I rarely read the comment section of sites like The Washington Post or local news sites like NBC Washington, but when I do, I’ve noticed a trend among people who comment on certain articles that, indirectly or directly, involve topics like race, women & culture.  People are never afraid to show their true “colors” when they think it’s anonymous. Keyboard racists & sexists tend to run rampant on the internet.  Unfortunately, due to many sites using the Facebook Social Plug-in, they’re really not so anonymous any more.

The Facebook Social Plug-In is a commenting tool that has seemingly replaced the traditional commenting section of websites.  If you’re already signed into your Facebook page, it will automatically pull that information and allow you to place a comment on a site, exposing your Facebook name. The social plug-in also allows for you to choose whether or not to have that comment shown on your Facebook timeline.  The only way for your name not to be shown is if you have already adjusted your privacy settings.  I’ve also noticed that a lot of news sites & personal sites have taken away the option of giving people the ability to choose whether to use the social plug-in or the generic comment system built into sites. For example, on this site, I use both the social plug-in and the generic WordPress plug-in, but of course that doesn’t mean I’m immune to the ignorance.

Below is a comment that someone left using their Facebook account:

Kayla Wilson, apparently isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and she admits that she’s “not qiute there yet will be though”.  Although she works at “None of your dam business”, she still found the time to leave psychotic comments that directly link to her Facebook page.  Kayla isn’t alone in the world of irresponsible social networking.

This morning, NBC Washington  posted a horrifying article about a car crash in Landover, Maryland on MLK Blvd that resulted in one fatality and several injuries after a car crashed into a KFC.  Apparently, this brought out several chicken and racist comments among the keyboard racists. With comments ranging from sarcasm in regard to Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd and how nothing ever good happens there, to other comments about black people and fried chicken, it’s astounding to see how people freely display their ignorance when it’s connected to their real names.

What people fail to understand is that since the advent of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), nothing is very anonymous. Although the Facebook Social Plug-in states that most search engines will not crawl content within an iframe (where the comments are housed on the site), the operative word is most, so there is the possibility that the views and opinions expressed by idiots will follow them around the internet for quite some time. So while social networking irresponsibility runs a muck on news sites, it’s definitely proved as an easy way to unmask certain individuals online.