It's often said that people would never behave in real life the way they do in online comment sections. It's an interesting thought experiment. Imagine for a moment a world in which people felt free to drop their non-comment-section inhibitions. What would it be like if we all behaved as though our little blue planet were suspended under an 800-word think piece on supply management by someone with the first name Samantha?
For starters, a lot of us would have more numbers in our names. "Dougie1989" would be that world's "Kevin." I'd get a touch more unsolicited advice on where to buy a knockoff handbag. Slightly more people at parties would tell me how much money they made last week working from home!
What would we make of this comment-section world, a place where, when women walked down the street talking about the proposed U.S. anti-encryption bill, people shouted remarks about what they were wearing, and openly appraised their physical attributes?
Come with me to this strange, ridiculous world wherein women, merely by virtue of being in public, are seen as in need of correction from a fair number of passersby?
Let's envision a universe in which it's assumed that a woman is looking for strangers' approval of her very mood, when really she is just trying to pay for that milk she is carrying to the cash register.
What would this bizarre and alien place feel like?
Oh, it would feel like last Saturday and literally every day before and after it. I got you, and I understand why you weren't shocked this week when The Guardian released the results of an analysis of comments left on its website and, more important, comments removed from its website.
The Guardian found that, of the approximately 70 million comments posted between January, 1999, and last month, 1.4 million were removed for violating The Guardian's community standards. That is, they were "abusive to some degree or so off-topic that they derail the conversation," and these were disproportionately found on articles written by women.
Although women and black people remain underrepresented at most media outlets – and The Guardian is no exception – of the 10 most abused writers on the British daily's site, eight are women (four white and four non-white) and two are black men.
Clearly, finding the work of women and minorities and expressing an opinion on it – not necessarily about it, just on it, just laying out some angry thoughts that have been kicking around all week below that work – is some people's Sudoku.
The abuse was constant across all sections, but heaviest in those dominated by men – sports, technology, and world news.
The online response to The Guardian's findings were as predictable as the findings themselves; some complained that the study's methodology was flawed. Yes, more comments are flagged as "abusive" on work written by women, it was conceded in some quarters, but that's because news outlets are overprotective of these clearly hypersensitive "females."
These women, all the ones who are so wrong about sports, technology, world news and yet seemingly most desperately in need of correction about issues directly related to gender (child care, abortion, sexual assault, their own hair, to name but a few) do not receive a disproportionate amount of abuse, I read. They have more comments deleted because their work is chivalrously overmoderated.
Although, for this to be the case, the comments under the work of male political columnists would have to read like the transcript from a roast held by Caligula with occasional breaks for loud, unsolicited makeup advice.
One earnest commenter claimed The Guardian's analysis was another example of the system being stacked against men. There are, he explained, a greater number of offensive words to describe women, so the odds are mathematically higher that men's comments will get flagged.
If any part of that makes sense to you, consult a doctor.
In fact, The Guardian's data crunch simply confirms truths older than the Internet, and that doesn't mean everyone participates in this culture or tolerates it.
Ironically, if there's a single aspect of my work that keeps me at this gig, it's reader feedback – particularly the e-mail I get.
Hello, Case and Buzz and Mr. Noble in Alberta, and the many other people who write to me on a fairly regular basis – delightfully, informatively, movingly, poetically. I can't answer all of it, but I read all of it and I do try to respond, and I'm aware the Internet facilitates our sometimes- dialogue.
Anthony, I am still working on that column about the CFL for you; stay with me. I keep hitting the stumbling block of knowing absolutely nothing about football, but one day I'll nail it.
Yet, much as I enjoy hearing from readers, I'm not sure I agree with The Guardian's conclusion this week – that comment sections are worth fixing.
Mostly, the findings confirmed what many already suspected – comment sections are no longer relevant. They're remnants of an earlier time on the Internet when a digital letter to the editor seemed like a really cool idea.
Many media outlets – CNN, The Daily Beast, Reuters, to name a few – have decided that posting reader comments isn't worth the effort involved any more. There are now so many places that "MuslimsGoHome1958" can share his opinions on immigration to a European country he has never been to, and could not name the current leader of, that I'm not sure newspaper subscribers need to fund another.
It's curious how quickly the right to comment directly on news articles without the terrible inconvenience of going to another website became enshrined.
We've never had more media through which to opine – the debate is fierce, and often fine, over at Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and Google+. There has never been so much free speech – that thing that commenters insist is under attack.
In some ways, it feels as though comment threads hang down at the bottom of newspaper columns like vestigial tails: They may have served some purpose in some earlier stage of our online evolution but, now, looking at them too closely just makes you feel dirty.
You can practically hear the screech of a dial-up modem as the page loads.