Someone’s snagging comments before they’re deleted by the ironically-named “Comment Is Free” section of the nation’s most cherished champion of free speech, and posting them on a Mysterious Website.
“White middle-class people are the Radiohead fanbase” and other comments banned by The Guardian.
by 127 Comments
And “what pipe have you been smoking?’ also got pencil-fucked. A question more valuably asked of the editor of the Guardian.
This is good stuff.
“A couple more terrorist atrocities and Trump will have it in the bag”
“All I’ve learnt today is that if Cruz’s dad did kill JFK, it probably wasn’t with a dildo”
It’s a new era and social media certainly exposes prejudice right left centre and in between. It’s life Jim,just as we don’t know it.
So much for the freedom of speech values of this propaganda rag. Slick, eh ?
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jan/31/comments-audience-censorship-criticism
The Telegraph (shite paper these days) has no comments online now, server change (apparently…..). It’s only The Independent that I know of now that actually allows free speech (don’t know about The Times – won’t pay to read it online).
Right On Comrades !
Bizarre that the Telegraph banned comments (sorry, that’s ‘is unable to accept comments as an unforeseen consequence of a server change’). Surely the comments were the only reason most people looked?
I haven’t read those comments but the Grauniad has had dreadful comment sections for years, just full of nasty, worthless trolls that made the whole thing pointless.
I have read those comments, and all I can say is that it’s no wonder the Graun loses money if they are paying someone real money to remove that level of trollishness. I’ve seen harsher commentary on Play School.
‘If anyone else has a go at Hamble’s shape, I swear I’ll do time. . .’
“Big Ted is a coke fuelled nonce c**t”
The Guardian lost its self appointed moral compass a long time ago in my book. My sister used to blog on their site very forcefully, but reasonably and never rude. She had her posts removed, and no longer bothers. They are welcome to Owen Jones and his whiney followers moaning about media basis, the establishment and our refusal to see Corbyn as the messiah (a secular, non-racist one of course).
Exactly, Dodger. Funny how the self appointed moral brigade of the left can excuse and overlook the inexcusable when it fits in with their own agenda, and ludicrously howl fascist and racist at anyone who dares point this out. Very moral. The good old tolerant left, responsible for global more mass murder and genocide in pursuit of its ideals than any other political ideology. I, for one, am neither on the ‘right’ or ‘left’ but there is a very good reason that I’ve never bought into the hypocritical horseshit that often gets spouted by the latter, often just as morally and philosophically repellent as that spouted on the right.
Indeed so, agreed Rob. We only need to have a listen (though not for too long) to the Diane Abbott who shouts “smear” any time someone (invariably from the right wing media or possibly the Jewish elite) raises some unpleasant fact which needs addressing. That The Guardian once hosted the great James Cameron and now fails to heed what he stood for should shame the morally vacuous advertising execs who now run the show.
Indeed. Well said.
What I always find unhinged and quite bizarre these days is the fact that if you question or point examples of gross leftist hypocrisy, you are quite often labelled as ‘far right’, when all you are doing is demonstrating a capacity for honest reason and balance. I believe that these hysterics are a result of the realisation that the pc mental lock down of the Blair era salad days are gone, hopefully never to return.
Good to see the Tweed is kicking in Rob! Cape arrived yet?
LOL. Cheeky sod.
Hare Krishna Pip Pip, dude _/\_ 🙂
Owen Jones was on Radio 4 yesterday commenting on a news item. He sounds like he still wets the bed.
I was in a library the other day, and The Milky Bar Marxist had a book on display. Can’t remember the title, but the unctuous comments on the back included ‘the George Orwell of our generation’…..
The snort I emitted could have been heard for miles.
Oi! Leave OJ alone! He’s only 12.
He actually listens to people he doesn’t agree with, and gives them a fair hearing on his YouTube channel, which makes him a rare and valuable breed.
How nice of him. How grand. How majestic. You mean…. he actually listens to people with a different point of view ?! Like…. WOW MAN ! RING THEM BELLS !!! RING THEM !!! NOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…and he doesn’t immediately pour scorn on other people’s views
Well that’s it then. I’m in love.
