To be gutted the Guardian is censoring comments

[Babycham1979]

For a long time now, I've found the comments section to be at least as informative and interesting as many of the comment and news pieces, so I'm gutted to find out that the Guardian is abandoning the pricinple of (relatively) free comment.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/31/readers-editor-on-readers-comments-below-the-line#comments

They claim it's due to trolling, but the real reason appears to be the long-term culmination of amount of criticism the paper and its writers were getting for factual inaccuracies (such as the Poppy Project) very heavily biased reporting/comment (race/sex click-bait) and the complete avoidance of certain subjects (the Cologne sex attacks).

In reality, Comment is Free has remained for more civil and intelligent than the offensive (but entertaining) dregs that appear on the Indy, Telegraph and Mail websites.

I suspect this will backfire on them big-time.

Now I only have MN to come to for stimulating and robust debate!

Well said, and better articulated than mine!

I know about the Guardian and what everyone thinks it is and should be but I wonder how influential it really is these days.

There are many other places to discuss issues. Readers would never have expected to dictate values, story angles and news values by 'arguing' with the newspaper. Generally that's done with sales/click. So don't read it.

Or perhaps they have identified a readership market with certain liberal values which do not chime with yours?

TBH I cannot stand the guardian and would be a telegraph reader if that hadn't gone to the dogs too. I just listen to radio 4 now

I can see their point. If certain topics just turn into massive toxic bun fights what is the point in hosting them?

I agree with this. There's a difference between a debate which is mediated and controlled and the anonymous keyboard warrior discussions which pass for debate here and on comment is free.

As others have said they have every right to close comments on any article they see fit, I posted the same article over in the news, I personally don't believe the angle of 'mass moderation required' as there is enough software out there for some auto moderation to combat brigading and such.

They aren't adverse to publishing rage baiting/clickbait articles to the masses that require just as much moderation so it's just them drawing a line in the sand that is within there political views, which I think is fair enough, anyone who does read the guardian knows their stance and comments have previously been disabled around these specific subjects.

I read the guardian (not solely I may add), they have some very good editors and some of the long reads are excellent, but as with any news source they are just as guilty of pushing a narrative, it's just that this narrative they don't want to be called out on, I think it's a pity personally, because although some of the comments where quite toxic (let's be honest this isn't just a guardian issue either) there was a lot of informed and balanced counter arguments, the fact that the majority of the time editors picks are so out of kilter with the most recommended responses across these topics in my opinion shows more a digging your heels in mindset than a worry about brigading/ astroturfing or just to try and dismiss it as trolls.

I think what we are seeing is a newspaper moving from a simple brand identity to a media persona with its own social identity with involves a strong neoliberal narrative which permeates it's news values, particularly in its online offering.

The balance of comments on that article showed very clearly that they are not in tune with their readership.

You're totally right. It was shameful, that article. Shockingly inappropriate, mealy-mouthed dismissive apologetics for rapists. People know full well they're being lied to, and that the Guardian editors and contributors view many of their readers with absolute contempt. In another article they blatantly lied about the numbers of women affected in Cologne and reduced it by about ten times, and then the idiot who wrote it tried to justify it with a disingenuous semantic sleight of hand in the BTL comments where no one would have seen it in the middle of the 3000 other comments pretty much unanimously telling them how shit they were.

They shouldn't pretend that they can run a comments section at all if they won't even make the slightest attempt to take an appropriate, fair and balanced line on moderating it. Comment isn't free then, is it?

As I've said, it's the po-faced, pompous tone that gets people's backs up. The smug, sanctimonious attitude that they have the moral high ground in everything. Because it isn't justified, not in the least. They have become everything that people used to take the piss out of them for. And I defended them against. But maybe I just didn't see that those people were right then.

I've reached peak Guardian.

No pseudo shit involved, the heavy moderation is a weak example that any long term guardian reader can see by regularly visiting any rage baiting CIF article, calling troll is juvinile and spitting there dummy out.

strong neoliberal narrative

That would be commendable if they where to admit these values and not pick and choose which micro strain of neoliberalism they chose to endorse by the colour tie those professing it may be wearing, or where in the class system those that are complaining stand.

I've had some tonight and think I'm coming across 6th form politics, so maybe a little pseudo shit...

Lol, don't worry, I used way too many adjectives in mine

If only it were a neoliberal narrative! I'd find that less annoying than the preachy, mealy-mouthed holier-than-thou identity politics that they're currently peddling.

On one hand, they were only recently telling readers to vote Lib Dem to sustain the coalition, on the other, they think there's a magic money tree that the Government can use to dish out benefits to every special interest minority group in the UK, and beyond.

They spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over the tax avoidance of Google et al, but conveniently ignore their own 'tax efficient' registration in the Caribbean. At least a neoliberal palaver would be honest and consistent in its philosophy!

Unfortunately, it is a race to the bottom for newspapers thee days. Magazines are the last bastion of decent investigative journalism (Private Eye) and quality writing (Spectator).

They also published the name of a female SNP MP who was on the hacked list of people's emails completely illegally obtained from Ashley Madison, even though it was apparently really easy to sign people up to the site without their knowledge and an MP would be an obvious target for this. They then had no qualms about opening comments on that article so a load of people who hated either women or the SNP (i.e. lots of the usual CiF BTL commenters) could publicly brand her an adulteress with no proof. And put the news report of this on their front page.

If that isn't hypocrisy, with all their righteous campaigning about phone hacking and privacy (which obviously I agree with), I don't know what is.

Thinking about it, the Guardian is the only newspaper with a relatively un-insane comments section. That's partly because of the general readership and partly because it's moderated.

All other broadsheets are full of conspiracy, misogynist, racist, homophobic nutcases ranting.

I'm still at a loss to understand why people who claim to despise what the graun stands for, and who in some cases admit they do not even go on the website any more, are so worked up about this.

It's one newspaper among many, and one of a very large number of sites that hosts Internet "debates".

Just to add in passing that I agree with ubik1 above on the issue of what constitutes "debate": just shouting louder and getting worked up when someone tries to engage you isn't debating. A debate requires sensible ground rules, including a shared respect for evidence and logical reasoning. I don't think Internet debate is possible without some form of moderation that obliges debaters to stick to mutually agreed rules.

YouGotta you need to actually read my posts, and stop reducing everything to your personal experience.

Nowhere have I said that the Guardian's moderation is perfect; in fact if you scroll up a page or two I suggested that having a small team of moderators dealing with a very large volume of increasingly vitriolic posts was very likely to result in arbitrary moderation decisions.

I've had posts deleted that didn't obviously breach the T&Cs; I suspect I just got up some kippers' noses and they reported my posts (I used to post a fair bit on articles about Europe, a subject close to my heart, as an economic migrant).

In reality, I imagine that the mods have little time to consider the rights and wrongs of moderation decisions - which is a strong argument in favour of reducing the volume of posts and allowing them to do their job properly.

tbh anyone who gets this upset about it really does need a new set of priorities.

I have to say, nothing I've read in this discussion has changed my view that the Guardian is still, overall, a good newspaper. Looking at today's paper version and at their coverage domestic and international news - the situation in Syria, the NHS, Brazil, China, welfare reforms, Cologne -- all these topics are extensively reported in the paper. And that's what I want. I really can't get worked up about frothing rage in the below the line comments.

I noticed, looking at the online version, that a piece by Giles Fraser about secularism, religious hatred and racism in France had its comments closed - after it had attracted nearly 800 comments. That hardly seems to me to be shutting down debate - even though, of course, these are topics guaranteed to bring out vitriolic comment.

I really think those who are so upset about the moderation of CiF should get a life.