Another Wave of Publications Shut Down Online Comments

AmiMoJo writes: The debate about comment sections on news sites is often as divisive as the comments themselves. Recently outlets such as The Verge and The Daily Dot have closed their comments sections because they've become too hard to manage. And they're far from alone. Moderating comments is a full-time job (or several full-time jobs) at many news organisations. Nicholas White, editor at The Daily Dot, noted that "in our experience, our community hasn't evolved in our comments. It's evolved in our social media accounts. To have comments, you have to be very active, and if you're not incredibly active, what ends up happening is a mob can shout down all the other people on your site. In an environment that isn't heavily curated it becomes about silencing voices and not about opening up voices."

Riese, co-founder and editor-in-chief of LGBT site Autostraddle, adds, "I completely understand why The Daily Dot wouldn't want to have comments — or in fact why most websites wouldn't want to have comments. I think 75% of the time they're more trouble than they're worth, and for us it's still a lot of work to keep up on. Not all of our users are necessarily on Facebook or are out as gay on Facebook, or are comfortable talking about queer stuff on Facebook. We keep comments on the site which is a safe space for people to exchange ideas — and that's a big factor for us."

Comments

Re:propaganda doesn't work well when called out

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Pretty much. The Verge straight up blames gamergate and the Daily Dot is currently featuring an article about how JK Rowling's upcoming production is just too damn white. This kind of behaviour is typical of the social justice brigade, whenever people start pointing out the many intellectual incoherencies in their hatemongering, they shut the discussion down.

Re:Slashdot

[pecosdave]

I'm wondering when they're going to start censoring.

I've been at least reading Slashdot, at least occasionally, since about 1997 or so? I've seen it change hands more than once. This latest owner is without a doubt taking a globalist posture. I know this due to the way the stuff that hits the front page are by default in agreement with the Third-Wave Feminist position on everything. Gamergate, women in STEM, the unquestioning stance on climate change and vaccines, the site has certainly taken a globalist stance since Cowboy Neil and Commander Taco are pretty much out of the picture and there's a media company behind it.

What hasn't changed is the very Libertarian approach to the comments section. I don't recall more than a few post ever getting censored on here, and most of that was due to legal threats (thanks Scientology!)

Unfortunately those with a globalist/authoritarian posture usually don't like their positions questioned, it's amazed me that Slashdot has kept it's comments formula for so long even with the changing of the guard. I fear this latest change may be the one that changes things, but so far it hasn't - other than the front page propaganda and increase in Slavertising.

On the other hand, the fact it has become an uncensored propaganda dispenser has put it in a very unique position of case-in-point commentary.