I don’t think the unregulated nature of the Internet is “to blame” for offensive comments, I think that is more of a mirror for where we are as a society with how people often treat each other.

I was fortunate to find the web at the young age I did and to not become an overnight sensation as Sarah did. It has taken me these thirteen years to understand commenter mentality (and brutality). Now, when I see horrible comments about me on the web, I can let them roll off my back. My best friend who got on the web less than a year ago recently experienced her first flame war in comments–she didn’t have a chance to grow into it. It was horrifying for her. Her husband and I helped her through it, but it was different for us to help her manage the wave because we’ve been in the space so much longer and the experience was not so shocking and hurtful.

I have always moderated my blog comments because I have never seen the web as a democracy–this may be due to the fact that I became active when the crowd online was largely people who could afford a computer and had enough knowledge and resources to get online. Things have changed and more people now have access, but I still don’t necessarily buy into this “global conversation” business because I’ve been to so many places where people still don’t have access (illiteracy is still common in my home country of Peru and many other places, not to mention many people don’t know the “global language” that is English).

Instead of a stage for “global, open discussion,” I view my blog and social network streams as an extension of my salon, where it is also my duty to moderate my guests. If someone becomes rude to myself or someone else present, I am quick to admonish or banish the person (depending on how much they have previously contributed or if they’re simply being a troll). The web is about conversation, yes, but as someone contributing content and a space for others, I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that this conversation has value and a comment that takes the direction of disrespect or profanity has no value.

I starve the trolls. There are plenty of places they can go with their vitriol, but it won’t be my salon. In my space, I provide a place not just where I feel safe, but where other people with their opinions, be they right or wrong, in agreement or dissent, can come and be respected when they lay their case.

I like the thoughts you put forth in this regard and I hope that you has a similar discussion with your daughter about this because that’s where the real lesson is: learning to be selective of what we permit in our space, be it in life or on the web.

Thank you for sharing this. I may blog about it in my personal blog because I think it’s a very important topic, not just for parents, but in general. Your daughter is very fortunate to have someone active online to guide her through this wonderful, if at times frightful space.

One thing I have definitely noticed is that as I’ve moderated out / not approved comments which include personal attacks, the overall tone of the conversation on the video has changed and become more positive / constructive. This does not address the accountability issue, but it is interesting to watch this and the role the moderator plays.

I agree that we need to do a lot more thinking about building online communities for young people as well as ACTING to build them. My experiences the past week definitely highlight the need we have to build digital sandboxes in which our children and students can interact and play, with some adult involvement and supervision. It is really a bummer Imbee didn’t make it, their founders were trying to do this sort of thing.

@JMCrebbin: I am glad to hear your forum moderation is working well, it sounds like a good system. What is the platform you’re using for that, is it open source?

@kiwispouse: We do need to remember that the “fear and hatred” get amplified by the media and sometimes through the technology– while those voices are “there” in the online comments over Sarah’s video, they are DEFINITELY NOT in the majority, and that is good news. I’m distressed by our political polarization as well. Perhaps this is an opportunity for moderates to come forward and lead? I don’t think either extreme represents the majority, but often the extremists seem to shape the debate and discussion to a larger extent than is perhaps justified or beneficial.

i cannot advise you on comment moderation, wes, as my first instinct would be the protection of my daughter. however, having a dd who has experienced mostly the negative aspects of technology (cyberbullying) to the point of police reports and a new school, i would not have encouraged her to post a video to youtube. her own blog, yes, but not youtube, as the level of comments throughout, regardless of content, is poor.

i say to sarah: well done sarah! i am so happy to see a young person like yourself involved with and listening to and thinking about politics, so that when your generation comes forth to take the mantle of power, you can reflect back on my & your parents’ generation, who did it so badly. you give me hope. the fact that your classmate was “not allowed” to watch the president’s address because he’s “republican” is a sad, sad illustration of the stalemate the parties have come to. we have a president now who is garnering the long lost respect of the world – if only the people at home weren’t so full of fear and hatred.

cheers sarah and wes,
kelly

The issues with YouTube are well known and it is unfortunate that the system operates in such a way that a 9 year old girl can be bullied and abused by people who are protected by anonymity. Having to be a moderator for the sort of comments these ‘people’ publish can be upsetting, especially in your case where the comments are aimed at your nearest and dearest.

