I see that www.moneyweb.co.za has come up with what is probably the correct solution for what I call trolls, the anonymous vile spewing, poisonous minority that love to post comments on the Internet without doing so in their own names. Of course there are occasions, such as in politically motivated matters, where this can be justified but an open door policy then becomes abused by those who only have nasty, and often racist, comments to make.

What Moneyweb is doing is that from now on, if you post to their forums, as long as you link your post to your Facebook account, thus identifying yourself, your comment would be posted immediately. If the person has comments that he wants to post, and needs to remain anonymous for some or other reason, those comments will then go in an outsource facility that identifies posters first, before their comments may be posted. I hope a lot more sites adopt a policy like this. Moneyweb explained this, saying, “Moneyweb provided an open media platform where anyone with a keyboard and an opinion was free to participate. Here, however, we miscalculate it. Freedom without responsibility tends to attract a minority who just cannot resist the temptation of abusing the privilege.”