How do we deal with people we disagree with online, with people who say something offensive, or possibly damaging? I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and writing about this issue recently.

The New York Times has an article about Paul Tilley, the creative director of advertising firm, DDB Chicago. He had received anonymous harsh criticism on two advertising blogs. To what extent are the people who posted those comments responsible? To what extent are the moderators of the blog responsible for not doing better moderation? To what extent are the companies responsible for hosting these blogs responsible? What is the appropriate way of dealing with these sorts of comments?

I’ve spent a lot of time arguing this with various friends online. I worry about companies and schools restricting the free expression of ideas. Yet I also believe that people need to learn civility in their online writing. The same question applies to the Avery Doninger case. What is the best way, the right way, to help people like Avery learn to be more civil in their blog posts?

Recently, Chris Gingrich wrote a harsh blog post about how the Doningers have handled this. It was based on very incomplete information from newspaper articles. I wrote a comment addressing some of the misconceptions he had about the case and challenged him on the way he presented some of his arguments. On Sunday, he removed the original post and put up this post.

A commenter pointed out that the news articles I had based my post on left out some important facts. And, in a number of areas, he was right. Worse, my tone was harsh and unfair.

He then explores many important points. Should this be viewed as a censorship case? How do we help people to become more ‘moral’? What can we do as parents, people of faith, as members of our communities? How does it apply to specific issues in his community?

I would like to suggest that his response is part of the answer. Adults need to model constructive, wise and caring ways to dealing with issues in our community. Mr. Gingrich has done exactly that. He is strong enough to admit when he is wrong and to look for better solutions. If Superintendent Schwartz and Principal Niehoff had done this in the first place in the Doninger case, it would not be in court. It would not be a censorship case. Instead, it could have been a case study in how better to deal with conflict in an era when people can easily express their feelings online.

Mr. Gingrich writes,

My frustration with such issues stems from recent efforts to try to organize volunteers to help out in a local school where discipline is a major problem (think knives, gang assualts, arrests, threats against staff and epidemic rudeness and disrespect). I am hoping to start up after school programs and eventually mentoring type programs.

Avery’s difficulties started when she tried to organize citizens of her community to address one of her concerns. Whether or not bands should get to play in a new auditorium is not as significant a problem as gang assaults in schools, yet the aspect of organizing volunteers is the same.

So, let me propose a radical idea. Mr. Gingrich, reach out to the kids that bring knives to school. Get them to deal with their anger and frustration by using words like “douche bag” on blogs instead of knives in schools. Over time, you can get them to use more civil words and become more effective in dealing with their anger and frustration.

Chris Gingrich has modeled constructive online behavior in his blog. I believe that Avery has already learned from her mother how to be more constructive in her speech online. I do not believe that Schwartz or Niehoff have yet learned how to deal constrively with online speech, and it sounds like there are a lot of youth in Mr. Gingrich’s community that could learn similar lessons. Let’s all try to learn from him.