BRIETBART NEWS: The Left's War (led by Mandark) on Comment Sections

[benjipwns]

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/10/27/the-lefts-war-on-comment-sections/

The internet was born open but is becoming closed everywhere. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the rush to shutter readers’ comments sections at major news organisations. Cheered on by intolerant, snobbish cultural elites, news organisations from The Verge to The Daily Beast have, in recent months, informed their readers to take their opinions elsewhere.

Dozens of progressive blogs and news outlets are following suit, citing “abuse” and “harassment” as the primary reasons they no longer want to hear the opinions of their readers. But that’s not what is really going on.

There was a time when comments sections were seen as the next step in a golden age of democratised communication, particularly by the political Left. “For the first time ever, we are thinking aloud, unfiltered by mass media gatekeepers,” wrote a former Hillary Clinton advisor in 2008. “Never before has the global discourse been so accessible, recursive, and durable.”

In 2009, the former online editor for the Washington Post wrote that despite their problems, readers’ comments allowed readers to “complain about what they see as unfairness or inaccuracy” and remind editors that they “do not always agree with journalists about what is important.”

The late Georgina Henry, former editor of the Guardian’s online commentary pages, wrote in 2010 that “journalism without feedback, engagement, dispute and opinion from below the line no longer feels complete to me.” Indeed, the Guardian was once so enamoured of its comments section that it ran a weekly feature, Below the Line, in which “delightful, prolific, or controversial members of  the Guardian comment community” were invited to profile themselves.

The rise of comments sections coincided with the rise of another high-minded idea: the Crowd. If TED talks from the early 2010s are to be believed, the Crowd was set to revolutionise government, end poverty, and cure cancer. In an age when the Crowd was going to fix the world’s problems, it stood to reason that they should fix public discourse as well.

But the era of Silicon Valley-led optimism is over, at least for the journalists and publications that once eagerly reported on it. Today, the tone is misanthropic, not utopian, and the Crowd – at least as it appears in the comment boxes – is portrayed not as saviour, but as a sort of barbarous horde at the gates of politically-correct progressive society.

“Vibrant online communities? Or cesspits of abuse?” asked the BBC in a recent feature on the closure of comments sections. “Alongside shouting, swearing and incivility, comments sections can also attract racism and sexism,” the article continued.

This refrain can be found in almost every left-leaning publication these days. The Pacific Standard: “Even if [comments sections] aren’t vile and psychologically damaging, most of them aren’t worth your time.” Brooklyn Magazine: “Most comment sections are vats of poison, filled with grammatically questionable rants at best and violent hate speech at worst.” The Atlantic: “Online comments are often ignorant, racist, sexist, threatening, or otherwise worthless. But you knew that already.”

At the risk of sounding too self-congratulatory, here at Breitbart we embrace our readers’ opinions. We love hearing from you guys! And there are a lot of you: 1.2 million comments, not including Facebook, are left on Breitbart.com each month. We are in fact one of the most enthusiastically commented-upon sites anywhere on the internet.

There’s a gross double standard in what’s going on in the progressive mediasphere, of course. Many of the columnists who complain the loudest about spiky comments are themselves professional provocateurs. Consider Guardian columnist Jessica Valenti, the most recent commentator to complain about the “noxious thoughts” and “sea of garbage” in the comments section.

But Valenti is paid to write deliberately inflammatory columns, with titles like “Feminists don’t hate men, but it wouldn’t matter if we did.” She is also notorious for wearing a shirt bearing the slogan “I bathe in male tears.” Valenti is a great example of what one savvy blogger called an “above-the-line troll.” She may write columns rather than comments, but, like any troll, her words are designed to inflame and antagonise.

It’s no accident that so many of the loudest voices against online comments sections are also political zealots. Jessica Valenti, Arthur Chu, Tauriq Moosa, Anita Sarkeesian: all have come out against comment sections. This isn’t an accident, of course. Psychologists have long been aware that political extremists have the most negative reactions to contrary information. Combine that with a disdain for free speech, a core cultural authoritarian value, and you get a frantic rush to remove the opinions of ordinary people.

But there are also more sinister, elitist motivations. A study conducted by The Washington Post and USA Today found that readers who viewed articles with comments sections were more likely to develop a negative opinion of the news media. Curiously, this effect was seen even when commenters praised the article in question. In other words, when the opinions of journalists and the opinions or ordinary members of the public are placed close together, it leads readers to question the competence of the mainstream media. What horror!

Another study found that reading assertive, aggressive comments could actually sway the opinions of readers. “Don’t read the comments,” warned Ars Technica, “they can make you mistrust real experts.”

It’s a piece of advice that captures the war on comments sections perfectly. Having initially cheered on the death of the “gatekeepers of information,” cultural elites are now scrambling to reinstall those barriers. Too late, they have discovered that people don’t always agree with them – and now they want to push that disagreement into the wilderness of the internet.

For a while online, authoritarian progressives forgot that vanishingly few people in the real world agree with their feverish and silly “hot takes” on current news and their bizarre ideas about racism and sexism. Now the whole population is tech-savvy enough to have their say, authoritarians are scrambling for a return to the era of broadcast news, in which viewers were left with calling up the station and ranting down the phone as their only means of robust criticism.

living for truth • a day ago
If there is no comment section, I won't read the article, why? Because it shows me that the writer is an authoritarian jerk.

