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Greetings,

We have listened to you, our community, and are implementing a change to our website commenting feature.  Starting on Monday, users who would like to make comments on the website will need to login with their Facebook account to do so.

We are very proud of the platform we provide to our community to have spirited, open, important conversation about the stories and news events that impact our lives here. We aim to provide a platform that fosters such conversation, but at the same time is honest, respectful and consistent with the values of our community.

We hope that this change will help to curb the verbal abuse, threats and defamatory language that some users have posted on our website, disrupting productive discussion and debate and, at times, genuinely offending members of our community.

While our previous method of commenting has been convenient and easy to use--and the vast majority of those of you using it have been using it in exactly the way we’d hope you would--we know that the anonymity it allowed led to a higher incidence of unproductive feedback. 

You have notified us about your frustration regarding anonymous posts containing derogatory language, and we have heard you.

In the spirit of active discussion and debate, we wish to make our community feel safe, welcomed, and unthreatened.  Like in any community, stimulating dialog and debate can only happen if the participants are respectful of each other.

We apologize for any inconvenience if you do not currently have a Facebook account.  We invite you to register with Facebook.

Our team has collected links and prepared material to assist you in creating an account and understanding Facebook’s privacy preferences: 

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Facebook Privacy Settings 

We appreciate your patience. This is a welcomed change that will strengthen our community.  If you would like to ask us any questions or let us know how you feel about this change, please contact us at listens@valleycentral.com.

Regards,

Tom Keeler
President & CEO
KGBT-DT / Telerio
Harlingen, Texas