The Huffington Post’s U.S. site and mobile apps will shift to using only Facebook comments starting Monday at noon, HuffPost CTO Otto Toth announced.
“This is far from an an end to conversation; it’s the start of conversation where you want to have it — and where you’ve been having it already,” he wrote.
Readers are having a Facebook conversation under Toth’s post, but many of them claim it’s the last one they’ll have before abandoning the site. The most-liked comment: “Now deleting my account, which I’ve used since 2011. If I wanted this integrated with Facebook, that’s how I would have logged in. Thanks for the memories.”
In January, Poynter wrote about the furor surrounding HuffPost’s decision to address trolling by requiring users to link a verified Facebook account to their HuffPost accounts and potentially reveal their real names before commenting.
HuffPost won’t be the only major media site to use Facebook comments exclusively. Others include ESPN, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune. But none of those sites have communities that were as integral to their success as HuffPost’s was, with its “fan” system and badges.
TechCrunch has some good insights from its move away from Facebook comments — and then back to them again.
Related: HuffPost policy banishes trolls — and drives away some frequent commenters | More news organizations try civilizing online comments with the help of social media
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