana Rana | 11 years ago | Reply dats the absolute reality of what we are.....infact in independent ways....

IZ | 11 years ago | Reply Interesting dilemma. I believe some online news sites such as the Guardian do not allow comments on news articles but do for opinion pieces, blogs and 'on-line only' content. Maybe that is a wise compromise?

Sa | 11 years ago | Reply Why aren't Jahanzeb comments on ET approved with a bit of intelligence? Some are hateful and malicious.

Antebellum | 11 years ago | Reply Charity begins at home, as they say. In spite of the fact that all comments on ET are pre-approved and vetted, a large number of them are either racist, anti-Pakistan or Islamophobic. Particularly the comments by Indians or Indians masquerading as Pakistanis or other foreigners. You can see it visible mostly on articles of some nationalistic (mostly military) achievement. While ET liberally censor comments critical of its editors and editorial policies, it allows the free-posting of hateful comments.

The Khan-Waterloo,Ontario | 11 years ago | Reply What in the world is this

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ

Are nasty comments distorting reality?

FOLLOW US