Surprisingly Good Evidence That Real Name Policies Fail To Improve Comments. YouTube has joined a growing list of social media companies who think that forcing users to use their real names will make comment sections less of a trolling wasteland, but there’s surprisingly good evidence from South Korea that real name policies fail at cleaning up comments.
In 2007, South Korea temporarily mandated that all websites with over 100,000 viewers require real names, but scrapped it after it was found to be ineffective at cleaning up abusive and malicious comments (the policy reduced unwanted comments by an estimated .09%). We don’t know how this hidden gem of evidence skipped the national debate on real identities, but it’s an important lesson for YouTube, Facebook and Google, who have assumed that fear of judgement will change online behavior for the better.
Last week, YouTube began a policy of prompting users to sign in through Google+ with their full names. If users decline, they have to give a valid reason, like, “My channel is for a show or character”. Syrian refugees. Syrians by the thousands are fleeing the violence in their home country and seeking refuge in neighboring countries.
Turkey this week is said to be considering a buffer zone in Syria to secure its own national security as well as aid fleeing civilians. Turkey is already sheltering some 17,000 of those who have fled. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday that nearly 10,000 people have been killed in the yearlong conflict in Syria. A cease-fire agreement accepted by Syria Tuesday that was drawn up by United Nations envoy Kofi Annan was met with skepticism, and fighting continued between rebels and President Bashar Assad’s soldiers. -- Lloyd Young (32 photos total) Syrian refugees are seen through a barbed wire as they arrive at border between Syria and Turkey, near Reyhanli, Hatay province, on March 27. Haiti slow to recover from 2010 quake.
In Iraq, the troops leave, the pain doesn't. Iraqis inspect damage after a wave of attacks in Baghdad killed dozens of people on December 22.
Days after departure of U.S. troops, bombs killed and injured scores of people in BaghdadYassin Alsalman, whose family is from Iraq, says the pain of the war is far from overHe says his relatives live with the grieving, the memories and the loss every day Editor's note: Yassin Alsalman, also known as rapper and musician The Narcicyst, is based in Montreal. Of Iraqi descent, he was born in Dubai. Alsalman teaches at Concordia University and is the author of "The Diatribes of a Dying Tribe", the story of hip-hop's role in the new Arab voice. Follow him on Twitter.