(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)
January 16, 2015 - 8:31 AM
We love feedback on our stories. It's the surest sign we are providing news and stories people care about. We actually appreciate it when you point out a mistake or a spelling error. We try to answer questions and take advice on follow up questions and updates.
But when the masses arrive in the comments section, you never know what you are going to get.
Yesterday, for example. Alisa Langley told us a beautiful love story, told from the heart and personally had me in tears. Then, as I thought about publishing it, I had the all-too-familiar voice in the back of my head: “But what about the trolls?”
Well, they’re out there anyway, aren’t they? Luckily, so far, the response looks like this:
Image Credit: Screenshot
Thank goodness. (And thank you so much for sharing your story, Alisa.)
But there’s something else going on in Penticton and clearly throughout the Thompson-Okanagan as people respond to the murder of a beautiful mother of a three-year-old son with—of all things—poorly veiled racism and ignorance.
Is this really the best place for rudeness, people? Who does that?
We figured using Facebook for our comments would cut down on some of this. The sites with anonymous comments become a cesspool of all the human mind can conjure and unleash from behind the armour of anonymity. I hate them. With Facebook, where your own community knows you, we will get less trolling, we figured—accurately, I suppose. But some people also just don’t care.
The greater question is what to do when trolls start showing up in the worst places. I have no patience for some of these wing nuts who still use a fake profile, but that’s an easy one.
My greatest hope, as it is with our work, is for some education, and a little information to change the tide. Not a flame war, or some such thing, but through conversation. Amazingly, it happens from time to time to restore a little faith in humanity. Exhibit A: This from our story telling Kelowna that a home that burned down belonged to a world famous photographer as proof it does happen from time to time. That's what this is all about.
Image Credit: Screenshot
— Marshall Jones is the managing editor of infonews.ca
News from © iNFOnews, 2015