GREENSBORO, NC -- When the News & Record implemented a mandatory Facebook login for story comments last year, I originally thought that bringing to their attention the fact that people could not even read comments on the N&R site without allowing Facebook tracking cookies might have inspired them to implement an alternative to the Facebook-or-nothing comments. Not so.
Maybe this will have them reconsider: Young people are leaving Facebook in droves.
Since 2011:
AGE
13-17: -25.3%
18-24: -7.9%
A mandatory Facebook login to comment or read comments should never have been implemented to begin with. Although it was defended as a way for people to have to use their "real" (haha) identities and, therefore, raise the quality of comments, it was short-sighted and deficient ( -- and a policy so conducive to the free exchange of ideas that the government of Communist China has just implemented a real-identity mandate too).
Now that the must-Facebook requirement has tied the N&R to a diminution of young readers will the N&R take note and make a change?
The NR has never been tech savvy and doesn't want to invest the time it takes to monitor comments.
ReplyDeleteThe less comments the easier their job is.
Pure tech laziness; look at the stupid graphics they use for stories. There's one they've been using for years on the business stories. It portrays a demographically correct portrait of business people, much like a Bank of America advertisement.
They simply don't care enough about engaging the community to make comment access easy enough that there's a lively discussion.
IIRC, Grits last comment on the matter was something along the lines of accountability, knowing the real name of the commenter was more important.
**Like no one has ever made a bogus Facebook account before?**
All the BH papers now appear to have essentially the same kind of website, including FB comments. So I'm guessing that this decision would be made at a level higher than the individual newspaper.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if that's good or bad.
ReplyDelete