If you are new to this blog please see the Introduction.
If you have an example of censorship on The Huffington Post you would like to share please send me an email at: RedDog071@gmail.com
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Haven't posted any deleted comments in a while. I have mostly given up thinking anything is going to change at Huffpo and also just haven't been posting much or when I do post its shorter comments that don't get censored. I've mostly given up trying to have any serious discussions on Huffpo. Its just too frustrating when comments get censored for no reason just as you are having a good interaction with someone.
But I felt that I had to post the following example On a recent article about the new Remake of the Peckinpah movie Straw Dogs user weebils posted the following comment:
I see zero reasons for remaking this movie. It is a classic that was transforming at the time and it was hard to watch. I see some people on here posting about the female lead and how the movie was demeaning to women. I remember the times and this movie was actually a reflection of many issues that needed to be aired. It is easy to just blame men. But the fact is many women of the time did behave in childlike ways because that was expected. It is hard for many people to understand that at one time women were treated like children. Even in the sixties and seventies in the United States a husband was required to be present when a woman wanted to conduct business. A husband could do many things without the consent of his wife but it was not a two way street. Many women did use sexual or childish ways to get what they wanted Look at the antics Lucille Ball went through just to get a few extra bucks from Ricky. Look at the way he spoke to and treated her. That was on national TV and considered totally acceptable. Someone asked me once why Jackie O spoke in such a childlike voice. Again, that was considered appropriate for women. The movement was not just about liberating how men thought. It was also about liberating how women though about themselves and behaved. As I tried to reply to it the comment was deleted.
I thought this was a very thoughtful comment. I can see how some feminists might disagree but certainly that's the kind of issues that should be discussed, but no the comment was deleted. You may notice that my image has changed. It reflects that I'm spending more time blogging at richarddawkins.net where I am Red Dog
Monday, September 12, 2011
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I'll try to make a long story short yet still make sense. I apologize for starting so many sentences with the word, "I".
ReplyDeleteI tried to reply to a comment tonight, and like you, it appeared to be deleted. I then read a few comments about HuffPo moderating, and I curiously used the "hit reply" method as a test to see if they had deleted a comment cussing out the moderators = yep. I tried to reply to a VERY benign comment, but that was deleted, so I took more notice. I started checking them all and came to find a LOT more deleted comments (I had never seen this error message in all my times commenting before).
I became passionate about displaying these lost comments when a few were actually wonderful and important messages for people to read. I started to put together a whole blog post that could add to the awareness of this issue and perhaps expose potential strange biases. (An interesting minor theme to deleted comments seems to be spreading awareness. Perhaps if certain views are already known, it's all "let it be"? I could be off though.)
Now here's my strange problem: comments reappear. And then go away again. Or wait, was it all a glitch? I don't remember how I first discovered it happened more than twice (I probably refreshed and still saw about two "deleted" comments. I didn't clear my cache, but hey! the error message didn't give that instruction - also some elements seemed to change, like possibly new comments appearing and some maybe truly disappearing. I can't say for sure right now.)
I started to repeatedly click on those reply links as I noticed coments were turning back on but back off again. This happened the more I clicked, things changed more. At first, comments appeared to be either restored more often or delted more often, until it was all like coin flips. It did seem it was random following the law of averages, or whatnot; like it started to appear close to 50/50, for sure.
Also, after many refreshes, comments did consistently remain, yet still provided the error. (And then the "coin flip" results began.)
Now I'm lost! What's going on? Does anyone know?
I believe that hard-refreshing at a later point is useless. Right?
I do have some texts I can paste into a search... that's a start, but I'd like an answer to this probable glitch.
It appears to me this was a comment that warrants discussion. Lately, I'm averaging about half of my comments getting through HP moderation. I never use ad hominem attacks. And I am amazed at others' posts that do make it thru. I have no idea how/why my posts don't post, or if moderators simply delete what they don't like or disagree with. Huffpo really needs to do better than this. I know they have a lot of comments to weed through, but it is a sad day when this level of censorship is taking place.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, if its any consolation your experience isn't unique. Its why I barely bother to comment at Huffpo anymore.
ReplyDeletePlease check out some other posts on this blog, the Introduction and posts about the censor Bot called Julia. From the evidence I've seen its pretty clear to me that many posts never see the light of day because of the automated censorship system.
What's worse is that that system seems to me to be designed to ensure that serious debate doesn't happen but instead comments descend to a lowest common denominator of LOLs, insults, fanning. and badging.