Fear of participating in forums often prevents people from speaking out because the cyber-baiters have no compunction about going after their own.
(1888PressRelease) October 12, 2010 - New York, NY - While looking for facts on the Internet, many people get steered to forums in the belief that these Web enclaves are sources of answers.
Unfortunately, more often than not, forums have devolved into cults of personality with their own agendas, prejudices and biases-places where McCarthyism is alive and well.
The basic problem is that many people fail to realize that forums are not sources of vetted information. While there may be truths buried in some posts, for the most part a forum is nothing more than a hodgepodge of opinions, complaints and gripes submitted by anonymous commenters who offer up a smattering of sometimes contradictory facts.
There are no standards of journalism on forums. Nor are there ethics; people get to write whatever they feel like.
Many moderators never check to balance a thread or a story that starts to get spun. Like a team of writers putting together one novel, forum posters create a fantasy. The problem comes in when a thread smears an innocent person or company. Like Joe McCarthy hunting communists where there were none, forums often find targets where there are no targets.
The similarities to red baiting is not lost on some forums' victims. On various Web sites, accusers have "lists," or they have received "complaints," or they have "a feeling." But when asked to show proof, they don't deliver. Indeed it is not unusual to wind up on a list without knowing it.
Fear of participating in forums often prevents people from speaking out because the cyber-baiters have no compunction about going after their own.
In most cases, when a thread goes after a target, the forum:
* Never contacts the target of its smear campaign about the alleged complaints.
* Never assumes that a commenter might be lying or that posts are dishonest.
* Never asks a fellow commenter for facts to prove his or her assertions.
* Never asks a commenter to divulge anonymous sources.
* Never offers a reasoned approach to inflammatory rhetoric on the board.
* Never demands that an accuser reveal exactly who he or she is so that veracity can be evaluated.
At present, forums have the protection of federal law. And there are those who claim that changing the legal status of forums so that they are forced to clean up their acts is an infringement on their freedom of speech. But defamation is not free speech. And in that case, defamers hiding behind the First Amendment is a bit like scoundrels finding refuge in patriotism.
Where are the forums' ethics?
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Fear of participating in forums often prevents people from speaking out because the cyber-baiters have no compunction about going after their own. 
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