This doesn’t square with the Owen Jones I’ve come to know and detest. Not that I’m likely to watch his YouTube channel. To my mind, he always comes across as an arrogant,sneering gobshite who believes that ranting on, without pause, is the way to win hearts and minds. Every time I’ve seen him on This Week, he’s been skewered mercilessly by Andrew Neil for playing fast and loose with the facts.
As for being the ‘George Orwell of his generation’, one could weep. If only George himself were alive, he’d eviscerate the Student Grant soundalike.
In that instance, PC being a manner in which to create an orchestrated hive mind that dare not be deviated from, irrespective of the fact that all morally evolved people are quite capable of upholding and maintaining standards of decency for the greater good without being policed, thank you very much.
Mary Hamilton is the Guardian’s “executive editor for audience“, it says here. She wants to “free the voices that struggle to be heard.”
And here she is:
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/M_zpsgddmzf2z.jpg
Absolutely farcical.
Is she Transgender?
Thanks for flagging that site; I’ll be watching it with interest.
I suspect that this “leak” is a direct response to new Guardian editor Katharine Viner’s recent “The Web We Want” campaign, which saw a series of editorials in which Guardian writers complained about rough treatment below the line.
See example here, replete with flashy moving photos of pensive looking hacks: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments
The campaign has garnered an interesting response, with a sizeable proportion of commenters complaining that the site often censors comments based on their politics, or for being “UnGuardian”, rather than because of any truly offensive content. I suspect the site in the OP is someone on the inside attempting to validate these complaints.
Personally, I thought “The Web We Want” seemed a bit rich. The Guardian has noticeably swung its content towards the clickbait end of the spectrum in recent years, and its columnists have a tendency towards fairly provocative pomposity and self-righteousness that fairly begs for critical response. They’re self-consciously writing to provoke hits and comment, and then bemoaning anything negative that comes back in. Obviously, that’s appropriate when we’re talking about racist/sexist/homophobic abuse, but it’s clear that they’re also objecting to (and attempting to bundle in with the really nasty stuff) people who were simply criticising the quality of their writing or telling them they were an idiot.
The likes of Owen Jones, who makes a living serving up half-thought out, but nonetheless emphatic, drivel, and whose Manichean worldview dictates that all those who disagree with him are on the side of darkness, really have no place bemoaning the fact that they themselves are being critiqued. It’s pure hypocrisy.
Basically, the Guardian appears to be attempting to engineer a gigantic “safe space” for its writers and readers. This goes far beyond the bounds of standard moderation (which is both desirable and necessary on any large site), and into the realms of dangerous censorship.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but the Web I Want is one where people are occasionally confronted with a contrary view, and I find the trend in the other direction really quite worrying.
They even ran a ‘you are the moderator’ quiz to ask if you would allow or delete items from a list of comments. I turn out to much more forgiving than The Guardian, who would have deleted twice as many as me, including some which frankly baffled me.
Well said, bingo. I think your identifying their childish need for a ‘safe space’ hits the nail on the head.
How dare the great unwashed believe they can criticise the hypocrisy of a Polly Toynbee inveighing against growing inequality and private schooling, while she earns a very tidy sum indeed for writing her whingeing cant and also sends her offspring to be privately educated.
Well said, I have never been able to read/watch/listen to PT primarily for her blatant hypocrisy & (to me) her complete inability to see/ understand why riff raff like me have no time for her double standards.
I disagree with most of the things Peter Hitchens writes, but respect that while he is essentially a conservative, he is willing to give them a good kicking as & when he sees fit.
Likewise Peter Oborne.
Give me honest, free speaking conservatives like them over the Po faced old trout PT any day.
But not Richard Littlejohn – he is a twat.
Littlejohn is a twats twat.
Just thought – is it possible that when a comment is deleted for breaching the guidelines, all the replies to it are deleted too? That’s what happens here, and it would explain why some seemingly innocuous comments are on that list.
[COMMENT DELETED BY ADMIN]
[COMMENT REPORTED TO THE POLICE]
I’ll have a pop at being deleted – it’s the new black.
