I have come across a very, very strange thing today. There was a story on People.com about Elin Nordegren, the wife of Tiger Woods, yet there were very few comments on the story. Of those comments, the majority were well written, contained correct spelling and offered logical responses to the subject. I gasped! I read a lot of comments on various sites, including People, and I have to tell you that this is not the normal way that comments are written. I realized that in order to leave a comment, you had to use your Facebook login! This means that the comments you leave can be tied directly back to you! Eureka! Now I get it!

Now that the typical anonymity that clouds people on leaving comments on stories like this is stripped away, people are being more cautious about what they say and how they say it. Here is the link to the People.com post. Look through the comments for yourself. Don’t they look good? No name calling. No curse words or bad words. No nasty comments about the fact that Tiger only dates white women. No nasty comments about Tiger as a person. No nasty jokes. What you see are rational explanations, well thought out approaches that Elin should/could take and a general disdain for adultery. I am in shock!

I have read some really hateful things that people have written about Tiger’s story and other news articles on sites like People, Yahoo, HuffingtonPost, etc. What I have consistently found is that people don’t mind saying exactly what they feel when they feel like they aren’t being watched or when they feel like no one knows who they are. It is quite a different story when they have to attach their name to what they write. Then the approach changes. Their behavior changes and the thin shirt of civility that we wear when we face the outside world is put on. Who knew?

To contrast this civil exchange on Elin, let us take a moment to view the comments on a story about Elin on Yahoo. You can create a “persona” on Yahoo that does not include your real name. Take a look at just a few of the comments. Here is the link. Notice the difference? We have the following:

Dack M

“Another thing. Tigers “Mistresses” are NOT even remotely pretty! They look like “SHE-MALES” with big fake tits!!! What an insult to his lovely wife!!!! If I were his wife I’d run like hell!”

Dack M

TO: EricN, K-9, A63…… You can tell you are all dumb f***ks and are the type to cheat if you could get away with it. K-9 - For better or worse DOES NOT MEAN stick around until he gives you HIV or other disease, nor does it mean to wait around until one of his skanks decide they want out out of the way!!! His wife is a beautiful woman of whom he said he loved. If that is love then wtf????

Redeep - on Elin leaving

BS! He threw her nasty, wrinkled butt out! HAHAHAHAHA

See the difference? There are more, but this illustrates my point beautifully. When you post things on the Internet anonymously, you feel very free to say whatever you like. You can say what you want, without the feeling that you have to be politically correct or the feeling that you will suffer repercussions. When you actually HAVE to attach your name to something, things become a little different. I for one, would love to actually be able to call out some of the people for comments that are derogatory, racist, hurtful or nasty. The Facebook login system makes it easier for me, and others, to do that. However, this does have a very chilling effect - self censorship. I also noticed that the VOLUME of comments decreased. It seems that some people don’t want to have their posts on People.com linked to their Facebook account - I know that is certainly the reason that I didn’t post! Darn, I guess I’m just a part of the machine!

I like the fact that I don’t have to read incorrectly typed, non-spell checked nasty comments. I think the way we lived before the Facebook login system was very stupid. Having said that, let me go back to seeing where I can post some smart comments about something or somebody anonymously. Oh wait - I can do that right now! LOL :-)