Comment by rectang
11 days ago
Back before Gawker went kaput I used to spend a bunch of time in the comment sections at Jezebel and The Root. Jezebel in particular had a huge problem with highly-motivated trolls.
Sometimes the trolling took the form of high-volume contrarian posting, but the trolls would also post porn and pictures of gendered violence in the comments on nearly every single article.
The way Jezebel dealt with it was through a variant of commenter whitelisting. Unapproved commenters (including yet-to-be-banned trolls) would have their comments in a purgatory until approved, visible only to those who have opted in.
A community like Jezebel cannot exist when supposed free-speech absolutists have their way and protect the trolls. When the free speech of trolls is prioritized, their targets are denied freedom of assembly and freedom of association.
These are all private fora so the US Bill of Rights doesn't actually come into play. But what episodes like today remind us is that the commitment of platforms like Meta and X to ensuring full participation by their political enemies is weak.
agreed generally, but one could argue that if a company is going to claim impunity for damages for a statement made on their platform because they are operating as a "virtual town square" rather than as a publisher, then they are obligated to permit speech in a way that is congruous with how a public space operates.
That approach sounds promising at first, and I'm interested in exploring it. But it seems to me as though it's not the tool which would allow unpopular groups to hold conversations without interference.
When meeting in an actual, physical town square, a group like the Jezebel.com commenters (or to pluck a group from elsewhere on the political spectrum, second amendment activists) doesn't have the right to be free from criticism. They could hold a rally there, or they could protest other groups, but they don't have the right to shut down those who would protest civilly against them.
What unpopular groups need is a private forum where they can congregate and exercise their right to freedom of association by excluding those who would disrupt their activities.