

I don't have a FB account and have lost interest in Techcrunch. - markkat

I'm curious as to whether I am alone in this. I was traveling when TC made the switch from using Disqus to Facebook comments.<p>There's no chance that I'll get a FB account just to comment on blogs. But, I've found that I am not visiting TC as much as I used to. I'd love to share my thoughts on TC about this, but can't. :)<p>Am I in the minority here? I'd hate to see this trend continue, as I don't want to use one account for all my internet interactions.
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raquo
I've looked at TC comments on a handful of recent articles and didn't find any
profanity/trolling/etc. Maybe I just got lucky, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't
like that before. That's definitely a plus.

~~~
markkat
That definitely is an upside. However, although the trolling an profanity may
have been reduced, it's possible that people don't express controversial
opinions they might have, as they are now linked to their facebook network.

-That's part of the reason I don't have a FB account, I don't really want to have conversations with an audience that includes my aunt, my friends, and my coworkers. That just doesn't interest me. For example, there are many opinions and ideas I could quickly share with my childhood friend, that I could only share with my aunt with the inclusion of considerable context, so that I wouldn't be misunderstood. As a result, my conversations would probably by shallow and trivial, so as not to waste time, but then be ultimately uninteresting.

I used MySpace some time ago, but dropped it for similar reasons.

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pathik
I do have a FB account, but even I have stopped frequenting Techcrunch since
they made the switch. For some reason, I just don't want to comment using my
FB account. And no, I'm not a comment troll.

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dreamux
With 600+ Million users, its safe to say you're a minority on this one. Sorry.

~~~
pixeloution
600 million users can't be wrong? Do you really want every comment you make on
every blog ever to be permanently attached to your name ... and searchable by
employers, wives, girlfriends, family, the police ...

Ah ... its like that bit in Hitchhikers where they have the cow that
slaughters itself.

~~~
bmelton
It's not really focal to the discussion at hand, but yes, I would like for
everything everybody says in a public forum attached to them.

I'm an AVID defender of free speech, and have run a number of 'safe haven'
forums in the past which naturally drew a number of trolls. I don't have a
problem with trolling, even when it gets sadistic, personal and crosses every
line that it can -- most people do.

The general cure for that is the lack of anonymity. It won't happen to the
roguish young in many cases, but for many people, knowing that it CAN be
tracked back to them eventually is enough to keep the really bad attacks out
of play.

~~~
Sapient
What about gays, atheists and others who could possibly damage far more than
their own reputation?

I live in a country where I have absolutely no problem admitting to anyone
that I don't believe in any gods, but it seems that in America this can and
often has ripped families apart. Should those people be excluded from any
public discourse regarding their beliefs?

The price which has to be paid in this dystopian future of yours is far too
high, especially when the "trolls" you are trying to vanquish could just as
easily be moderated out of existence wherever they became a problem.

How many other parts of our lives should we be forced to expose in order to
take part in a community? HIV status? Voting history? Race? Whatever you feel
the limit should be, I feel that peoples real names, races and locations is
far more than anyone should ever have to share.

On a more mundane note, what about losing a job at Apple e because a search
for your name brought up a few very negative, but non-trollish, comments you
made about the iPhone, or perhaps Apple as a company.

These examples are generalised and unlikely... But not outside the realm of
possibility.

~~~
bmelton
I suspect that you read too much into my wish. I wasn't actually sayingn that
we get rid of anonymous free speech -- honestly, because I know that isn't the
answer, and there are times (admittely, that I cannot relate to) where people
may have fear of persecution for their beliefs.

Also, I'm not looking to eliminate the trolls in the world -- forced anonymity
wouldn't CURE it, but would almost certainly lessen its presence considerably.
However, having seen first hand how entirely unnecessarily negative attacks
can destroy a community.

You bring up an interesting point though, in that speech can be 'moderated
into existence' -- which in my opinion, is even more oppressive than public
identifiability. You would institute censorship to restore anonymity? I
consider that the worst of the two ideas.

~~~
Sapient
I think the best solution is to allow everyone to keep their anonymity if they
want, and just repeat the mantra: "Don't Feed The Trolls!"

Where necessary, implement some form of community moderation, much like here,
unpopular comments are greyed out, on other sites, like Reddit, they are
hidden until requested.

Forced anonymity will forever be a pipe-dream anyway I think.

~~~
bmelton
Well, as I alluded to, I'm not sanctioning forced identity disclosure
everywhere, but I do believe that if a site owner wants to keep their site
from being a cesspool without resorting to censorship, it's a better
compromise to me than moderation.

It's a tricky subject, I agree, and it's clear we lie on different sides of
what we consider to be acceptable, but ultimately, it's quite hard to have a
community drive site the doesn't devolve -- HN, Reddit, Digg, and every other
online community is a testament to that.

The fact that it's technically non-trivial to identify a person absolutely
makes it harder to keep trolls away, as they're always free to get a new IP
address and re-register as another username, which makes it harder to enforce
standards in the community.

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futuremint
I have a facebook account, I had to make it to do development for a former
employer. I rarely login, and given a choice I'd much rather use my Twitter or
Github login. If facebook is my only option, I just don't login.

My time is much better spent face-to-face in the real world that the time-suck
that is facebook.

