In the News
Vicious messages must be silenced on Web site
Mark Rosman

I work in a profession that values the freedom of people to express their views on a variety of topics. Every week in our news articles, guest columns and letters to the editor we invite members of the public to comment on the issues and personalities of the day. Everything is fair game, including the managing editor of this newspaper.

There are two important rules we follow: one, the comments we publish from people who are expressing their opinion may not libel another individual; and two, anyone who puts his or her opinion in the newspaper must sign or state their name when they write or say something, so that everyone who reads their comments knows who the opinion is coming from.

I value the fact that we are able to share an exchange of ideas and opinions from people who are willing to stand behind what they are saying.

Having said that, I can tell you that I have reached a point of complete disgust with the garbage I have recently read on an Internet Web site known as NJ.com. Various message boards divided by county and municipality allow people to hide under a cloak of anonymity and publish vile and potentially libelous statements against public and private individuals.

That would seem to contradict the NJ.com user agreement that states: "You agree not to use any obscene, indecent, or offensive language or to place on the Web site any material that is defamatory, abusive, harassing, racist, or hateful."

To put it bluntly, the Manalapan forum on NJ.com has turned into a cesspool of hatred, vitriol, rumor and innuendo - with 99 percent of the messages posted behind a shield of anonymity by people who show no willingness or ability to contain themselves.

Over the weekend of Dec. 30 through Jan. 1, a series of messages was posted about a former public official whose name was included in the messages. The messages alleged criminal behavior and inappropriate social behavior on the part of that former local official.

I made copies of those messages and I believe they are libelous and defamatory. I will not reprint those defamatory comments here, but the aggrieved party may well have legal recourse.

Because asking haters to stop being haters will get me nowhere, I am calling on the administrators of the NJ.com message boards to strictly monitor what is posted for all the world to see.

John Shabe, a managing editor for NJ.com, said the Web site's administra-tors would have no comment on the Manalapan forum.

They don't need to comment, because I do not believe it is a coincidence that after the aggrieved party in the latest Manalapan attack lodged a serious complaint about what was being posted, those specific messages and other questionable postings were removed from the site. It has been very quiet since then.

I hope NJ.com has gotten the message that its Manalapan Internet forum - which may well have been started with good intentions as a way of getting the public involved in local issues - has turned into a garbage dump.

NJ.com's answering machine says it is the "online home of New Jersey's major newspapers." Perhaps the Web site administrators need to follow the same guidelines that the editors of those newspapers do in keeping libel out of their pages.

The Manalapan forum on NJ.com has been out of control for more than a year. It finally appears as if the administrators of the Web site have started to pay serious attention to the libelous statements that have been posted here.

Mark Rosman is the managing editor of the News Transcript.