In the Los Angeles Times article, “Are Online Trolls a Reason to Ban Anonymous Comments?”, Jon Healey brings up the fact that “requiring people to comment under their real names is no guarantee that they’ll behave less like trolls.” Not many people care anymore if their trolling is done with their personal account. He continued to say that in 2011, Los Angeles Times attempted to decrease trolling by making people connect to their Facebook account in order to comment. However, this didn’t do much to decrease trolling because people still said offensive things so they discontinued it. He explains that, “[...] I think the right solution to bad speech is more speech. I cling to the view that readers have critical-thinking skills necessary to separate signal from noise, and they’re so inured to trolls that they’re not fooled or driven by them.” He brings up this point that we have heard so many times on how to deal with trolls - ignore them. He’s saying that as critical-thinkers, we should be able to distinguish what comments are worth wasting your time on. Is the comment something that you can get knowledge from or it is just a troll trying to get attention? In all, the article states that ending anonymous comments won’t stop trolling.
You make a good point mentioning that trolls don't necessarily have to be under an anonymous name. Trolls can very easily make up a fake name and continue to harass people online. The real issue at hand is the content that these trolls say - not so much the name they go by online.
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