Originally Posted By DDMAN26 Specifically for any political story. I read how the President marked the day. And then what Romney did. Neither seemed to out of line crazy or disrespectful. But looking at the comments you'd pretty much think both men had something to do with it from the lunatics on both sides.
Originally Posted By ecdc If I want to lose the will to live, I just check out the comments section on just about any news site.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 Or any site in general. Even non-political topics always devolve into that. AOL, Youtube, IMDB, etc...it's truly depressing. It really showcases how crappy humans can be to each other.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 SNL had one of their better and more pointed sketches in a long time on this. It was like a mock talk show in which the guests were three habitues of comments sections. The host brought out people they had commented on and forced them to confront actual consequences when unable to hide behind a screen name (e.g. one guy who commented on a harmless grandma dancing at a wedding "What a loser, granny. Kill yourself." or something like that).
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Anonymity is the bane of a civilized society. It takes no courage to act like an a**hat under the cloak of secrecy. I have no doubt that most of these hateful posters would never spew this garbage if they were forced to use Skype and their actual names in order to post. These discussion boards are the poster children for why we need transparency in politics. If you care about a politician so much as to donate millions to their election campaign, then you should be able to do so without the veil of secrecy. The voting public has a fundamental right to know where a politician's funding comes from, especially when it comes from corporations or the executives who manage them.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper Agreed with gurgitoy. It is the comment section on any website in which those comments are not administered.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan They are very depressing to read. But I think it's also mostly trolls just posting for shock value to get their jollies. It's a strange form of antisocial behavior that makes you wonder what evil lurks truly in the hearts of men (The Shadow knows....) The political stuff is one thing -- politics is like sports, where reason goes out the window at times because it's more important to be true to your team -- but the nasty garbage posted on the more uplifting or tragic news stories is really disgusting.
Originally Posted By Tikiduck I think a lot of it is the modern day equivalent of the crank phone calls of the past. Some pathetic losers who have nothing better to do than piss people off. Then we have the political and religious zealots.
