I read a lot of conservative blogs, and very few left-leaning ones. That’s why I’m asking for more-or-less factual answers here, mostly from left-wingers.
Almost all conservative bloggers I know of who allow comments get a ton of insulting (often puerile, scatological and obscene) posts from anonymous liberals. There seem to be a LOT of leftists who enjoy reading conservative blogs, getting offended, and leaving ugly commentary.
I have no doubt that there are loads of a–holes on the right side of the spectrum, so I’m asking: how much puerile, stupid, insulting commentary do you tend to see from conservatives on your favorite leftist sites?
Note: I am not talking merely about commentary that strongly disagrees with the blogger in question. Just about insulting, ad hominem stuff. Calling Michelle Malkin a fascist (or calling Amanda Marcotte a commie) doesn’t count, but saying she needs to get raped does.
I don’t read enough specific leftist sites, but I see a ton of what you are talking about in “normal” sites, news articles, etc. Sometimes the comments on a seemingly neutral, innocuous story will be full of borderline racist putdowns of Obama or Mexicans or “Libtards”, even when they don’t apply.
I am always amazed at the anger people have. Are they that angry all the time? Do they see “stupid libruls” everywhere? Do people in, say, Michigan, really, truly fear illegal Mexican children are a threat to their way of life?
I actually tend to see more people needlessly insult the other party on their own viewpoint’s website. Think about it. If I’m a conservative, I’m going to spend more time on FreeRepublic than on DailyKOS. And, of course, these websites are going to post more stories critical of the other party, rather than supportive of their own.
I don’t read a lot of left or right sites. I do read your standard fairly middling news sites like Yahoo or MSN. I find that there’s a lot of righties on those sites making snarky and sometimes totally batshit comments towards anything that might be liberal. Just par for the course I guess, they’ll insult what they cannot beat, what they cannot disprove. Its annoying but hopeless people tend to lash out
I like others tend to stay away from liberal or conservative-leaning news. A few exceptions I make are the NYT, Wall Street Journal, and NPR. I can tell their bias but their reporting is usually of sufficient quality that a little bias doesn’t matter.
Anyway there seem to be a lot of angry people on both sides. Seems like the liberals personally attack conservative people, whereas conservatives attack Obama or liberal ideology more then the individual person.
What is more telling on news sites (many news sites have shut down online comments because of the vitriolic comments) is if the remaining sites actual mod their comments fairly, if at all (Fox News notwithstanding).
You’ve been on the SDMB long enough that you should know what trolls are, and this is a moderated forum. They’re much, much worse on sites that aren’t moderated or are more loosely moderated. It doesn’t much matter what the site is about or what its political slant is.
ETA: Here’s a piece from Salon, which I’d describe as being a pretty liberal publication, in which staff writer Mary Elizabeth Williams talks about the nasty comments she’s received from trolls. This included people commenting on articles about her battle with cancer to tell her that they hoped it killed her.
