The Dark Side of the Net

The Guardian is again groaning on about nasty comments below the line on its articles. Apparently, those nasty readers just don’t treat the journalists with the respect they deserve…

Of course, there are a number of things going on here. This first is that, like other newspapers, the journalists and editors at the Guardian had, until the invention of the web, been insulated from the opinions of the people they subjected to their ill-informed, ill-researched, ignorant opinions and churnalism. Now, unfortunately for them, the readers can point out that the articles and opinion pieces are nonsense and they do so in vigorous terms and colourful language and, the Guardianista don’t like it.

So they’ve decided to take a closer look at the phenomenon, because, you see, it isn’t them that’s the problem, it’s us.

New research into our own comment threads provides the first quantitative evidence for what female journalists have long suspected: that articles written by women attract more abuse and dismissive trolling than those written by men, regardless of what the article is about.

Although the majority of our regular opinion writers are white men, we found that those who experienced the highest levels of abuse and dismissive trolling were not. The 10 regular writers who got the most abuse were eight women (four white and four non-white) and two black men. Two of the women and one of the men were gay. And of the eight women in the “top 10”, one was Muslim and one Jewish.

Ah, so it’s misogyny and racism. It never occurs to them that those women are often writing the kind of misandrist bile that, were the reverse the case, there would be uproar – not least among the hypocrites in the Guardian offices. And I bet a pound to a penny, one of those black men is Joseph Harker. He gets well deserved abuse because he is a racist and his articles are riddled with anti-white racism. Again, turn the whole thing around and you will see the behaviour for what it is. Which, of course, is what people do. They aren’t stupid. If you publish abusive commentary, the commentariat are likely to respond in kind. Justifiably so.

Then there’s the Toynbee effect; where the article is so full of ignorant, lazy, unresearched, ill-informed shit that Joseph Bazalgette would’ve struggled to cope with the sheer volume of effluence. And that’s before you even start with the rank hypocrisy. These vile people have been so used to spouting their metropolitan, champagne-socialist fuckwittery without any challenge from the lumpen masses readership, that when the readers do get the opportunity to vent their anger at such gibberish, they do so with gusto. Unless it’s about Muslims – because the Groan has become weary of its hacks being taken to task over their dhimmitude, so these articles no longer allow comments.

The Guardian is currently running a campaign encouraging people to subscribe in order to support quality journalism. They’re having a laugh… Quality journalism and the Guardian is a contradiction in terms. It is a repulsive leftist rag that will publish any hate ridden diatribe providing the target is white, middle-aged men (preferably Tories). White middle-aged men who then respond in kind are labelled as abusive and “trolls”. The fact that they are responding to abuse cuts no ice here.

While it’s not a bad thing that the Guardian is indulging in some introspection, likely as not, their blindness to their own faults will lead to nothing much found that is of note – other than that fault being outside of the Guardian offices, of course.

Anyway, I did their little test. Of the nine comments, I’d have allowed eight through. Rather more than the thin-skinned folk at the Groan who will zap anything that strays from their official line – or is a teensy bit “offensive”. Although, to be fair, things have changed a little on that score, given that many of their usual commenters are in favour of Brexit and are scathing about the bullshit the Groan and its journos are pissing out of late.

All of that said, I don’t have an issue with moderation. I do the same. When Rickie/Dickie Doubleday (now calling himself Trent) first sullied these shores with his juvenile cack, I deleted and banned his comments. Likewise with Bane/Patroller/Dave and I did so because far from adding to the debate, they sought to derail it and to engage in personal vendettas against other people.

So, yes, moderation is fine if judiciously applied. Indeed even if it is not – but if you do as happens with the Guardian, don’t try to dress it up as free speech, because it isn’t.  And let’s be clear here, the Guardian is a hotbed of misandry and racism. Telling them that will get you moderated. Their gaff, their rules of course, but everyone can see it for what it is, though.

8 Comments

  1. “it’s not a bad thing that the Guardian is indulging in some introspection,”

    Some might think they do it all the time, given that their heads appear to be firmly wedged up their hypocritical champagne socialist arses.

  2. The Telegraph has joined the Guardian in protecting the delicate flowers of the Islington-based commentariat. Today, for instance, Emma Barnett’s “it’s nothing to do with Islam” drivel is not open for comment from hoi polloi. This is an increasingly prevalent feature of the not-so-rightwing Telegraph.

    • Yep. Must be the Barclay clones getting hypersensitive again. All comment cancelled. You can always try the dreaded Express or even the even more dreaded Mail. Say what you like, they allow comments on all stories except those currently in court.

  3. Actually, I hadn’t realised: it seems the Telegraph has cancelled all comment, not just anything which might upset Islamophiliacs. You are allowed to tweet or share on facebook of course but, frankly, that’s not quite the same.

    • They ‘changed their format’ with great fanfare a couple of weeks ago to an ‘exiting, up-to-date’ look. Much blowing of own trumpets in the blurb that appeared on the morning of the change. What they didn’t mention was that they had quietly dropped ‘Disqus’ altogether, so now there are no comments on anything. Stupid, really, since for the most part the comments were the best part of the newspaper, and I would guess they will see their readership plummet as a result. The DT has been on a downward spiral since the departure of Conrad Black, and now comments have been binned, there really is no reason to bother reading it anymore. Bland, predictable and utterly ‘on message’ with the PC agenda. The comments were the only thing that saved it.

      Sad, it used to be a quite readable paper twenty years ago. Particularly when Auberon Waugh graced its pages.

  4. Well, if the Grauniad Journo’s didn’t write such easily fiskable sh*te, perhaps there would be fewer negative comments. As for the Tellytubbygraph, their online site barely merits a glance nowadays.

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