The Center for Media Management has recently presented a study related to the importance of the commenting section for the news outlets. They have examined it by using various commenting practices. It has more specifically focused on the toxic comments because of which the news organizations have removed the comment sections from their sites.
This research proves that removing the comment sections as a whole can decrease the traffic on the sites. The director claims that this research talks about the importance of the comments as a whole. Yet, it also discusses the disadvantages of removing it all over while providing other proven experiences to erase the possible problems.
The study shows that removal can cause a decline in public traffic or average time spent on the site. Whereas the toxicity of the comments solely depends upon the platform the site uses.
The CME researchers have worked with nearly 24 news channels asking them to apply any of the commenting options on their sites for the time of six weeks at least. The commenting mediums include Facebook commenting platform or Coral that either require registration or is only available for the subscribers.
The results of this provided data have shown that the use of the specific commenting platform has significantly affected the engagement and the level of toxicity.
Above all, Coral has resulted in less toxic comments in contrast to the ones who use the Comment section of Facebook. The ratio of 0.05 for Registered Corals, 0.04 for Subscribed Corals, and 0.004 for Facebook highlight that each platform has a different effect on the level of toxicity.
However, Coral for registrants has supported the engagement level more on the news website as compared to other news sites.
However, the claim that by turning off the comments, users start looking forward to the social pages of the channel is not accurate. The Facebook pages of the newsrooms who have either removed or are using other commenting platforms have a similar number of comments in either case. It has no evident effect on engagement.
So, the newsrooms who have adopted other commenting platforms rather than simply removing the comment section from their websites have relatively considerable traffic and engagement. The number of toxic comments has also reduced.
This research proves that removing the comment sections as a whole can decrease the traffic on the sites. The director claims that this research talks about the importance of the comments as a whole. Yet, it also discusses the disadvantages of removing it all over while providing other proven experiences to erase the possible problems.
The study shows that removal can cause a decline in public traffic or average time spent on the site. Whereas the toxicity of the comments solely depends upon the platform the site uses.
The CME researchers have worked with nearly 24 news channels asking them to apply any of the commenting options on their sites for the time of six weeks at least. The commenting mediums include Facebook commenting platform or Coral that either require registration or is only available for the subscribers.
The results of this provided data have shown that the use of the specific commenting platform has significantly affected the engagement and the level of toxicity.
Above all, Coral has resulted in less toxic comments in contrast to the ones who use the Comment section of Facebook. The ratio of 0.05 for Registered Corals, 0.04 for Subscribed Corals, and 0.004 for Facebook highlight that each platform has a different effect on the level of toxicity.
However, Coral for registrants has supported the engagement level more on the news website as compared to other news sites.
However, the claim that by turning off the comments, users start looking forward to the social pages of the channel is not accurate. The Facebook pages of the newsrooms who have either removed or are using other commenting platforms have a similar number of comments in either case. It has no evident effect on engagement.
So, the newsrooms who have adopted other commenting platforms rather than simply removing the comment section from their websites have relatively considerable traffic and engagement. The number of toxic comments has also reduced.