Perhaps muse that you never thought you’d see the day when the leader of the Labour Party looked like a failed Big Issue seller? See how long it takes to be deleted.
Interestingly, one of the more frequent complaints provoked by the Guardian’s moderation policy is that they’re quite selective about which politicians you can savage.
Want to make jokes about the Prime Minister shagging a pig, or Trump’s barnet? Fire away. Just don’t criticise the looseness of Jeremy Corbyn’s tie knot.
Indeed, and perhaps muse that bum chumming with antisemites, homophobes, misogynists and all manner of disagreeable shagnasties is not necessarily fighting the good fight.
No comment.
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/MI0003097540_zpsuir3g2qr.jpg
I’d thought that the original image could not have been more ghastly.
I was mistaken.
Alternatively, at some point the Guardian might at some point follow the lead of other publications and decide that the cost and hassle of moderation outweighs the benefits.
In the end the comment isn’t free –it’s being subsidised by a publishing organisation which has a lot of financial problems. Private Eye seems to be one of the few news publications which makes a profit, and it doesn’t allow any comments on its website, or give away all of its content. The Guardian would cause outrage if it did this, because of the expectations it has now set with its readers, but maybe it’s the route to follow. How many people complaining about the Guardian pay for it? I buy it on Saturdays, and the Observer on Sunday. I don’t think I would miss many of their paid commentators or any the below the line comments. The real loss will be the proper reporting, which would go if the paper collapses.
If this kind of nonsense carries on, we won’t get invited to the Christmas (or winter gathering) party. Moderate yourselves please.
Smear ! FASCIST !
Don’t even get me started on Yasmin Whatsherface and her charming views on the white male British working class. Perfectly acceptable from another darling of the Left, and Labour still scratches its head as to why its fucked, and now the preserve largely of students and the privileged middle class Left only ?
Don’t tell me Rob. You’re more of a Christopher Booker man, eh? THAT MAN SPEAKS SO MUCH SENSE.
Not that familiar with the dude, Hairnethead. ??????
He’s the guy that the Telegraph thinks is a voice of reason in the climate change debate. Can only be employed as clickbait, I assume. There is bullshit everywhere, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to sort out what is informed, educated opinion, what is ‘advertorial’, and what is pure lies and spin. News these days seems to be almost exclusively opinions, rather than actual reported news.
Haven’t read any of his stuff for years and certainly nothing on the Telegraph but he was one of the founders of Private Eye, responsible for the City of Towers doc back in the 70s and wrote an interesting book on the 60s called The Neophiliacs.
He’s a climate change denier then ? No thanks. Idiot.
He wrote an absolutely brilliant book – The Seven Basic Plots.
OK. I shall have a gander at the library website.
It’s a work of near-genius and incredible scholarship. He’s very much the old fogey when it comes to pop ‘n roll though, but that’s the only time he strikes a false note.
It’s a phenomenal read which I’m certain you’d enjoy very much – let me know what you think.
Ian – you’re asking Rob what he thinks?
Up to you, of course …
About the book, duh. Don’t want to hear any more about these chicks he’s knobbing – Gita and Chakra.
I am on a higher wavelength than most, a more advanced cosmic ray, if that’s what you mean, Saucy, yes.
Will do, Ian old chap.
Om Namah Shivaya
I don’t really see the problem. Newspaper websites aren’t public property. Freedom of speech isn’t a relevant consideration on their websites. They’re paying for it: they can publish or censor what they want.
Nobody’s stopping anyone expressing an opinion – they’re just saying “not in my house”.
Saying that, Bingo’s clickbait point above is fair comment.
Agreed, but calling it ‘Comment is Free’, then rigorously censoring all opinions which do not accord with their own is risible.
Agreed.
I’d have tons of respect if the Guardian simply stated “It’s our website and we’ll do what we fucking well like with it”, but that’s not what it’s being sold as.
I was particularly interested by the editor’s explanation re: the free speech argument, in which she conflates the silencing of columnists via death threats/racist and homophobic abuse writers simply being told “you suck”.