YouTube needs a better system. Moving away from ‘anyone can publish anything anonymously’ to ‘anyone can publish anything anonymously – but your account is authorised through a credit card or similar so you can be blocked for life when you get a bad case of potty-mouth’.

I regularly use a forum which is moderated by volunteers, and while your account is not verified beyond a simple email check, this moderation works quite well and the simple but effective rules are usually followed. (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/)

Moderators can be contacted through a simple ‘herring’ link, which allows a user to highlight a post as a Personal attack, Illegal or inappropriate, Foul language or Off-topic / hijacking.

With the high numbers of YouTube users and the countless number of posts made each minute of every day, a simple solution is not apparent, however the status quo is why YouTube is blocked in many Australian schools.

It might be easier to just disable commenting, and delete all comments, just period. If people want to talk about it, they can do so on their blogs, or what not.

A comment about the choice of youtube and cloud services. Youtube is a k-99 service. It is a service with no internal community weight to it, it has no associated mores that structure the way that people comment. It is, in the end, amoral and a-ethical. Openness does not necessarily need to be like this. We can be open with our stuff and structure it in a place where people of like ethic are likely to come… I think the learning experience for the child can be mostly the same.

Community matters online as much as it does in your village/town/city in raising a child. I’ve been thinking alot lately about how many of the people i think of as my ‘community members’ online have kids… and have these problems. We also happen to have the technical ability to structure a nice open community where our kids can go and share and work and feel comfortable in 98% of what will happen there. You and I might have different feelings, for instance, about what religious upbringing our children would have, but i have a fundamental respect for your approach to your work, and, as is clear with your writing in this post, have a fundamental respect for you humanity and your ability to reflect on your own practice.

These are the people that I would want to have frequenting the open community space where my children are sharing things (when they start… oscar is just getting old enough now) and i would welcome the teachable moments that would come from our differences (whatever they might be).

At the risk of sounding critical (which is not what i’m trying to do) youtube is no choice at all… it is the street that you don’t let your kids walk down alone (which you clearly didn’t… and watched her the whole way) I just wonder how much we should be brining them down those streets at all. Open yes. But open where? The medium, here, has a great deal of an effect on the kind of things that people would say.

thanks for getting me thinking!

dave.

I am no longer involved in teaching debate (without getting into detail, the school canceled the course in favor of something else). I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to offer it again next year. I do, however, still moderate the district’s student discussion forum on First Class.

Richard

I know that some teachers do not moderate their class/child blogs at all and although they believe moderation can slow the conversation I am loathe to follow their path. I like to have the ability to firstly know what is being said and secondly to able to shield the children from people with little intellect.

Our podcast has been spam commented a few times as well and it is a lot easier to remove comments before they are placed than to go about deleting them once they have gone live.

Great point about the value of publishing in an open forum, rather than a walled garden, for the teachable moment aspect of this… certainly it is something we’ll discuss with Sarah. Even though the harshest comments are not public for her to see, there obviously is some criticism and that is part of life, we need to learn how to deal with it, and also (as you point out) learn to take the emotion and the personal aspects out of our arguments. Unfortunately on YouTube I think many people explicitly DO want to engage in personal attacks, and that leads to an escalation of words… Not really good for anyone.

Are you involved in LD debate now at your school? I have volunteered to help my son’s debate teacher (who teachers both middle and high school debate) this year and want to setup some live videoconference-based debates this fall. I haven’t posted anything on this to the CILC website or elsewhere yet– have you all done this sort of thing, do you know if people are already doing LD debates over video between different schools, etc? This would be a practice debate– it could be scheduled during the day or after school. I’m eager to see what we can setup.

Good to see both positive and negative comments, but as an Australian, am amazed at the division between Republican and Democrats views. Maybe because we vote in a party to power, while you vote in a person to President.