Requiring Real Names

Real name policies aren’t new. Online communities, social networks and comment sections have attempted to require real names before and many still do. One of them is the CBC, Canada’s 80 year old national radio and public broadcaster.

7 months ago, they began “requiring” people to use their real names to comment online. The CBC’s Sam Lightowler joins the program to share her observations and discuss the viability of requiring real names. Plus:

The CBC’s responsibility to facilitate comments, as Canada’s national broadcaster Should non-U.S. organizations be reluctant to hand their community building efforts over to U.S.-based platforms? How being state-owned makes the CBC different from privately-owned media organizations like The New York Times Big Quotes

“70% of our audience said that commenting was important to them, and they thought that CBC, as the public broadcaster, should have comments. 12% said that we should remove comments altogether. 60% of our audience thought that CBC should have what they think is a ‘light touch’ on moderation – that we should keep an eye on audience submissions but only intervene in what they consider extreme scenarios.” -@sklightowler

“70% of the CBC audience is spending 15% or more of their time engaging in the comment section. That means, to us, that comments are actually a huge contributor to that engagement metric that we’re trying to increase. People are not only interested in posting comments, but they’re interested in reading them. And it’s what’s keeping them on our pages longer.” -@sklightowler

About Sam Lightowler

Sam Lightowler is a product owner for web presentation at CBC in Toronto. For the past six years, she has worked on integrated digital products, beginning with social experiences and evolving to focus on web presentation. Sam has spent significant time helping facilitate a cultural transformation to improve the way CBC delivers products such as the News, Sports, and Radio websites to Canadian audiences. Her passion is working with product teams to experiment, learn and adapt continuously.

Related Links Sam on Twitter CBC, where Sam is the product owner for web presentation Wikipedia page on the Crown corporations of Canada Community Signal episode with Alexandra Dao, where we discussed Vimeo’s audience focus and how less people isn’t necessarily a bad thing More Than a Comment: How CBC Creates Real Conversations Below the Fold, a webinar featuring Sam, hosted by Viafoura CBC’s FAQ on commenting and moderation icuc.social, who CBC uses for moderation services Bassey Etim, product manager for community at The New York Times David Williams, community manager at CNN How CNN and The New York Times Moderate Comments by Patrick CBC’s Strategy 2020, the organization’s “plan to be more digital, more local and more ambitious in our Canadian programming” What Are Crown Corporations and Why Do They Exist? by Kazi Stastna Community Signal episode with Bassey Etim of The New York Times Community Signal episode with Greg Barber of the Washington Post Community Signal episode with Mary Hamilton of The Guardian CBC’s mandate under the Broadcasting Act Viafoura, an audience development platform (including comments), used by the CBC CBC to Require Online Commenters to Use Real Names by Nicole Ireland CBC’s FAQ on the changes they made to their comments in June, including their real name policy Inversoft, a community tech company offering a filtering solution that is financially attainable for smaller communities The Times is Partnering with Jigsaw to Expand Comment Capabilities, about The New York Times partnering with Alphabet’s Jigsaw Transcript View the transcript on our website Your Thoughts

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