It’s easy to lose your temper on the Internet. Anyone who reads ”” or writes ”” comments on blogs and news sites knows that the conversation can quickly stray from civil discourse to scathing personal attacks. For years, many websites just let users go at it, and free speech reigned. But now editors are rethinking just how open their sites should be.
Many people who want to participate in online discussions are quickly turned off by the nastiness. Miki Hsu Leavey, a resident of Napa, Calif., wrote a heartfelt, thankful letter to her local paper, The Napa Valley Register, after the health care bill passed. In the letter, she described her own struggle with lupus, her son’s difficulties getting insurance owing to his pre-existing heart condition, and her husband’s liver cancer diagnosis.
“My thank you note was really about the relief I had mentally,” says Leavey.
When Leavey looked at the site the morning her letter was published, she was shocked at many of the comments.
Read or listen to it all and, yes, let it serve as a salutary reminder about the comments here–KSH.
Fascinating that liberals (the folks at NPR, being honest) are just waking up to this glut of crudity. I wonder if it ever struck them this way while they were busy excoriating the Bush administration or religious conservatives in the columns and comboxes of HuffPo and DailyKos? I think they’re at least 6 years late with this ‘news’.