The notion that “free speech” means being able to express your opinions in an environment in which nobody is actually allowed to question or disagree with them seems to have gained huge traction online over the last decade, but it’s eyebrow-raising to witness the editor of a national newspaper adopt the line.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/22/the-web-we-want-how-do-we-make-the-guardian-a-better-place-for-conversation
“As editor, I think we need to act more decisively on what kind of material appears on the Guardian. Those who argue that this is an affront to freedom of speech miss the point. That freedom counts for little if it is used to silence others. When women and minorities don’t feel able to speak their mind for fear of insult, threat or humiliation, no such freedom exists.
In a video we made for the series, the Guardian columnist Jessica Valenti described it this way: “Imagine going to work every day and walking through a gauntlet of 100 people saying ‘You’re stupid’, ‘You’re terrible’, ‘You suck’, ‘I can’t believe you get paid for this’. It’s a terrible way to go to work.”
‘Women and minorities’. How patronising, how infantilising.
Yep.
I don’t think that’s what is being said at all. Jessica Valenti and The Guardian are talking about trolling and abuse, not criticism. ‘I disagree with your article and here’s why’ = fine. ‘You’re stupid and you suck’ = not fine.
I don’t believe for a minute that “women and minorities don’t feel able to speak their mind for fear of” being told they suck. Being told you suck is quite distinct from racial abuse/threats – these responses shouldn’t be bundled in together.
It’s quite possible to begin a post “I can’t believe you get paid for this” and then proceed to make sage and valid points about the content. It’s utterly distinct from starting with a threat, or vile misogynistic abuse.
And please feel free to tell me that you can’t believe I wrote the above, and that I suck. I will do my best to run the gauntlet with dignity.
“I can’t believe you get paid for this” is trolling and abusive. It’s not the worst kind of trolling and abusive, but it still is.
I don’t agree. I think you have to look at a post in its entirety to determine whether that statement is trolling. I have little difficulty imagining a post which contains that sentence but which is clearly not trolling.
Begins, you said, not contains. If you begin a post in an inflammatory way, which in most circumstances “I can’t believe you get paid for this” would qualify, then you be a troll and the world’s smallest violin is playing when you get deleted by the mods.
So “I can’t believe you get paid for this” is always trolling at the start of a post, but not if it’s further down?
“In most circumstances” I said. In most circumstances “I can’t believe you get paid for this” is an inflammatory way to start a post.
I was responding to ““I can’t believe you get paid for this” is trolling and abusive”.
Where do you draw the line with this stuff?
How about “You’re talking nonsense”? What about “I’ve never read such rubbish in all my life”?
Where does “disagreement” end and “trolling” begin?
Yes, I think that in most circumstances (i.e. apart from the sentence you’ve prepared to prove it’s not) that beginning a post with “I can’t believe you get paid for this” is trolling and abusive.
Okay, Poppy – we’re starting to hit the margins, which is generally a good place for these things to end, so let’s agree to disagree.
Incidentally, here’s the top rated reader response to the Viner editorial, with nearly a thousand “recommends”. This probably best reflects what the site’s users think about what they’re being told here.
“Here we go again. Another articles bemoaning the readers for not falling into line.
It’s been said, probably thousands of times now, yet the Guardian editorial staff either aren’t paying attention, which is disappointing, or have decided on a course of action anyway, which is underhand, but here goes anyway.
Things that are abuse:
Death / Rape / Violence threats
Uncalled for use of abusive language in place of any form of argument.
Things that are not abuse:
Disagreeing with the author
Pointing out that the authors preconceptions have clouded his or hers rational thinking skills
Pointing out that the stats being used are factually incorrect
Pointing out that the “evidence” to support a claim is in fact a link by the same author to an older article making the same claim
(Seriously Editorial staff, this stuff is really simple)
If the Guardian wants to close all comments, then just fucking do it, but stop treating the readership as if we were naughty children for not toeing the company line, or being surprised when your more outrageous “journalists” (Valenti ffs?) say utterly stupid things designed to piss people off, and people get pissed off.”
