Comment is NOT Free! (The Guardian)

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21st July, 2009

Comment is NOT Free!

Quietzapple – Censored by The Guardian for being Pro-Government

Recently someone has been in touch with me in deep anger over the censorship and seeming dictatorial behaviour of certain Free Speech Guardian Cif moderators.

He has sent me this:

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Comment is NOT Free!

Censored – for being pro British Government!

What would induce anyone to complain to The Guardian thus?

Dear Sir/Madam,

You are are currently pre moderating my comments prior to  posting or withholding them from view.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/users/quietzappple/comments

As I am one of the few who regularly take a pro HMG  (Her Majesty’s government) view this amounts to political censorship of the most gross kind, detrimental to the reputation of your newspaper, as is intended by some of those who take an anti Labour view.

This seems to have stemmed from a recent post you deleted which was aimed at several Daily Telegraph/Guido posters complaints, which, as they averred in one of their posts which you also deleted, were designed to get me banned from your site.

Please advise,

In practice Quietzapple is finding 2 in 3 of his posts, none of them abusive, libelous or otherwise objectionable to anyone except that he speaks from a generally pro Government line which will upset the right and left alike.

Guardian moderators are “volunteers.” Who volunteers one wonders?

Rather a coincidence that the moderately phrased posts of a moderate – for example lauding family, working and pension tax credits, and the improvements in women’s entitlements – are being “pre-moderated” while, for example:

MrPikeBishop: BTW Poll, a lot of us would like be be like the Nordics – but how are we going to persuade thirty million people to piss off someplace else?

stands in the face of reasoned objection?

Amusingly Quietzapple’s last post to be deleted alerted the Guardian to the triumphal rantings of nazis from the Telegraph on a Polly Toynbee blog, where they threatened to drive him from the site, as they claimed to have driven him from the Telegraph blogs.

“Yes they repeatedly called me an SFB – “Son of a Fucking Bitch” – and worse, but really it was the “Communites’ Editor” Shane Richmond deleting months worth of posts to which they rarely had any answer, and in particular one pointing out that the American immigrant journalist Janet Daley’s attack on other immigrants coming here supposedly to take advantage of the NHS were hypocritical which did it for me.

“Abuses, censorship and libels are not the new Hypocrisy, but they are adjuncts the extreme right and their billionaire inspired press are happy to use on the telegraph, or the Guardian.” he said.

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BLAIR SUPPORTER’S THOUGHTS

I have never gone down particularly well at The Guardian.

If you don’t instinctively want to skin alive Tony Blair there’s clearly something wrong with you as far the peace-and-lovers on there are concerned.

But I have not yet been blocked, although one or two of my comments , though never personally abusive, have been deleted. Usually after they have posted my comment and then noticed that I have said something about the CIF pages being the ‘hangout for the insane’.

Well? True isn’t it? At least I don’t call for their hanging from the nearest lamppost.

We seem to be facing irrationality and censorship of the most worrying sort at The Guardian’s Cif pages.  We’re used to it at The Mail, but nothing better can be expected from the perspective of their Tory bias. The Guardian’s censorship, on the other hand, is of people who are generally LEFT politically, but not Left enough for them. This censorship is clearly in action when moderators frequently delete the few opposing voices, even though they are usually the civilised non-abusive voices. They can always claim, without presumably having to PROVE it,  that they removed comments because of a request by another commenter in their comment tickbox – “complain about this comment”.

Often tempted, I have never asked for a comment to be removed, even when they are clearly libelous and incite murder. I prefer to leave such inciteful abuse there for more balanced readers to see exactly what we are dealing with on the CIF pages.

REGULAR CIF COMMENTERS

Such commenters as the foul-mothed PikeBishop seem to be heroes to the Guardian CIF-ers. I have referred to their mindset before, and it is clearly anti-democracy, anti-government, anti-Britain, anti-Blair, anti-Bush, anti-Brown. They are hardly typical conservative voters on the whole, though some undoubtedly are. I recognise, when I visit there, which is infrequently, some Liberal Democrat policies being floated. But I do not conclude that they are all Liberal Democrats.

I have long wondered if anarchists and inflitrating foreign individuals are responsible for a lot of their patent prejudice.

CIF MODERATORS

Moderators at The Guardian are self-selecting, apart from a few according to their FAQ page.

EXCERPT -

Q: Who moderates the moderators? Do moderators work for the editor of a particular blog or part of the site?
A: The majority of our moderators are part of the central Community Team which is part of guardian.co.uk and reports to the Editor, guardian.co.uk.

All moderators work closely with editors and editorial staff across the guardian.co.uk site and many have specialist knowledge or experience which means they work predominantly in one or more subject areas. As part of our growing recognition that editorial and community management need to work closely together, some moderators therefore report directly into the editor of a particular section or site (e.g. Comment is free).

However, the Community Standards, which the moderators are responsible for enforcing, are set centrally, although we consult with the senior editorial team when revising them. Additionally, the Community Team regularly reviews activity on the site with relevant editorial departments, as well as updating them on any policy or approach changes.

While site editors don’t directly influence moderation policy or daily process, moderation decisions are sometimes taken after consulting with editors who have specialist knowledge about particular subject areas.

Incidentally, we ask staff members and blog contributors (e.g. freelance authors) to report potential problems in participation areas using exactly the same method as everyone else. If a staff member spots an issue, they report it in the normal way to bring it to the attention of a moderator, who will then make a decision based on the usual criteria. Authors don’t moderate their own content.

Q: I have a complaint about moderation, how do I escalate it?
A: Unfortunately, the huge (and growing) quantity of user content on guardian.co.uk means that we can’t enter into correspondence regarding specific moderation activity, although all correspondence will be read. If you have suggestions or questions about any aspect of moderation and community participation on guardian.co.uk, you can write to community.suggestions@guardian.co.uk or cif.moderation@guardian.co.uk (as appropriate)

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Tags: Censorship, Cif Guardian, CIF moderators, comment is free, free speech at The Guardian, letter to the Guardian, quietzapple