A LONG OVERDUE DECISION
The announcement by Facebook last month that it will give users — including news outlets — more control over comments is long overdue and good news for Canadian media outlets.
The move comes after a 2019 Australian court decision that found several media companies in that country liable for defamatory comments written under news stories that had been posted on their Facebook pages.
Online comments on stories can generate healthy debates and provide new insight. But, too often, comments can also be hateful and even criminal.
Until recently, the only means of proactively moderating comments on Facebook posts has been to block posts containing certain words and turning on a profanity filter. Inappropriate comments not removed by these measures can be manually deleted by page administrators.
The Saskatoon Starphoenix and Regina Leader-post post dozens of local, national and international news stories on their websites and social media feeds every day. Some of these generate hundreds of comments. As such, we occasionally remove stories from Facebook or choose never to share them on the platform because of inappropriate comments or the likelihood of those occurring.
This is concerning because 53 per cent of Canadians get their news from social media, according to the 2020 Reuters Digital News Report. If trusted news outlets feel they can't share certain stories on social media, people may turn to other sources for news or not be exposed to stories on certain topics, such as race. One of the most high-profile examples of hateful social media comments in Saskatchewan in recent years has been around the fatal shooting of Colten Boushie. Comments on stories about the Cree man's death have been so toxic online that the Starphoenix and Leader-post often remove these stories from Facebook. Lawyers for Boushie's family have called on the provincial government to investigate and prosecute people making hateful and racist social media comments toward the family. However, it appears unlikely any charges will be laid.
Last month, the owners of Saskatoon's
Hey! Fried Chicken restaurant took to social media to draw attention to racist anti-asian comments that had been written under a Starphoenix Facebook post linking to a news story profiling the restaurant. Once Starphoenix staff were made aware of the comments, they were deleted. When a reporter spoke with restaurant co-owner Estelle Yang about the experience, she said she hadn't been surprised to see the comments. “It always happens,” she said. The comments came a little over a week after a man in Atlanta went on a shooting spree, killing eight people, including six Asian women. Yang chose to draw attention to the comments because she believes racist violence starts with racist commentary.
Sometimes comments cross a legal line. Earlier this year a Saskatoon woman was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting two young girls, making child pornography and bestiality. A court-ordered publication ban forbids her from being named in order to protect the identity of her victims — but that didn't stop social media users from naming her in Facebook comments. Those comments could be harmful for the young girls and the Starphoenix has stopped sharing stories about the ongoing legal process on Facebook.
Racist, hateful and harmful comments should not be given a platform. This recent move to grant organizations control over comments on Facebook posts will allow media outlets like the Starphoenix and Leader-post to get important stories to as wide an audience as possible without fear of giving people a platform for hate speech or breaking the law.