ROCKINGHAM — Citing what he termed accusations “thrown around” by “faceless, guiltless bottom feeders” and “libelous and slanderous remarks” that have made it difficult for him to run his business, Selectboard member and vice chair Bob Thomson is stepping down.
Board Chair Thomas MacPhee said that he had spoken several times with Thomson, and “he seemed pretty set in his mind” before the Selectboard's final vote on June 15 to accept Thomson's resignation.
His replacement will be selected on June 29 following a mandatory 10-day warning and posting. Parties interested in serving through March 2011 should submit their names and resumes to Town Hall.
Ann DiBernardo was voted vice chair to replace Thomson.
Thomson accused the Brattleboro Reformer of enabling libelous remarks by not requiring accountability through registration of at least an e-mail address when logging in for comments on the paper's articles.
Reformer executive editor Tom D'Errico said in a June 9 report by reporter Howard Weiss-Tisman, that the “online tool” was owned by Topix, not his newspaper, and that if it were, “I would use the same scrutiny prior to publishing comments as I do our daily Letter Box.”
Topix is contracted by the Media News Group, the parent company of the Reformer, providing a service D'Errico claims to have no control over. Complaints can be registered by clicking on a button for reporting an abusive post.
D'Errico did tell The Commons that he is an administrator, however, which allows him to hide comments or threads that he deems “inappropriate” or abusive, and the paper said he did just that with one unspecified comment.
“Selectboard members contact me all the time about complaints they have,” he said. “I'll help them out if I can. I've had conversations with both Bob [Thomson] and Thom [MacPhee]. I can certainly understand where they are coming from,” he said.
Abuse and anonymity
The bigger issue is illustrated in the effects the online abusive, anonymous comments engendered.
Thomson's complaints at several meetings about the viciousness of the attacks that were directed at his family and business employees were not about him, he said.
“I can take it,” he said.
Rather, he said, he resigned because of the effect these comments were having on his family and employees.
The psychological affects of bullying online and in the workplace are well documented, and state and federal task forces have taken cyberbullying seriously.
New Hampshire just recently enacted a law that expands protections for student safety and prevention, specifically addressing the relatively recent phenomenon of cyberbullying student to student.
However, bullying and harassment are not limited to underage students and children.
Online communities have recognized cyber-stalking, flaming, harassment and bullying as threats to their users. Many of these communities, especially those with places like chat rooms and forums where specific topics are discussed, hire moderators, people who monitor responses and step in to protect their users.
Sites have varying degrees of repercussions for these kinds of behavior. Some ban a user for a period of time, and some don't give a violator a second chance. On most of those sites, the user must register with an e-mail address that can be traced back to their original Internet access portal, and thus into a real-time contact should the abuse become an issue for the law.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures' website, “Cyberbullying is the willful and repeated use of cell phones, computers, and other electronic communication devices to harass and threaten others.”
“Instant messaging, chat rooms, e-mails, and messages posted on websites are the most common methods of this new twist of bullying,” the definition continues. “Cyberbullies can quickly spread messages and images to a vast audience, while remaining anonymous, often making them difficult to trace.”
The Vermont Human Rights Commission funded a legislative study committee report in 2009 to address cyberbullying.
“Cyberbullying is not currently defined in Vermont law, nor are there any clearly defined procedures for responding to such behaviors,” according to the commission's website. Moreover, “there are legal differences between bullying and harassment in Vermont,” the commission notes.
The study was directed at schools and suggests national resources to educate parents, students, and teachers about how to avoid, prevent, and protect underage students from being victimized by bullies.
Anonymity is at the heart of Thomson's objection to the Topix site that links to Reformer stories in partnership with the newspaper to handle comments online.
The posters do not have to provide any kind of identification that would hold them accountable for their comments, which Thom MacPhee characterized as “cowardly,” a characteristic of bullies who hide behind the veil of anonymity.
Justin W. Patchin, Ph.D., futurist in residence to the FBI and co-chair of the Cyberbullying Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Eau-Claire, said, “Of course adults are not immune to these kinds of behaviors … though we don't generally refer to it as “bullying” when it occurs among adults.”
It's called “harassment,” Patchin said - and it's illegal in most states. “Making slanderous or libelous statements about someone could also be subject to civil remedies,” he said.
Slander is the legal term for when someone conveys false and damaging information in spoken conversation. Libel is the term used when false and damaging information is published or broadcast.
“There is certainly a fine line between free speech and harassment,” Patchin said. “While the newspaper in question may not have a legal obligation to censor the statements made about the board member, I feel they have a moral obligation to restrict groundless rants that do little to further the discussion.”
Patchin said further, “I am especially critical of anonymous comments to forums … I feel the editor of the paper/website would need to carefully assess whether or not the comments made are useful in the context of a public debate.”
“Just because someone can say [what] they want doesn't mean they should,” Patchin stated.
Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz repeated an earlier statement that being in the public eye, in public office, offers fewer protections against libelous or slanderous comments. She did, however, delineate between a person serving in public office and their families.
“Families and employees of an official can still get protection,” Markowitz said.
Abuse or democracy?
Burlington Free Press web editor Becky Holt said that they have tightened up their controls over comments on their website.
“We're trying to take a more active role at moderation,” she said. “If someone violates our terms of service, we have the ability to delete a comment, not edit it. We take out the whole comment. We rely on the community to help moderate the conversations, to self-police.”
Holt said a person can report abuse by clicking a button. “If a comment is reported three times, it goes off the website into a holding bin until our editors take a look at it. Otherwise, it is flagged in a holding bin [still on the website] to be looked at by our editors but can still be seen [on the website].”
Free Press Executive Editor Mike Townsend said, “We don't always see the abuse or malicious intent that our readers do. We don't allow racial slurs, anti-semitism, libel or vulgar language. It's in our terms of service. If a comment is deleted for any of these reasons, there is a notice in place of the comment indicating that the writer violated our terms of service.”
Townsend said the paper has made an attempt at more moderation by hiring a professional moderator in the last month.
“We're in a test period, but it seems to be working quite well,” Townsend said. “Complaints have dropped significantly from our regular users.”
The issue of anonymity is difficult to control, Townsend said.
“There's no way to control a person's name. They can create a fictitious account and name, and there is no way to know who they really are,” he said.
“For the most part, people are fairly honest,” Townsend added. “There's just a small group of people who live on chat rooms who go over the line and violate the spirit of debate.”
But Townsend admits that posts have to be deleted fairly frequently.
“But to turn off a chat room [because of a few people] denies the debate,” Townsend said. “Some people interpret vigor in a debate as an assault. That's not abuse, that's democracy.”
Townsend did agree, however, that “there is a lot of bullying going on but it's harder to pin down.”
“Healthy debate is democracy,” Townsend said. “We don't want censorship. But personal attacks, vulgarity, anything that creates a hostile environment, makes people feel unsafe uncomfortable [will not be tolerated]. People should be able to have a civil discussion online and not be threatened.”