Apart from a LOL at people being so ‘pissed off’ at something Jessica Valenti has written that they feel the need to launch personal insults at her, I’d agree with most of that.
Sure.
xx
Nothing the blog likes better than Bingo and Poppy getting oiled up for some old school apartment wrestling!
Newspaper websites aren’t public property, just as Student Union facilities aren’t public property. Newspaper websites are controlled by the current owners at any given time, and Student Union facilities, having been entrusted into day-to-day management by whoever the currently incumbent elected crew happen to be, are similarly controlled. So if a Student Union decides to rule “No platform; we don’t like you” for some organisation that wishes to hire their facilities for a meeting, that’s fine too.
Well. That’s a slightly greyer area because universities *are* heavily publicly funded.
If you send a green-inked letter to the Graun, is it your inalienable right to see it in print in the paper? That’s the real parallel.
I don’t believe the fascist, Stepford student snowflakes who keep demanding ‘safe spaces’ and ‘no platform’ are restricting these ludicrous demands to Srudent Union facilities alone.
eg those who blockade the BBC whenever anyone they don’t approve of appears on Question Time
Indeed. Their hideous perverse ideology spreads like fascist moss, which will luckily be blown away by the water pressure jet of history with a jolly good 1/2 litre of common sense mind clear when the shite hits the EU extractor fan.
Fascist moss? Who knew nature could get so damn political. Watch out for the green grass too. It can be slippery!
Wouldn’t be any grass left if the fucking Greens had their way with their ludicrous no border policy. We’d be one huge concrete transgender toilet with hemp bog roll, plastic shoes, yoghurt brained nonsense and naught else.
How the FUCK can you propose to preserve our splendid countryside by open borders and the knock on population effect ?!
Surely you mean ‘a jolly good four fifths of a pint of common sense’?
I’ve been nuking the driveway, so that’s how the analogy sprang to mind. No safe space for moss, or seaweed either. Bloody Marxist Gulls again.
Wow, man. Napalming moss? That’s a bummer, man. Moss is beautiful. It’s like nature is transforming your fascist tarmac into Eden, dude, and you’re like coming in and strafing it with chemical weapons? This is going to be heavy karma for you, man, but it’s your own trip, you bayonet all the babies you want …
I love the smell of Path Clear in the morning…..
Anyway, it’s the moss’s karma. Genghis Khan and his hordes were hoofed off the wheel to meet their just deserts on the vast tarmac plains of a driveway in Somerset, and I am The Wielder Of Justice.
Moss is an important home for tardigrades (or ‘water bears’), microscopic animals with weird DNA that can live for 10 years without food and water.
Not round Rob’s place it isn’t. It’s flaming agony chemical death for these harmless creatures. He is their Donald Trump.
We’re gonna build a wall. Around the garden. It’s gonna be a great wall. It’s gonna be the greatest wall. Those tardies – those grades, you know, they ain’t gonna get over that wall. That’s how great the wall’s gonna be. We’re gonna keep them grades out. We’re gonna send ’em back to Tardiland. And then we’re gonna nuke ’em. They’re gonna wish they never came to Somerset. Building their houses, stealing our trees. No wait, that’s immigrants. We’re gonna build a wall. Around Somerset. Because they ain’t getting our grass. It’s gonna be a great wall…
Charlie don’t turf.
Trump ? I’m WINSTON CHURCHILL dude. Bring it on, fascist Tardigrades. I’m actually on Amazon as we speak upgrading my weaponry.
Winston was a fellow Druid too:
Four fifths of a pint? Wouldn’t that be an American pint? Is this a thinly veiled reference to TTIP?
Tardigrades can go fuck themselves.
Peace & Love
I’ve read my Gita you know. Many times.
To clarify: it is my dharma (duty) to clean the fucking drive, and although I love and respect my fellow sentient beings the tardigrades, it is also their dharma to get blasted to fuck by a power washer. It’s all part of the Divine web, dig ?
I think we all have a very clear picture of exactly who you are and what you believe in. Which is basically the Holocaust for any of God’s creatures too small for you to see.
