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KOIN made the choice to turn off comments on the station's website and to be honest, we can't really blamed them.

KOIN's Digital Managing Editor Tim Steele says "it  wasn’t a decision KOIN.com made lightly or easily. But it’s time to be honest about what comment boards have morphed into over the years."

He writes, "For every great, insightful comment or news tip I’ve seen over the past decade posted to the bottom of a story, I’ve dealt with 50 times more comments that add no value. Pseudonymous commenters seemingly have limitless time to post inanities, vitriol, sexually explicit, mindless, vulgar and hurtful notes about people and things of which they have only cursory knowledge."

And taking a clue from the Las Vegas Review Journal, he quotes, “Nowhere does the First Amendment require the media to provide a platform for your speech.”

Comment sections on websites seem like so 10 years ago along with message boards. Anytime you let people hide behind a fake name or made up account, you are not going to get anything constructive.

We can't blame KOIN for turning off the comments and in fact, we think it was a good move.