Responsible feedback

OUR DAILY SMS feedback column will look very different from today. It will include not only SMSes but also posts from our Facebook page and comments on our Twitter account.

One of the reasons for the change is that SMSes have been overtaken as a means of communication by the masses of correspondence we receive on our social media platforms.

But more importantly, we have decided also to put the SMS feedback through the same rigours as our letters in Cape Points. We have become increasingly concerned that the SMSes, due to the fact that many are anonymous, have become a vehicle for hate speech, racism and bigotry.

So from tomorrow, SMS correspondence will be held to the same standard as our letters – which require full names and physical addresses to establish bona fides – so that we know engagement happens in good faith.

Recently Independent Media, the parent company of the Cape Argus, was handed a provisional report from a panel of experts with a view of eliminating hate speech, racism and bigotry on comments from users on its online news property IOL. The move came in the wake of a young woman, Kine Dineo Mokwena-Kessi, writing an opinion piece about being black in Cape Town. The online comments in response were both shocking and regrettable.

The Cape Argus supported the move by Independent Media and it would be irresponsible then not to subject our own SMS feedback to the same standard and scrutiny.