Up to a third of the comments are not activated

Around a month ago, the NZZ reacted by significantly reducing the comments section on its own website. The newspaper explained that the mood in the comments column had become more hateful. "Where readers used to have controversial discussions with each other, they are increasingly insulting each other."

Readers also regularly use abusive language on the online forums of other newspapers. A quarter to a third of all comments posted cannot be unblocked, as a survey of various media companies shows. The main reasons for the blocks are racist, defamatory, offensive and sexist statements.

However, the sheer volume of incoming comments is also giving the editorial teams a hard time, meaning that the comment function has to be closed in some cases. Up to 15,000 readers want to express their opinions on 20 Minuten every day. As there are increasingly frequent capacity bottlenecks when it comes to activation, the review team is to be doubled from its current eight part-time employees.

Tages-Anzeiger/Newsnet limited the number of articles that can be commented on in mid-2015. Nevertheless, around 3200 comments are still received every day. Three people take turns around the clock to check and approve comments. The Blick Group's reviewers have to deal with around 2,000 incoming comments every day. Several media in French-speaking Switzerland have outsourced the moderation of online comments to a French company.

Animal welfare and asylum moves

Even among the comments that make it onto the online sites, many are of a more unfriendly nature. "What have the people in charge been smoking?" asks one about a new business model. A watch thief is summarily called for his hand to be chopped off. Emotions run particularly high when it comes to topics such as animal welfare, feminism and asylum, says Lea Stahel, research associate at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Zurich. "Whenever fundamental values are being negotiated." Stahel explains the often spiteful tone with the fact that the internet is "impersonal". "You can't see the other person, which lowers the inhibition threshold." In addition, unlike in real life, commenters hardly have to expect any consequences for impolite remarks. "You just log out and you're gone."

Stahel sees another explanation in social contagion. If some users have already published offensive comments, others also feel justified in doing so.

"Enlightenment" as motivation

Older, male users from all educational backgrounds are particularly active on online comment forums, says Julia Metag, Professor of Communication Science at the University of Freiburg. Most of them only post individual comments; the "frequent commenters" are an exception. Metag and Stahel agree that these are often people with strong convictions. "They want to show their own point of view, they are less interested in the opinions of others," says Metag.

According to Stahel, many commentators feel an obligation to inform readers about "the truth". It is precisely those who otherwise find it difficult to be heard in the public sphere and feel abandoned by politicians who seek their audience on the internet.

The writers like to see themselves as the mouthpiece of the other readers or even the entire population, as a study by the Free University of Berlin shows, which examined various Swiss online newspapers. However, the study disproves this self-perception. According to the survey, the political attitude of the writers is not representative of the entire readership of an online newspaper. The comment writers on all platforms are positioned significantly further to the right than the comment readers and tend to be more xenophobic. The authors of the study write that the fact that certain groups in particular are active on the online forums leads to a distorted picture of opinion. Nevertheless, they also rate the comment functions positively: they give a platform to opinions that are not represented by the editorial offices. (Barbara Inglin/SDA)

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