I will say this, if the libs are closing down comment sections, it is because conservatives are being effective in their arguments against progressive propaganda.

Expect to see a lot more progressives here since their outlets are closing them off. If progressives were actually intelligent, I would say they came up with a brilliant move to get their faithful to push their agenda, however, they are not brilliant, so this gives us opportunity to sway them into erudition and being able to learn critical thinking.

Eva_Galley  • a day ago
I don't mind a spirited debate with a liberal, but they always become unhinged and start name-calling when you hit 'em with facts.

Mary Waterton  • 12 hours ago
Notice that DISQUS (the commentary tool used at Breitbart and elsewhere) disabled the down-arrow function so you can no longer disagree with a comment. That is yet example of how the left has strangled free speech in the comment section.

JMGL • a day ago
Liberals are fragile, they simply cannot handle an opposing point of view. They'll resort to fascism to silence dissent.

clayusmcret • 2 days ago
It is very interesting to see where the trolls linger. Glenn McCoy, conservative cartoonist extraordinaire, has about a dozen or so who have leeched onto his cartoons and beat up on him and his viewers daily from underneath their bridges (or from their mother's basements). Outside of sites like Politico and others which wear their liberal smell on their sleeves, most of the orchestrated abuse happens in the comment sections themselves. There is clearly a concerted effort to run conservative commenters off the field of discussion at a large number of sites.


Bob Thomas  clayusmcret • a day ago
Orchestrated by George Soros.

Leone • 2 days ago
Proudly banned--for life--from numerous Lefty websites...The Atlantic...The Daily Kos...Mother Jones...The Nation...The Daily Beast...Huffington Post...The list goes on.

Not for foul language or being off topic, mind you...Just for voicing a respectful but dissenting point of view...The Left can't stand an honest debate...They run from it like chickens...And when they can't come up with a coherent or factual argument--they blitz you with flags to get you tossed off the forum.

They so much prefer to keep their little echo chambers pristine and free of intelligent discussion while everyone just stands around nodding to themselves like a bunch of grinning bobble-heads.


freddysrevng2  Leone • 2 days ago
Forget about political blog sites...I am banned from BGR "Boy Genius Report" for saying mean things about their religion aka "Apple".

twfuller • a day ago
The reason why comments sections are closing down is obvious. More and more conservative voices are being heard in the comments section of liberal publications and it is having a negative impact on Leftist ideology, while enjoying a positive impact for conservatism.. And as much as Leftists love free speech, so long as that free speech is coming from a Leftist perspective, Leftists hate and loathe, and despise, conservative speech. And Leftists do not want conservative speech spoken, or written, ANYWHERE! Least of all on their Leftists news sites.

Keep up the hard work, conservatives.. We are doing a very good and effective job at pushing back Leftism in America.

Daniel Overton • 2 days ago
The press is running scared. The press has no power over We the people. Donald Trump is a political Spartacus and so are We.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Jim • a day ago
We are always civil, respectful and cordial here on Breitbart. Oh, and before I forget... F**k liberals and progressives.

[close]

[Mandark]

Fuck Up Some Comments

[benjipwns]

let's have a upvote shower right now

[VomKriege]

Political Spartacus

[Am_I_Anonymous]

[Phoenix Dark]

My mom discovered comments sections last year and legit got rustled. I've tried to tell her comments sections are worthless but she continues to get upset about that shit. Who cares.

There are so many places to discuss shit on the Internet...not having a comment section doesn't prevent anyone from discussing anything. And if you enter a comments section you should expect a shit show. Crying over it is like going into a mosh pit and complaining about the physicality.

[ToxicAdam]

There was a time when comments sections were seen as the next step in a golden age of democratised communication,

All those lines you bolded and missed the greatest one.

[Samson Manhug]

What if we were posting from a comments section right now

[brob]

Notice that DISQUS (the commentary tool used at Breitbart and elsewhere) disabled the down-arrow function so you can no longer disagree with a comment. That is yet example of how the left has strangled free speech in the comment section.


demi u free speech strangling piece of shit let me neg comments on this leftist hugbox hellhole you call a forum

[Brehvolution]

[recursivelyenumerable]

Thanks for the comment.

*Seinfeld bass*

[qq more]

"We're always respectful and civil EXCEPT FOR YOU PROGRESSIVE FUCKS!!"

[benjipwns]

I loved her blog comments on The Atlantic.

Holy crap, blighter is still posting, now on her bloomberg view blog. That guy is great. He used to catch so many flies on The Atlantic. Even on the posts filled with tells.

blighter  2 years ago

Conor writes: "Really? You've followed U.S. politics closely your whole life, and what you've most enjoyed is a health care web site's failure and people having their insurance cancelled? See, for me, it's the Berlin Wall falling."

