While we do think of comment sections as an innovation of the Internet age, in one form or another, they have existed since at least the 1500s. In what now we would call Germany, it was common practice (at least among the literate) to “post” one’s ideas in public places, often to literal posts.

The most famous example of this is probably Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses, nailed to the door of the All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany in 1517. Of course, this would only be the practice of people who could read and write and had the time and resources to buy parchment and ink. The internet is ultimately the tool that brought mass commenting to the majority of the population.

While internet forums are generally older, the first “comments section,” as we might call it these days was created in 1998, for the digital edition of The Rocky Mountain News. This publication was a real trailblazer, as it also featured one of the first “advice” columns, where readers could ask questions. 

This, perhaps, is what inspired them to open up the publication to reader comments, as a means of creating engagement and loyalty. This practice would soon become the norm, as newspapers, magazines, fan pages, and the first attempts at social media all began allowing people to share their thoughts on a post, article, or page.

Now, comment sections are so common that there are entire genres of content based on asking for interactions. From posts that are just questions, to people “selecting” things from “what house you prefer” to favorite brunch items, people do love to share their two cents. This has spawned an entire cottage industry, like the list here, of finding and sharing the best comments.

Indeed, if something has the option to add comments explicitly turned off, most people immediately wonder what exactly happened here. From trolling, and cyberbullying to intensely heated discussions, the anonymity of the internet often doesn’t exactly make for the most civil posts on controversial topics. 

A number of media outlets have actually closed down their comment sections over the last few years for these reasons. Vice Media closed theirs in 2016, as did NPR. IMDB closed their discussion boards (but not user reviews) a year later. In all of these cases, difficulty with moderation was the number one issue. 

Moderation is a tricky subject because the entire point of a comments section is to share a diverse set of opinions. After all, if literally everyone believed the same thing, there would be no need for anything but the initial post. However, as it so often happens, a small group of people can ruin things for the rest of us. 

Research suggests that people who feel that their opinion is already widely supported tend to stay silent and often don’t even look at comments. This is perhaps why comment sections on any debatable topic can look so extreme, it’s only the folks with marginal views that take the time to write out what they think. 

As is quite easy to imagine, once you get a forum full of folks with the most extreme opinions, conflict is almost inevitable without strict moderation. Since that requires hiring dedicated staff and developing a constantly evolving policy around what is and isn’t allowed, it’s not surprising that so many pages have slowly decided to forgo comments entirely. 

Google has been working on AI tools to help moderate, as it would appear there is a (sadly) growing market. However, a more human-centric approach has existed for a while, that is, the user-flagged comment option that you can even find here. In other words, comments that break the rules are simply reported and/or downvoted by other readers.