Paper puts up a paywall for comments

How about this for a paywall twist.... a US newspaper publisher has decided to charge users a fee for posting comments on its newspaper website.

From tomorrow, the Sun Chronicle, a Massachusetts paper, will charge would-be commenters a nominal one-off fee of 99 cents. But it has to be paid by credit card, which means providing a real name and address.

And the name on the credit card will be the name that will appear on comments. So it's goodbye to anonymity.

At the same time, the poster must acknowledge that he/she will abide by US state and federal law and agree to be legally responsible for any content he/she posts.

The Sun Chronicle had previously suspended commenting across its sites back in April and the publisher, Oreste D'Arconte, said he hopes the move to stop anonymity would "eliminate past excesses that included blatant disregard for our appropriateness guidelines, blind accusations and unsubstantiated allegations".

Posters who violate the guidelines will be banned from the site, said D'Arconte, adding: "This is a necessary step, in my opinion, if the Sun Chronicle is going to continue to provide a forum for comments on our websites."

In the US, the argument against revealing one's real name is that it infringes the right to free speech. Advocates of anonymity believe it inhibits people from expressing minority opinions.

Here's a typical statement of that ethos, expounded by Eva Galperin: "Anonymous speech has always been an integral part of free speech because it enables individuals to speak up and speak out when they otherwise may find reason to hide or self-censor.

"Behind the veil of anonymity, individuals are more free to surface honest observations, unheard complaints, unpopular opinions."

She made that comment in response to a decision last week by the US gaming giant Activision Blizzard to demand that its users log in using their real names.

The company was then forced into a swift and embarrassing reversal of that decision after (forgive the pun) a blizzard of protests.

Sources: Sun Chronicle/The Wall/Editors' weblog/Electric Frontier Foundation