2159: Comments

2019-06-06T22:52:10Z

Red Slash: No, this is the actual meaning.

{{comic
| number = 2159
| date = June 5, 2019
| title = Comments
| image = comments.png
| titletext = NPR encourages you to add comments to their stories using the page inspector in your browser's developer tools. Note: Your comments are visible only to you, and will be lost when you refresh the page.
}}

==Explanation==
This comic represents a news article that bemoans how sometimes lazy journalists will, instead of taking time to carefully weigh the genuine public opinion on a certain issue, simply pick a random comment as evidence of how people think. Thus, an [https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1129773341894688769 anonymous Twitter account from Northern Ireland with 159 followers] gets cited as [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/opinion/biden-2020-millennials.html evidence in the first paragraph of a NY Times article] about how U.S. Millennials think.

Part of the joke is that the comments here are designed to be able to support any desired narrative that an author wishes. A Neo-Nazi, a Communist, or even someone who thinks the NBA Finals need new referees could each use the comments here, out of context, to prove their points. The top five comments are assorted ways of affirming the article's text. However, the final commenter reveals that the article itself is cherry picking from a handful of random comments to support its arbitrary narrative of internet outrage, proving the real joke.

The link in one of the comments is to [[1019: First Post]], which also refers to manipulating comments to change public opinion of a topic. It specifically mentions «creating an impression of peer consensus», a line which is near-quoted in the first comment included in this comic.

Another comment references an "NPR" decision to remove comments in 2016. This refers to a decision by [https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2016/08/17/489516952/npr-website-to-get-rid-of-comments?t=1559838474662 National Public Radio].

The last of the comments may be from the user "Mary" who in the NPR article was explicitly cited to have said that the comments have been too violent. But it is unclear how this is possible given that this article claims to have been published after the comments having been turned off.

The title text refers to the ability to change webpages using in-browser tools, like "Inspect Element," to change the HTML of a page, and thus the contents of it. However, because all of the changes to the HTML are temporary and only on the machine they were made on, anyone else loading the page will not see them, and refreshing the page causes the changes to be replaced with the real content. This would mean that no other users would be able to see the comments, and news sources could not use them to influence public opinion, making them pointless and a true waste of time.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Single panel comic depicting a screenshot of an Internet article, showing the article title, lines of wavy characters representing the article text, and several comments from readers of the article with their profile pictures.]

:Backlash: Internet users are ''outraged'' over news stories using a handful of random comments to support arbitrary narratives!

:[Close-up of Megan:]
::I can't believe how easy it is to create an impression of peer consensus.

:[Close-up of Hairy:]
::This dynamic is so easily manipulated and it freaks me out. <u>xkcd.com/1019</u>

:[Full picture of Hairbun:]
::Everytime I share something and a friend responds "Haha, did you see the top comments..." it just reminds me how influential these things are in shaping the impressions of even relatively internet-savvy readers.

:[Close-up of Cueball on a black background:]
::NPR got rid of comments in 2016 when they realized they all came from a handful of visitors posting hundreds of times a month.

:[Full picture of two guys, Cueball and Hairy:]
::Eventually social norms will adapt to this stuff, but it needs to hurry up.

:[Close-up of Ponytail:]
::I have nine followers and created my account last month; how am I being quoted in this news article??

==Trivia==
One of the comments to the article references an earlier xkcd comic [[1019:_First_Post|1019: First Post]], which compares the cost of buying election ads on news sites versus paying college student to wait for news articles and submit the first comments to every news article.

{{comic discussion}}

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2159: Comments