In theory, online comments are a good thing. They build a relationship between writer or journalist and reader, giving the former valid feedback and the latter an opportunity to respond.

In practice, however, it’s only a small percentage of online comments that can be termed as valid or smart. The rest are either offensive, proof that the commentator hasn’t read the story at all, or don’t have anything to do with the published story. And that’s not even taking into account the stream of sexism, homophobia and racism that moderators have to wade through.

The overall sentiment is one of shame. The majority of commentators are in constant derision mode, insisting that other commentators and what they write is just stupid.

Being able to discuss openly, freely and without fear of reprise defines the true nature of democracy. However, not all comments are equal. And not all stories require a comment because there are opinions and there are facts. While it’s natural for opinions to encourage other viewpoints, facts are facts. By opening up the comments feed, scientific certainty, expert views and even criminal investigations are thrown to the readers for comments. And comment they do.

For years, comment boxes were the killer feature of the online experience. But recently, sources have been slowly but surely moving away from comments. In 2013, Popular Science became one of the first major publications to disable its comments feature – the reason given was that comments can have a profound effect on readers’ perceptions of science. “Commentators shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded,” was the reason given by Suzanne LaBarre, at the time digital editor at Popular Science.

Seditious comments have characterised public discourse for centuries

Four months later, CNN disabled comments on most stories and was followed by tech news website Recode. In late 2014, Reuters dropped comments for all stories except opinion pieces. This year, other major sources continued to remove their comments section, including Bloomberg, Wired and The Daily Dot. Reddit launched a news site called Upvoted without a comments section, while science news site Motherboard replaced its comments section with an old school letters to the editor feature.

It’s easy to blame the internet for giving commentators and trolls the space to churn out hatred and vitriol. And yet, seditious comments have characterised public discourse for centuries. There’s just one basic difference: anonymity.

A 2013 study conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre showed that a quarter of all internet users have posted comments anonymously. Now anonymity is not necessarily evil – rather, it’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, it encourages collective participation – when a discussion is conducted anonymously, it is the subject of the discussion itself which takes centre stage, rather than the individual commentators. In fact, a 2014 study by psychologists Ina Blau and Avner Caspi from the Open University of Israel, found that within the context of student learning, anonymous discussions encouraged a greater sense of community identity and boosted creative thinking.

But on the other hand, anonymity leads to a lack of inhibition. Anonymity breaks the link between commentators and what they are saying. The moment that this link is broken, any behavioural constraints leave the room, allowing commentators to safely say things which they wouldn’t dare speak out loud in a public space.

So what does the future hold? Removing comments will take away from the reading experience. However, allowing readers to say anything they want with unjustified anger and hatred turns the reading experience into a negative one. What is the solution? Feel free to comment.