A Comment on Commenting

For all the good that the internet has brought, now and then I curse at it for the trouble it has wrought.

Seriously, wtf.

I was originally opting to comment on something on IMDb.  While I've been a member of the site for a couple of years now, I've never commented on anything.  So today I was browsing a page of movie I'd like and I thought I'd just react to something and was a little surprised that I had to be 'verified'.  Didn't I go through that before? There was small link to terms and conditions below the verification button so I clicked on it.

Part of what was written referred to was submissions, and I quote,

"materials, including but not limited to questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, plans, notes, drawings, original or creative materials or other information, provided by you in the form of e-mail or submissions to IMDb are non-confidential and shall become the sole property of IMDb"

which looked like your standard legalese, but to me it sounded like, "Mine! Mine!  All mine!"   I didn't know you could "own" comments, and even ideas, like what, if we write something down there we can't post the same thing anywhere else?  Gosh, that sounds absurd, and I'd like to think that that's not the case and it was only written as a precaution and a way to protect themselves.  But in this increasingly litigious society I'm not sure anymore.

So I thought I'd go a different route and comment instead on the blog whose link was posted on the thread I wanted to post to on IMDb.  I type in what I want to say and I was about to hit "Submit" when I realized there isn't any "Submit" button.  There was no option to comment as an anonymous user.  Okay.  Not my blog, not my choice.  I clicked on the "g" icon.  Up pops a Disqus box wanting to connect using my Google account.  I accept but then it wants more.  It wants me to register before I can post anything.

I think I had a Disqus account before, which I had obviously forgotten because I only ever used it once.  That's a very good reason for registering with social media on Disqus, one might point out.  While there are benefits to interconnecting accounts, there are also reasons to decide against it, like problems logging in.    Keeping multiple identities on the internet seems to be getting increasingly difficult, and frowned upon.

I gave in.  I registered.  At one point, I'm given the option to follow other commenters.  Really?  Even commenting has turned into its own social media.  And the first thing I've noticed upon registering was that for some reason the comment I had typed had disappeared.  Well, great, that totally negates the process I just went through.