Some view  the ravings of Maryland lawprof Danielle Citron as an outlier position, favored by those who are slaves to political correctness, willing to sacrifice everything in order to achieve child-like equality in their war to convert nastiness to the loftier cyber civil rights.  Oh no.

From the New York Times, this op-ed by Julie Zhuo, a product design manager at Facebook, may tell us which way the wind is blowing:

THERE you are, peacefully reading an article or watching a video on the Internet. You finish, find it thought-provoking, and scroll down to the comments section to see what other people thought. And there, lurking among dozens of well-intentioned opinions, is a troll.

Oh no!  Our peacefulness is disturbed by a comment, even a dozen comments that upsets us.

Trolling, defined as the act of posting inflammatory, derogatory or provocative messages in public forums, is a problem as old as the Internet itself…

If ever there was a revealing comment, that was it.  As old as the internet itself? 

Many victims are turning to legislation. All 50 states now have stalking, bullying or harassment laws that explicitly include electronic forms of communication.

Saw that coming, didn’t you?  But what about this?

But the law by itself cannot do enough to disarm the Internet’s trolls. Content providers, social networking platforms and community sites must also do their part by rethinking the systems they have in place for user commentary so as to discourage — or disallow — anonymity. Reuters, for example, announced that it would start to block anonymous comments and require users to register with their names and e-mail addresses in an effort to curb “uncivil behavior.”

The key language is “must also do their part.”  This conflates Zhuo’s examples of choices made by those, like blawgs, who provide the forum for comments with the call to impose mandatory rules.  There’s no question that there are trolls on the internet, and plenty of jerks who aren’t trolls at all, but quite serious in posting inflammatory comments, believing that they are pursuing an important issue in the way they believe necessary.  There’s an excess of zeal, as well as an outlet for nutjobs.

But we keep our noses clean because we prefer clean noses, not because the government or its facilitators of political correctness require it of us.  The comment policy at SJ is likely far more strict in many respects than on other blawgs, but it’s a choice made here about how it adds to what I consider meaningful discussion.  This isn’t some shenanigan to hide from criticism or challenge that would reveal the emptiness of its content.  Critical comment is almost always shown, with the proviso that it’s substantive rather than the “you’re an idiot” sort, which only appears half the time.

Yet, it’s a choice.  Others, like  Bennett and Hull, have chosen to ban anonymous/pseudonymous comments. forcing the mouths that roar to take responsibility for what comes out.  I  agree with them that  few of us are Publius, but believe that a quick hand on the delete key can accomplish the same as the Club Ned Rule.

What’s extraordinary is the Zhuo is a product manager for Facebook.  Facebook!  The creation of a kid whose career was born of nasty comments about a co-ed who spurned him.  Has the bastion of freedom on the internet, for better or worse, become the arbiter of civility? 

It might have been that Zhuo was seeking discretion on the part of content providers, but that can’t be the case given that she prefaces her position by noting that “law by itself cannot do enough.”  This is not discretion in lieu of regulation, or discretion to avoid looming regulation, but regulation plus more regulation.

From the beginning, denizens of the ‘net believed that it should be a regulation free world, where we could take care of our own by promoting the good and smacking the bad, thus maintaining an internal equilibrium where thoughts would flourish and trolls, jerks, whatever, would run away because their input would be rejected and ridiculed.  Or, we could be subject to a set of rules and regulations that dictate what we can write, post, think, in order to maintain a happy, pleasant, inoffensive atmosphere. 

Is it true that we can’t manage this ourselves, that we need the government and school marms like Citron and Zhuo to approve the nature and civility of content?  If not, then now would be a good time to speak out, as the regulators are picking up speed and may soon be rolling over us with happy feelings for all.