Idea: internet commentors should have to use their real names and pictures
If you write anything online, from a blog like this to the comment pieces and articles I write in my day job, you’ll get comments. Often they are idiotic, sexist, racist or just full on wrong. Fine. I’m for free speech but with this caveat: you should have to stand by what you say. So how about this – it should be a legal requirement that to comment on someone’s work online you should have to use your real name and picture.
If you want to say it, you should stand by it. Then the little idiots who write sexually derogatory and explicit comments beneath Youtube videos posted by my female colleagues would be revealed as the bumfluff sporting little fucktards they really are.
And for people who truly need to comment anonymously, there should be specific places to do that. Whistleblowers’ and madmen’s corners of the Internet. But if you want to take part in the mainstream dialogue, you should do so using your real identity. Comment on that fuckers.
