Disqus is going out of style

In the mid-2010s, back when “AA has a 5% success rate” was all over the press, the commenting platform everyone was using was Disqus, a platform which thrived on outrage culture. Naturally, the kinds of people who claim Alcoholics Anonymous does not work were more interested in spreading outrage than in spreading objective truth, so this was a hotbed of “AA does not work” nonsense.

Here, in 2020, most platforms have moved beyond using Disqus. To note:

• The Fix no longer uses Disqus, and, indeed, no longer has comment sections for their articles.
• The Atlantic no longer uses Disqus. Like The Fix, they simply no longer have a comments section.
• A number of regional newspapers no longer have Disqus comments.

The only place with significant discussion of Alcoholics Anonymous who still uses Disqus is Patheos, and, not surprisingly, there are still articles, mostly in the Atheist section of that site, which have comments that parrot the same outdated, inaccurate nonsense about AA’s efficacy.

The only other place besides Disqus comments where I have seen people still parrot claims that AA has a low success rate is on Reddit, which is a well known hotbed of outrage-inducing inaccurate information.