( CNN ) -- Arianna Huffington is fed up with the trolls . The founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post says that starting next month , she will require readers to identify themselves by name in the comments sections of her eponymous news site . Huffington made the off-the-cuff comment in a Q & A session after a speech Wednesday to a crowd of 4,000 at a conference in Boston , according to spokeswoman Katie Burke of HubSpot , a marketing software company that hosts the conference . `` Freedom of expression is given to people who stand up for what they 're saying and who are not hiding behind anonymity , '' Huffington told the audience . `` Maintaining a civil environment for real conversation and community has always been key to the Huffington Post . `` From day one , our comments were pre-moderated , and we invested in the most advanced moderation technology along with human moderators , '' she said . `` Now we want to go a step further to evolve our platform -- which has always been about community and engagement -- to meet the needs of the grown-up Internet . '' In other words , the Internet `` trolls , '' or nasty anonymous commenters , have gotten worse . The Boston Globe , which covered Huffington 's speech , quoted her as saying that `` trolls have become more and more aggressive and uglier . '' Websites have long grappled with how to police users who hijack comment threads with posts that range from snarky to untruthful to downright vicious , their animosity protected by anonymity . Sites like JuicyCampus and CollegeACB got the ax after existing for several years as hosts for anonymous gossip . In recent years the problem has taken tragic turns , as cyberbullying on social media and other platforms has been blamed for several suicides . A Huffington Post spokesperson confirmed to CNN that the site 's new policy will be implemented next month . The spokesperson would not elaborate on specifics of the plan other than to say , `` Our engineers are working on the exact implementation plan and we will share that as soon as it is finalized . '' Many news sites have moderating systems that remove offensive comments , and some sites have sought to make commenters more accountable by requiring them to register via an account on Facebook or other social platform . CNN requires people to create accounts to participate in discussions on CNN.com , but it 's not a foolproof system , says David E. Williams , community manager for CNN Digital . `` We think it 's really important to listen to the conversations our stories start on CNN . There are a lot of smart people in our audience with unique perspectives , so their comments can be a valuable resource , '' Williams said . `` Trolls are pretty unpleasant , but the bigger problem is that they make it harder to find and surface interesting conversations , '' he added . `` We are always looking for ways to improve the quality of the conversations on our sites . '' Since its launch in 2005 , the Huffington Post has garnered 260 million comments from its online community of readers , according to the spokesperson . The site 's current comment policy is clearly stated online , with guidelines for users that include `` Be yourself , only yourself , and just one of yourself '' as well as `` If your comments consistently or intentionally make this community a less civil and enjoyable place to be , you and your comments will be excluded from it . '' Huffington 's decision to prohibit anonymous comments is better than banning all comments , said Sarah Sobieraj , a media expert and sociology professor at Tufts University in suburban Boston . `` It 's valuable that she is not shutting down comments altogether , though it 's sort of a Pandora 's box , '' said Sobieraj , who believes that people who really want to post offensive messages will still find a way to do that make other efforts to post their opinions . In the digital age it 's not difficult to create a pseudonym tied to a secondary e-mail address . `` The ability to speak anonymously online is not just for trolls , '' Sobieraj added . Many people turn to the anonymity of the Internet for meaningful dialogue about sensitive topics , such as politics or impropriety in the workplace , that prove difficult to discuss face to face , she said . Huffington 's views on news-site commenters seem a little less charitable than they were in 2010 , when she told CNN , `` As a writer , I love the instant feedback . It makes the site a two-way experience . People no longer want to just passively sit back and be served up information . We now engage with news , react to news , and share news . News has become something around which we gather , connect , and converse . '' So what do you think about Huffington 's efforts to rein in abusive commenters ? Let us know below -- how meta ! -- in the comments . And be nice .
Huffington Post will require readers to identify themselves by name in comments sections . Arianna Huffington : `` Trolls have become more and more aggressive and uglier '' The site 's new policy will be implemented next month . Since its launch in 2005 , the Huffington Post has garnered 260 million comments .