To be clear: CBC is only turning off Facebook comments. They continue to continue welcome comments on CBCNews.ca, where they say "we have more moderating tools and can focus our attention better on offering a respectful dialogue about our stories." The reason is simple: "compounding the stress and anxiety of journalists is the vitriol and harassment many of them face on social media platforms and, increasingly, in the field." For the last two days I've been in a long Twitter argument about the users themselves negotiating some sort of social contract for conduct on those sites. Well, I don't think they can. I don't think any real 'negotiation' or 'contract' occurs; it's just one group trying to be more persistent than another. In these discussions, too, people assume that what they think is polite reflects community values (ie., social projection), but if we look at what the community actually does, it's much less polite than that. I think, moreover, that what counts as 'politeness' reflects space, time and privilege.
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