Online news outlets: Who is accountable for anonymous comments?
Reading an article in The Guardian on ‘Twitter abuse’ caused me to ask the question:
Are social media sites a platform for unrestricted communication? Or do they acquire the legal responsibilities of a publisher?
An ethical issue that I consider particularly significant is related to not only social media, but media outlets too, where the comments section allows for anyone to anonymously have their say on articles and stories that have been published.
When it comes to the comment fields on online news sites- who is responsible for what gets published?
This issue is something that I encounter on a daily basis. As Editor of a student paper, the comments section is an ongoing source of problems, as Web users post whatever they please on there- named or anonymous- for everyone else to see.
The editorial team have the power to ‘Trash’ comments. Does this mean that we can be held accountable for any ‘inappropriate’ or offensive comments that are published?
As it happens, yes.
Recently, an article was published on the site that received a host of comments from users with strongly opinionated views. The nature of the article- an offensive email that was leaked- meant that the name of the person who supposedly wrote this email was being mentioned by some commenters.
Very soon, myself and the editorial team were being hounded by friends of this person to remove the comments. In the end, we did, because the issue risked being a case of libel.
As Drushel and German stated of the comment sections of new sites, “introduction of unverified links and facts not presented within an article might give pause. If people are reading these [comment] posts…then the news sites also are introducing the facts and links within the comment fields”.
When commenters start supplying new facts to the journalist’s story- which are not proven to be true- the news site becomes responsible for what is on there, as it affects the story that they are reporting.
I wholeheartedly agree with the Guardian article when it states that social media “is only the messenger for the society in which it operates.” [1] Social media is a platform for freedom of speech, it is a way for people to communicate their views to the world.
But unfortunately, as Lunday states, “social media when not well managed opens the door to numerous risks”.
This means that the website administrators ultimately have an important responsibility for ensuring that nothing that nothing blasphemous or slanderous gets published on the site.
The Guardian article has a good point when it states that Twitter “is not responsible for the racism and sexism it exposes, or the social misfits who use it. We are”.
But technically, this is not entirely true. “We” cannot be held accountable if they are anonymous.
‘Twitter abuse: easy on the messenger’, (January, 2014) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/24/twitter-abuse-abusive-tweets-editorial?CMP=twt_gu
Jason Lunday, ‘Managing the Workplace Ethics of Social Media’, http://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/managing-the-workplace-ethics-of-social-media/
Bruce E. Drushell and Kathleen German, ‘The Ethics of Emerging Media: Information, Social Norms and New Media’ https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U50PqkhwPKAC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=news+website+comments+ethical+regulation&source=bl&ots=xC9dT7Z6LS&sig=Wh-1px3gQ3NnLGMzsPgvVO1KcCI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rNUPVZOPKKPD7gaSgoGgBg&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=comments%20&f=false
