It is time to renovate Internet and we can start by abolishing commentaries

I was introduced to Internet in a relatively late time, the second half of the 2000s. For a long period of my childhood, computers were just an instrument to be accessed for “essential tasks” (basically homework) in places like school and libraries. When I got a personal computer and started to use the “Web” in a more frequent way, I discovered the search engines, forums, pioneering social networks, video hosting sites, message applications and all the other elements of the digital world of that beginning of century.

And that was life-changing for me, since my concept of Internet was pretty much romantic, something like a huge electronic encyclopedia where people could access any piece of knowledge and exchange information, not much different from this Arthur C. Clarke’s speech during an interview in the 70s. Nonetheless, the network imagined by Clarke is just a fraction of what Internet really is, maybe a very tiny fraction.

During my initial contact with the Web I was fascinated with the idea of communicating with very remote people, getting attention from them and receiving response when sharing my opinions. I could help to clarify doubts in a forum and receive a like for some clever commentary in a post. And that was a gratifying feeling. However, this phase soon entered in decline and the commentaries started to show a dark aspect. I started to see that some of those commentaries could rapidly escalate from slightly critical to highly offensive with almost no apparent reason and that discussions happening in a commentaries section never end. At the end of day, what I was getting out of that ? Just a bitter feeling of disillusion and powerlessness in face of this gratuitous hate.

Since then, and it is been years, I simply have stopped of reading commentaries, and each time I gave in the curiosity and read some one, it is just to attest how right I am in living in my isolation, because my conclusion is always that when commentaries are toxic and aggressive they are harmful, and when they are just good and soft, they are useless. Although someone could argue that commentaries provide an ample space for research, allowing the extraction of interesting information about trends and human behaviors, I do not think that is sufficient to defend its existence. I believe their downside is so deep that we are better living without them.

I think commentaries must be abolished since they are not a real method of communication and, certainly, not an efficient way to hold a debate. People are not really debating and sharing ideas in an organized way when chatting in a commentaries section, they are just firing off ideas and expecting to got some momentary reaction from it. Multiple parallel “debates” emerge in a thread and do not achieve any goal, any addition. Furthermore, a debate always needs mediation, not just to guarantee all the parts will have space for expression and protection against persecution, but also to avoid things go out of control and the discussion enters in fields not covered by the original subject. This kind of task is still better performed by forums, as those seem in Fedora Discussions or KDE Discuss.

The commentary sections are just an easy way to reactionary, racist, xenophobe or simply hater people express their damming feelings with no punishment. They also are a perfect window display for conspiracy theorists and agents linked to hate groups spreading their sick ideas and possibly recruiting new elements. Not to mention the ever-present scammers and fraudsters. In times when regulation and moderation are frequently attacked and dismantled, this is a recipe for disorder.

Someone could also argue that in the same way commentaries can be used for the dark side, they also are a simple way to share agreement, encouragement and positive feelings in general, but I do not agree with that. If I admire a group of researchers, for example, and I want to demonstrate my approval, I can easily help them by sharing their work, by indicating it to others or even by writing an email with my observations and suggestions about it. There are many more useful ways to contribute than just writing a commentary.

In the depths of my soul, I think I still dream with a Clarke-like Internet. A healthy digital environment, where scientifically-based knowledge is shared within the community, people can express ideas and opinions protected by guardrails against extremism and intolerance, and, mainly, an Internet that is not an alternative reality but a tool to improve the reality in which we live. Nevertheless, I know that it is not realistic and we need to work with what we have. If the modern Internet is more like a worn-out building we need to renovate, we can start by sealing the sewage leaks.