September 21, 2011 | Online

Advocate.com: no more trolls!

Trolls, those online users who delight in posting hateful and hurtful comments, have been the bane of webmasters for a long time. And Advocate.com has decided to do something about them.

It just announced that it was experimenting with Facebook Connect for the comments section on some of its articles. This Facebook plugin allows people to post comments, while verifying their identity.

"If you’re logged into Facebook, you’ll be able to comment on stories on Advocate.com without jumping through any additional authentication hoops," explained Editor in Chief, Matthew Breen. "No need to type out a captcha code, no need to log in, no need to provide an email address."

You then have a choice of posting exclusively on the site, or adding your comment to your Facebook page as well.

So why the change?

"If you’ve read Advocate.com for any length of time, you’ve seen the trolls and have read their cruel and vindictive comments," explained Breen. "This has presented a problem for me as I am reluctant to censor reader comments, generally feeling that a whole lot of good (freedom of expression) comes with some of the bad (malicious comments). We’ve long maintained a light touch, only pulling down threatening comments or those that would violate someone’s privacy."

However, Breen suggested, when people are able to hide and post anonymously, they feel free to say whatever they like, no matter how horrible.

"Facebook Comments offers a solution there," he said, "as your name and profile image will appear next to your comment. The general consensus is this is a troll killer."

It isn't perfect, of course. Fake Facebook profiles are easy enough to make. But it would mean trolls have to work a little harder to annoy the rest of us.

Note to Advocate.com Readers: We're Dispensing With the Internet Closet [The Advocate]