LAFAYETTE, LA – Great news for the local social media scene! Acadiana-based news outlets are implementing a clever new way to weed out those that contribute absolutely nothing to the discussion, by forcing users to spell simple three-to-four letter words before their comments are accepted and posted.
The captcha, that went into effect this morning, is poised to bring a higher-quality discussion to news Facebook pages and hopefully eliminate comments such as “who cares!!!”, “wow smh” and “if you don’t like it LEAVE!!!”.
Facebook engineer Tobias Samuelsson explains the new system.
“We were approached by Louisiana-based news outlets to make this new system a reality”, he explained. “Apparently they were having issues with a lack of intelligent commentary and an over-usage of terrible memes, which were clearly just screenshots from a phone because the user was too dumb to work out how to find the ‘save image’ button.”
“The new system is great. You type your comment, and hit enter. Before it gets posted, however, you now have to pass a simple, second grade-level spelling test. Dog, tree, dad, words like that. If you pass, the comment is submitted. If you fail, the comment is not submitted and you get a message informing you that “The South lost the Civil War. Get over it!” with a cool little image of General Lee bent over a chair getting his ass whipped.”
The news outlets are expecting at least a 70% reduction in traffic.