Really? You enjoyed the failure of an ideology & political system that had provided not only enormous material progress but also deep spiritual meaning to millions of people? Wouldn't it have behooved you to quell those base instincts and instead work towards fixes that could allow the eastern block to ameliorate those few side issues that caused arguably sub-optimal performance in some aspects of their system rather than take unseemly delight in their total failure and utter abasement?

Look, let's be clear: no one is going to claim that the communist block or Obamacare, for that matter, are absolutely perfect. What is beyond dispute is that regardless of any flaws, they both had much to recommend them, they were both crafted & implemented with nothing but the most noble of intentions and they both replaced systems that were unquestionably broken.

The idea that it is unseemly to take delight in the failure of one but utterly banal to delight in the failure of the other is bizarre.

[benjipwns]

petefrombaltimore  • 4 hours ago
xtmar
I think that its more of a caseof many of our present leaders[who are age 50-80] basing their opinions on Europe on a backpacking trip through Western Europe, that they took in the 1970s

Ive always had a theory about this. The ones who got laid in the laundry room of some French youth hostel, with a Swedish backpacker , ended up becoming liberal. And the ones who ended up working as an academic in the UK during The Winter of Discontent [like Newt Gingrich] became conservatives

You can picture poor Newt Gingrich , back in the late 1970s, shivering in the cold as he waits for a British Rail train that never comes because the ASLEF Union is on strike. He goes home to a very cold bed Sit that isn't heated because the coal miners are on strike. And he mutters to himself

"F&$k Socialism !"

[ ive read more than a few books by liberal authors who claim that Europe is "superior " to America.And they almost always start off by recounting a backpacking trip across Europe in the 1970s.]

[Kara]

Comment isn't free.

[Brehvolution]

It's funny they say that when most of the right wing site comments are screened before they go live. If the comments don't support the narrative they aren't posted. How is that any better?

[Shadow Mod]

I went to a comment section recently at the end of an article about cool crafting shit you can do with pennies. It was an argument about defacing currency and some people were really adamant and pissed about it. 

[recursivelyenumerable]

I talk a good game but I still pretty much always read the comments. Lord give me strength. :'(

[Madrun Badrun]

I always wondered what went wrong with you.  It's going to be OK buddy.

[recursivelyenumerable]

oh god did I just out myself to the whole forum last night, how is post deleted

[Madrun Badrun]

Don't delete it.  Now that we know, we can help you.  I'm going to call A&E, then we will all read you letters, then they will take you to a padded room for the rest of your life so you don't harm others, you comment-reader. 

[Great Rumbler]

A&E could do a show like hoaders, but with people who are addicted to reading internet comment sections.

[Madrun Badrun]

and each episode should end by sending the comment-reader to an open prison.  It could be called 'Escape from New York Times'.   

[Tasty]

http://blog.codinghorror.com/a-blog-without-comments-is-not-a-blog/

[Madrun Badrun]

It hung when it was loading so it was only a blank page.  I thought that was a clever joke.  Then words appeared and ruined it.  Did not read. 

[Phoenix Dark]

you can just tell Walrus is a comments section troll. The anger, outbursts, the multiple accounts, the lack of any chill...I'm pretty sure he's told at least 147 people online to kill themselves this year.

[Rufus]

Btw, you misspelt Breitbart.

[Samson Manhug]

What's the German word for foreigners misspelling foreign words?

[Madrun Badrun]

Must have been a hell of a boxing match to get you so riled up, Walrus. 

[benjipwns]

Btw, you misspelt Breitbart.

more left-wing PC culture speech policing!

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Rufus]

What's the German word for foreigners misspelling foreign words?

Fremdenfehler*

Fremdenrechtschreibfehler would be the more specific word, but it's a mouthful. Rechtschreibfehler being misspellings specifically. Or right-write-mistakes.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

*Literally a stranger's mistake. I adapted it from Fremdfehler, which is an extraneous error. Example being a project of yours failing because of someone else's dodgy parts. There's also Fremdverschulden, which is the same idea but for accidents. Rear-ending someone because you yourself were rear-ended, for instance. Speaking of, isn't it funny that the word for debt (Schulden) is the plural of guilt (Schuld)?

[close]

[Kara]

Heroes never die.

[Samson Manhug]

What's the German word for foreigners misspelling foreign words?

Fremdenfehler*

Fremdenrechtschreibfehler would be the more specific word, but it's a mouthful. Rechtschreibfehler being misspellings specifically. Or right-write-mistakes.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

*Literally a stranger's mistake. I adapted it from Fremdfehler, which is an extraneous error. Example being a project of yours failing because of someone else's dodgy parts. There's also Fremdverschulden, which is the same idea but for accidents. Rear-ending someone because you yourself were rear-ended, for instance. Speaking of, isn't it funny that the word for debt (Schulden) is the plural of guilt (Schuld)?

[close]

I love this so much. What's the German word for answering a facetious question with a literal answer?

[Rufus]

Autismus.

[Samson Manhug]

Is a person who makes a stranger's mistake a Fremdenfehlerer? I am going to start using this in casual conversation. /noKara

[Rufus]

I guess so, yes, but if you're not careful it'd sound like you're calling people tourist guides.

[Samson Manhug]

Fremdenführer?

[Rufus]

Yup.