Trolls Be Gone? Knight, Mozilla, NYTimes and WaPo to the Rescue
The Knight Foundation announced funding Thursday to build a free, open-source tool to help newsrooms “turn comments into community,” in partnership with the New York Times, Washington Post, and non-profit Mozilla. This might matter far beyond news organizations. Townhalls are vital to democracy — and are sorely lacking. “This isn’t another commenting platform for publishers; it’s a publishing platform for readers,” Greg Barber, director of digital news projects at The Washington Post, said in the release. News media once served, albeit inadequately, as platforms for debate in our global villages, providing op-ed pages, letters to the editor and call-in radio and TV programs.