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A CiF commenter wrote the following beneath the line of Sunny Hundal’s essay (“Privatising Margaret Thatcher’s funeral would be a fitting tribute to her legacy“) which argued that the future funeral for the still living former British PM should be privatized.
Here are a few extracts from the Guardian’s “community standards” policy
1. We welcome debate and dissent, but personal attacks (on authors, other users or any individual), persistent trolling and mindless abuse will not be tolerated. The key to maintaining the Guardian website as an inviting space is to focus on intelligent discussion of topics.
How precisely is a jokey article about a living person’s impending death consistent with this community standard?
By my count, about half the comments here should be deleted on this ground, alone. But nasty comments about somebody dying – as soon as possible – have been invited by the tone of this piece.
3. We understand that people often feel strongly about issues debated on the site, but we will consider removing any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening. Please respect other people’s views and beliefs and consider your impact on others when making your contribution.
Again, it is hard to think of a more offensive thing than glorying in the prospect of somebody’s death. But that’s a fair characterisation of about half the comments on this thread.
5. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate-speech, or contributions that could be interpreted as such. We recognise the difference between criticising a particular government, organisation, community or belief and attacking people on the basis of their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age.
I would have thought jokes about a very old person being about to die constitutes “attacking people on the basis of their … age”
In short:
- If you act with maturity and consideration for other users, you should have no problems.
– Don’t be unpleasant. Demonstrate and share the intelligence, wisdom and humour we know you possess.
– Take some responsibility for the quality of the conversations in which you’re participating. Help make this an intelligent place for discussion and it will be.Joking about a living person’s death is a wonderful display of intelligence, wisdom and humour, and is in no way unpleasant .
I’d be interested to see if the Guardian actually applies its own moderation policy.
Then:
Then, if you look for the user’s profile, you get this.
That’s right. A user was completely banned for questioning whether ‘Comment is Free’ was abiding to their own “community standards”.
Perhaps the paper is a little on edge in light of recent highly embarrassing revelations that the biggest “scoop” of their obsessive phone hacking coverage – which claimed, in a sensationalized cover story, that a News of the World reporter deleted messages left on the voicemail of Milly Dowler’s mobile phone – was patently untrue!
Indeed, two days ago, the Guardian published a correction, noting that no less than 37 Guardian stories had been revised due to the above false report.
And, they’re worried about a single commenter under a CiF thread, questioning whether the institution is abiding by its own stated guidelines?
Thin-skinned and hypocritical are two terms, among many, which certainly seem apt in characterizing the ethically challenged “liberal” broadsheet.
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In November of 2009, CiF Watch exposed (Guardian moderator) “BellaM” engaging in an ad hominem attack on Melanie Phillips in her capacity as a Guardian staff member:
As we noted, “Her comment spurred post after post of mouth-frothing denunciation of Melanie Phillips in the now infamous Ed Husain thread that we reported on in our post Two Minutes Hate: Melanie Phillips bashing on the Ed Husain thread.”
Further, we noted, the the real name of “BellaM” turned out to be Isabella Mackie, and that Mackie was the maiden name of the wife of none other than Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger. Isabella Mackie used her mother’s surname when taking a job at the Guardian’s website to disguise the fact that she was the daughter of the paper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger.
As The Jewish Chronicle reported at the time, the Guardian issued an official statement acknowledging that BellaM’s actions were inappropriate and noted that they “reminded BellaM of the paper’s guidelines that staff posting on the site ‘should uphold a high standard of civility and avoid any behaviour that might bring the Guardian’s good name into disrepute’”. [emphasis mine]
So, given this background, it was intriguing to see the Guardian’s recent report on Phillips’ counter-attack against those (in the blogosphere and on Twitter) attaching some sort of significance to the fact that she was mentioned in the purported manifesto of Norway terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik - a list which also includes Winston Churchill, Bernard Lewis, Edmund Burke, Thomas Jefferson, Mahatma Gandhi, John Locke, and George Orwell.
