Comparing Facebook comment sections on the same local news story is like two different planets

Same story about a downtown rezoning, one post on the city page had people debating parking math and another on the neighborhood group devolved into someone calling a retired teacher a communist. The difference was the page admin actually deleted spam and replied with facts in the first one. Anyone else notice how one moderator can totally flip the tone of a comment thread?

2 comments

2 Comments

david3725d ago

Whoa, hold on, I gotta push back on this one! I think people are way more set in their ways than we give them credit for. The neighborhood group guy calling the teacher a communist probably would've done that no matter who was running the page, you know? Mods can clear out the junk, sure, but they can't change how someone argues about parking spots or school budgets. I've seen super strict pages where people still find a way to get nasty, they just spell things wrong or use passive aggressive emoji instead. The real factor is usually the crowd that shows up, not the person with the delete button.

robin_henderson8124d ago

Wondering if we're overthinking this whole mod thing, @david37. I get the point about stubborn people, but does it really matter if the tone shifts a little? One deleted post doesn't change the fact that someone's gonna rant about HOA fees at 2am no matter what. The real question is why we care so much about who's running the page in the first place. Last I checked, arguing about arguing is just as pointless as the original squabble. Maybe we should just step back and let the messy stuff sort itself out.