Comment sections
As many people often do, they skip right down to the comment section to make fun of what people wrote. My favorite thing to do is find a controversial article and read the Facebook comments. I find it so funny when people have fights with someone they do not even know on Facebook. I just want to say to everyone 'Is anything really getting done by you sitting here and arguing?' The answer most times is no to be honest.
So I think it is time to change this aspect, when it comes to controversial topics how should the comment section be handled? Dr. Joshua Scacco with the Engaging News Project spoke about how the comment section of local news stations were changed based on three factors: the author of the article replied replied to comments, the station replied to comments, and no one replied. When no one replied to the comments, the comments were more hurtful and brought up those arguments. When the station or author were interactive with the commenters most often fights were avoided because the clarifications were made.
To relate this to movies is bringing up my absolute favorite story I read about Netflix. They have decided to turn the movie Dear White People into a television show. They released a trailer to YouTube and the comment section is just....funny but sad. The trailer and comment section can be found here. While scrolling through the comments people said they were cancelling their subscriptions to Netflix over one television show out of the millions they offer. There was no comments done by Netflix or by the author of the video, so the fights break out. People bring up the most ridiculous things such as gay marriage, gender pronouns, and blackface. The comment section is just wild about what why this show is so awful that they need to cancel their subscription.
Sadly I think for Netflix there is no way of stopping such comments and I think the best solution would have been to turn the comment section off. I believe that Netflix truly does not care though because I am sure with the number of people claiming they will cancel their subscription probably half actually did so. They just want to spread their hateful speech and find any media source to do it towards. I think the problem is people view any source of online media a place where they can be open about anything just to get a reaction. Someone knows if they comment something hurtful there will be a hundred more people to follow suit.