ESPN Switching to Facebook Comments: Do You Care?

Starting July 17, 2013, ESPN.com will switching all of its articles to Facebook’s commenting system. The site previously used Facebook comments for some of its stories and an in-house system for the majority of its articles. With the new system, readers will be required to have a Facebook account if they want to comment on a story. I know that most of you RPadholics are sports fans and that most of you are on Facebook, so I’m curious to hear what you think about the change. I also know that at least one dear RPadholic (*cough* 1ceman *cough*) is a sports fan that’s averse to social media services. I wonder if this will be a problem (for him).

As for me, I’m looking forward to the change. While there are some great conversations to be had on ESPN.com, there are also a ton of idiots posting hateful and racist comments. One of the reasons web sites like Facebook’s commenting system is that there’s less anonymity; most people use their “real” Facebook account to post comments on web sites that use Facebook comments. Of course there are some people that set up fake Facebook identities so that they can post stupid comments on web sites that use Facebook’s commenting system…but I suppose if it means that much to them then they should get something for their efforts. *shrug*

Anyway, how do you feel about ESPN.com’s full-on switch to the Facebook commenting system? Is it a good move or a bad move? Are you more or less likely to comment on an ESPN.com article now that it uses Facebook comments?

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

18 thoughts on “ESPN Switching to Facebook Comments: Do You Care?”

  1. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum or villainy than ESPN comments. MMQB a close second.

  2. I go on espn just to read the comments. I have literally laughed out loud many many times at some of the hilarious jokes people write. I will be severely dissapointed when they make the postings all rated G. I wont waste my time reading them and I know less people will post.

  3. Well, no ESPN commenting for me then. I agree with Jack, though. Some of those comments are damn funny.

    -M

    1. Great question. It doesn’t at the moment and I’m guessing it won’t in the future since the Facebook system is specifically for commenting. However, it wouldn’t be difficult to use a Facebook login as credentials and it’s possible ESPN Fantasy could do that for uniformity with ESPN.com. Still, I’m guessing that won’t happen.

      1. Good cuz id hate to use fb to log in for those games. I dont comment on espn, thats a trolling fest over there.

  4. So much for me visiting ESPN anymore. Not like they’ve actually talked about sports in over a decade anyway, but I always went there for the hysterical and trolling comments for some laughs. Not worth creating a FB account for that. Oh well.

    1. I absolutely loved reading all of the Miami Heat/LeBron hate comments. They were so entertaining. Of course, I don’t see them all that often now. They seemed to have gone away for the most part.

      Ha, ha!

      -M

  5. For fun I went to ESPN comments. Now they are flaming the facebook switch on every NFL and NBA story on the site.

  6. It will have a chilling effect, it diminishes the experience for me. I’m a troll that enjoyed trolling the racist haters.

    1. It’s pretty interesting so far. As expected, there are a LOT less comments, but the conversations are far more civil. I expect things to pick up as people get used to the new system.

  7. Since Facebook is for losers i suppose i won’t be commenting on ESPN anymore…

    It’s amusing to see how bad their conversation area works on box scores during games now. You used to be able to follow along and BS with fellow fans, but ESPN apparently bought into Zuckerberg’s stupidity regarding the evils of the annonymous net.

    I detest Zuckerberg, who is a socially inept tool whose primary interests are 1) Making money and 2) Having his ego stroked.

    For allowing technology to hasten the decline of human civilization just a bit faster, Zuckertool deserves our utmost scorn.

    The guy’s origins lie in a “hot or not hot” website….And this guy is steering our civilization?

    1 Trillion people should be ashamed of themselves…

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