A guide to getting along — and not getting blocked — on CDN’s social channels

One of the first decisions we made in building Cascadia Daily News from scratch several years ago was also one of the easiest: Should we allow unmoderated user comments at the conclusion of stories on our website?

Hard no.

I’ve long believed that unfiltered commentary sharing valuable space with serious journalism is an abrogation of duty by news organizations, born of a well-intentioned scramble for two-way discourse (and let’s be honest, easy web traffic).

What most publications wound up with instead was a distorted image of “public thought,” one shaped largely by a handful of zealots with axes to grind and victims to find. Not exactly a public service. Worse: Reporters ultimately found sources reluctant to speak out publicly in stories just to avoid the public trashing many got from hateful responses in unmoderated comment sections.

No thanks.

Beyond that, CDN strives to be a best-obtainable-version-of-the-truth business. Unfiltered social-media noise — a demonstrably effective tool to disseminate rank misinformation and propaganda — often flies in the face of that goal.

My own take: Most abusive online behavior is fueled by anonymity — a remnant of the user-group ethic of the early digital age. An entire generation has grown up believing online anonymity is some sort of right bestowed by God, Ben Franklin, Joe Rogan — or some other unholy Trinity.

Sorry, it isn’t. Nor is this a free-speech issue; there’s no First Amendment right to publish libelous blather or false statements in someone else’s private digital space.

Having said all that: We still believe two-way communication with our readers is essential. Like many others, we’ve opened windows to that conversation on social media channels — in our case primarily Facebook, Instagram and now Bluesky, where we are thrilled to see a rapidly growing audience.

As our social media audience has grown, so too have challenges in keeping conversations from veering into the ditch. Too many social sites become express lanes for posting misinformation or blatant propaganda, much of it abusive, intentionally misleading or hateful. (It’s why we stopped actively posting to X/Twitter last month.)

The only way to avoid that is moderation, requiring a person to monitor comments 24/7. Such digital babysitting is a luxury few publications — including your hometown newspaper — have.

Given that, certain standards must exist, and like others, we rely on community support to help maintain them. We’ve never heretofore felt the need to publish a set of civility standards for our social media sites. But as traffic and vitriol increase, the timing sadly seems right.

In recent weeks, a barrage of bot engagements and comments on our Facebook page, in particular, created the need to ban countless fake profiles from our page, as well as take other measures to counteract fake “likes” on posts from these accounts.

That’s one issue. The other is occasionally ill-advised behavior of regular posters who we know — or at least suspect — are real people and real readers, all of whom we are happy to have on board, as long as they’re respectful.

Our goal for social media forums is simple: Provide a space for constructive, respectful discussions about issues arising from the material we publish. The vast, vast majority of folks doing so throughout our short history have heeded conventions of civility. A very few have not, and have had comments removed, or been blocked from our sites altogether as a last resort.

We’re asking readers and even lurkers to consider the golden rule: Treat others with the respect you’d expect for yourself. Be civil, and stick to the topic raised in the original post, or ideas from other posters. In other words, don’t be a common garden-variety troll. Keep the space respectful, and when you see others who aren’t, please let us know, with an email to newstips@cascadiadaily.com, or a note on the post itself that tags us via @cascadiadaily.

Here are some actions we have seen regularly that we do not condone on our social channels:

• Popping off about perceived facts/slant/content based on a reading of a headline, having clearly not read the story in question.
• Steering any conversation about nonpolitical topics to politics — or veering wildly off the subject in general.
• Piping up on every single thread with an irrelevant retort, such as: “They’re all Communists.” (Unless it’s a piece about Lenin, and they are actually all communists.)
• Launching personal ad hominem attacks against a poster with no semblance of an attempt to argue merits of their post.
• Profanity, obscenity or slurs, of any kind, anywhere.
• Engaging in “whataboutism” or perpetuating disproven conspiracy theories.
• Abusive language that clearly nods toward, or explicitly states, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic or other hateful intent.
• Advocating or threatening violence or harm.
• Regularly posting solely to disparage CDN or one of its commenters.
• Posting documents, materials or links to sites that have not been vetted by CDN for legitimacy, or posting links to sites that don’t meet our journalistic standards. This includes documents, communications and other materials related to a story CDN is independently reporting, but cannot verify. (Our reporters would be happy to view those privately!)
• “Doxxing” or otherwise violating privacy of another individual by posting their personal information.
• Using comments to promote your own business or specific cause.
• Other oafish behavior not yet seen nor imagined.

CDN reserves the right to delete comments that violate those standards, and in extreme instances, block users permanently. We also, of course, reserve the right to disallow comment threads entirely on some stories likely to provoke the above behaviors — or close and delete comment threads after clear evidence of the same. It’s not our first choice, but sometimes necessary.

Remember: A productive way to make an argument to our readership, and the general public, exists in other spaces — we welcome guest commentaries and letters to the editor, most of which find their way into our pages on a weekly basis.

Thanks for helping, and here’s to happy discourse.

See CDN’s principles and policies here.

Ron Judd's column appears weekly; ronjudd@cascadiadaily.com; @roncjudd.