How comprehension quizzes transform the comment section into a participatory journalism space

At their best, audience-generated comments can meaningfully complement a piece of content with valuable insights and new perspectives, cultivate a sense of community, and even ignite a substantive conversation around an underreported topic. At their worst, however, comment sections can be a cesspool of hate, a playground for bots spreading misinformation and propaganda, scams, and can at times even pose a security vulnerability.

These challenges have pushed a number of newsrooms, typically those with fewer staff and means (AfroLA among them), to shutter their comment sections. Nonetheless, if done right, there are many benefits to having a space for audiences where they can lend their voices to the story.

A thriving online community isn’t only good civics, it’s good economics. It compels audiences to spend more time with the content which, depending on the particulars of the newsroom’s business model, might give audiences more of a reason to stick around longer and become paying subscribers or members, or help shore up ad revenue.

A well-functioning comment section is heavily predicated on the newsroom’s ability to weed out harmful posts. It comes down not only to how many resources a news outlet has, but also how much it sits in the crosshairs of trolls, bots, and other malicious actors. The more a news site or an individual journalist represents a historically-marginalized community, the more vulnerable they are to persistent online harassment.

Getting the best of both worlds is a tricky balance to strike.

Over the years, newsrooms have tried a number of ways to exercise quality control over their comment sections:

• The Wall Street Journal decided to allow only its paying subscribers to comment and elevate the comment section’s importance by employing “audience voice reporters.”
• The Seattle Times revamped its commenting rules with an emphasis on facilitating reader-reporter interactions. Journalists’ engagement in the comment section was shown to increase civility and trust, and give them insights and scoops they wouldn’t otherwise gain.
• The Financial Times uses an off-the-shelf AI moderation tool that was trained on a large set of audience comments to filter out negativity.

With DigInThere, we employ a different tack.

Instead of making commenting the privilege of a limited group, like paying subscribers, or having machine learning accidentally block valuable contributions, we ask the aspiring commenter to pass a comprehension quiz before posting. By passing the quiz, they can give the newsroom a degree of assurance that they have actually read and understood the content. We hope this will help weed out some of the trolls and bots and it may even help elevate the quality of the discourse.

Even if some malign actors go the extra mile of reading the entire article and passing the quiz, we expect their ranks to be diminished to a level that manual moderation can take care of. This not only helps small newsrooms without dedicated staff and resources manage their comment section, but it also alleviates the psychological burden on human moderators. The latter is an important pursuit in its own right as there have been numerous reports of underpaid contractors (typically in countries of the Global South) at content moderation farms suffering PTSD from exposure to heavy loads of toxic content online.

Our approach makes it possible for newsrooms to open the comment section not only to paying subscribers but to the general public. This bolsters both equitable access and freedom of speech while preempting hate speech at the same time.

Beta testers needed

We are looking for newsrooms interested in trying the beta version of DigInThere. If you’re interested or just want updates on DigInThere you can schedule an office hours appointment to learn more. You can also email info@diginthere.com with any questions.

Cite this article

Csernatony, Zoli; and Amihere, Dana (2024, Oct. 28). A new approach to striking a balance between free speech and safe speech. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Retrieved from: https://rjionline.org/news/a-new-approach-to-striking-a-balance-between-free-speech-and-safe-speech/