Comment Sections as Targets of Dark Participation? Journalists’ Evaluation and Moderation of Deviant User Comments

User comments, as the most prominent form of participation in online journalism, offer multiple options for so-called dark participation, comments that transgress norms of politeness or honesty with partially sinister motives. Strategic forms of dark participation such as political trolling in user comments have both raised attention and global concern. Community managers are expected to guard the gates of their comment sections, carefully disentangling valid opinions from manipulated statements—with the obvious danger of either censoring genuine speech or letting potentially damaging content slip through. So far, empirical studies on how media actors perceive this challenge and how they respond to it, especially in light of strategic attempts at manipulation, are scarce. The current study aims to fill this gap. Based on a series of guided interviews (N = 25), we explored community managers’ experiences with dark participation in German newspaper sites. The qualitative analysis of the content of the interviews identified four types of comment section managers, ranging from unconcerned gatekeepers to relaxed gate-watchers, alarmed guards, and struggling fighters.