Ahem…
http://i1302.photobucket.com/albums/ag126/astralcat379/druid4%201_zpsdg2glmzf.jpg
Your karma is so fucked, dude. Really. Really, really … fucked. You should throw out all the mystic paraphernalia and the sacred texts and the LOTR posters and start to do penance for the billions of tardigrades you’ve slaughtered, because you won’t be allowed any of that baggage where you’re going.
See that selfie of the tardigrade up there? Imagine one the size of a small family car, floating above your bed tonight. Waiting. And hungry.
Attila H. Josef S. Adolf H. Pol P. Rob C.
Tardigrades are the only animals so far discovered to be able to survive in space. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14690-water-bears-are-first-animal-to-survive-space-vacuum/
Path Clear probably tastes like Vimto to these space warriors. Basically Rob, you’re messing with something that’s way out of your league. http://i.imgur.com/zEQ5UdE.jpg
From the latest cull:
Stronzo.
Yup, “Stronzo.”
Not at all dude. I save spiders, live in harmony with them in fact. I try and release flies, midges and wasps whenever they get into difficulties as well. As for the dear old tardigrades, sadly yet inevitably, it’s all part of….
I stopped a crow from being beaten up a couple of months ago too. So there. I bet you haven’t.
* flips bird *
I turned a chicken on the barbecue last night.
*flips bird*
Pimp My Chariot, Ajrjuna Saucecraft. Pimp it like my bitch, dude.
Bollocks to that Haircrafthead. Ever heard of the Moon Weasels ? I though not. They are my space homies. Suck my pakoras, old bean.
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/mary2_zpsglid5qrf.jpg
In France a vocal troll, posting online, called Monbiot a nasty name,
By chance his comment was heavily upvoted and others soon did the same,
At home there’s seventeen year old boys and their idea of fun,
Is logging on to CiF,
Picking on a hack,
And tellin’ jokes about their mum
Times
Times
Get to work on Monday, form a space space, then sit and have a cry
You check out the comments and find someone wishing that Polly Toynbee had died,
We write about Kanye, how white people don’t get him,
And our readers rudely tell us: he’s a goon,
In September our mods banned a Tory for the very first time,
Now they’re banning Blairites.
It’s June
Times
Times
Oh BWAVEAUX!
Excellent! I salute you, sir.
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/mary3_zpsxpequiqp.jpg
C’mon, Bing – do your best!
Right… what would the Massive prefer I work with here: “Smashed Face” or “I Cum Blood”?
Well, I’d plump for “I Cum Blood”, but that’s just me! Come on, Afterworders!
Is it Halal ?
The best thing about that sleeve is the Parental Advisory label.
Because without it, how would you know?
From today’s Stalinist Revisionism Site – this comment has been airbrushed right out:
“Juventus fans would disagree.”
You can see why the Fragrant Mary (steady, lads, she has a significant other) would want to protect her readership from this, right?
Me neither. Is she entirely mad? Or just randomly activated?
That one probably makes sense; it will almost certainly have been posted on one of the blogs re: Liverpool’s win last, and appears to be a reference to Heysel.
Oops – “win last night”.
Could it be that it’s not actually a person or team of people removing these comments at all, but an algorithm? One designed to remove obviously offensive/illegal/obscene stuff and to preserve any positive remarks, also removing a certain percentage of other totally-randomly-selected comments just to keep the thing readable by those who wish to do so?
No. Thought not.
Probably not – part of their recent Web We Want campaign was to introduce their moderators to the readers:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/welcome-to-the-worst-job-in-the-world-my-life-as-a-guardian-moderator
Today’s goodie:
“The middle class are a smug bunch especially Guardian-reading types IMO”
SNIP!
You guessed it – NO COMMENTS, and why, because the late slurping middle class gender neutralising Islington marxists don’t want their agenda being ruffled by truth as to what utter bollox Lord Snooty is reduced to spouting now. The Great Man would be aghast as to what the EU project has become.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/09/pm-draws-on-history-to-bolster-eu-remain-campaign
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/_89680403_hi032869255_zpskplvcksx.jpg