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I've seen ridiculously hostile and inappropriate comments posted with full name and photo (using the Facebook comment system).

As a particularly dramatic example, which was so bad it was almost art, we had a debate in a Norwegian newspaper about what to do with the traveling Romani people who put up their tents everywhere. One commenter said: "Why not put Anders Behring Breivik on the case? He cleaned up a camping site in an hour", referring to the Utøya massacre where 69 camping teenagers were killed.

If someone's able to post that with their full name and photo, I don't really think there's any hope of solving the comment problem without old-fashioned moderation.




I would have initially read that comment as a sardonic remark on the European conception of Romani as needing to be "cleaned up," but I'm not aware of all the cultural issues.


Freedom of speech means that they're able to post crap like that. It also means that the poster will deal with the consequences.


Of course, I'd defend people's right to say stuff like this. And in a twisted way, it was really funny. But it doesn't make for very good discussion.


Social norms are different in different groups. I have told people that what they wrote could be considered racists and gotten a reply back that they wanted to be clear that they were racists, quite proud of it, and that I was an idiot for not seeing the muslim thread (in a discussion that was not at all related to terror). I have seen the same people belate others for questioning that we should throw all muslims out and arguing that every single muslim was a terrorist ala The Norwegian terrorist.




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