The story quotes Phillips:
“A concerned reader has sent me a post by Sunny Hundal on the Liberal Conspiracy blog,” Phillips wrote. “Hundal brings us what he clearly considers to be the most important news about the Norwegian atrocity. This is that, in the ‘manifesto’ reportedly published by the terrorist suspect Anders Behring Breivik, two of my articles are quoted.
“Golly. Is Hundal suggesting that my writing provoked the mass murder of some 93 Norwegians? Doubtless with one eye on the law of libel, he piously avers: ‘There is no suggestion that his actions were inspired by Melanie Phillips, nor am I making that claim’.”
Phillips is further quoted:
“”In fact, there are only two references to me or my work in its 1,500 pages … Why has he singled me out in this way? It looks like yet another crude attempt to smear me. … The supposed beliefs of Norway massacre’s perpetrator has got the left in general wetting itself in delirium at this apparently heaven-sent opportunity to take down those who fight for life, liberty and western civilisation against those who would destroy it.”
So, yes, the Guardian quoted Phillips fairly, and didn’t in any way legitimize the lunacy of suggestions that her writings somehow influenced the Norway shooter’s actions.
Finally, however, not mentioned in the otherwise fair piece was the fact that the blog in question, Liberal Conspiracy, which smeared Phillips, also just happens to be part of the elite group of partner blogs within the Guardian’s Comment Network, and the particular blogger at Liberal Conspiracy who wrote the post, Sunny Hundal, also just happens to be a Guardian contributor.
I can only wonder what BellaM thinks of all of this.
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CiF commenter suggests Tony Blair should be killed: 68 ‘Recommends’ & NOT deleted by CiF Moderators
December 31, 2011 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Biased Moderation, Comment is Free, Community standards, Guardian, Islamism, Sunny Hundal, Tony Blair | by Adam Levick | 30 comments
One of CiF Watch’s signature posts is “Why was this deleted” and, alternately, “Why wasn’t this deleted”?
We spend quite a bit of time monitoring comments beneath the line at ‘Comment is Free’ observing what precisely runs afoul of their “community standards”, and have documented scores of examples of pro-Israel comments being deleted, while some of the most hateful anti-Zionist vitriol remains.
Beyond the narrow issue of deleted comments, however, there are some commenters whose apostasy has rendered them in a state of pre-moderation – where CiF Moderators review, and then release, on a case by case basis, only those comments deemed acceptable.
The last strike for unruly CiF commenters is to have their user privileges permanently suspended due to an especially egregious violation, or pattern of violations, of their norms.
We recently documented two cases in which such a ban was employed – one commenter for merely questioning whether an essay by Sunny Hundal was consistent with Guardian editorial guidelines, and another for simply asking CiF Moderators why his/her comments, noting the Islamist (pro-Muslim Brotherhood) sympathies of CiF contributor, Wajahat Ali, were being deleted.
While the latter example seemingly demonstrates that the Guardian is not about to have their consistent licensing of pro-Islamist voices – who espouse views they evidently deem consistent with “liberal” thought – questioned, the former suggests an institution which is, at the very least, remarkably thin-skinned.
In light of this propensity by CiF Moderators to ban users for content they deem offensive, the following comment, beneath the line of Ranj Alaaldin‘s CiF essay on Dec. 22, “Iraq must divide to survive“, which has not been deleted, nor resulted in the commenter being banned, is especially curious.
Is there any question this commenter is referring to Tony Blair? And, further, is there any doubt that the commenter using the moniker “ChanceyGardener” is suggesting that Blair be killed?
Here are a few CiF standards, from their ‘Community standards and guidelines‘ page, which would seem relevant when assessing comments calling for murder:
So, the suggestion that a former British Prime Minister should be executed: “divisive”, “threatening”, or “toxic”?
You think?!
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