Andrew Bolt has clearly been sweating bullets since Pure Poison was launched. Just now he has written about us for the third time since we kicked off last Thursday, and for the third time he has refused to name or link to this blog for fear that his readers might get the other side of his paranoid story and make up their own minds.
As part of Bolta’s campaign to misinform his readers he has mercilessly chopped up my words, conveniently leaving out links to proof of his biased, unfair and unethical comment moderation practices. Here’s what I wrote on Friday.
Anybody who has been unlucky enough to spend time wading through the comment threads at Bolt or Blair’s blogs know that their commenters (supporters and opponents) can say some pretty poisonous things. However, the uneven moderation policy at both sites tends to filter out a lot of comments that are roughly critical of the writers, on the grounds that they use abusive language or that the commenter is “trolling” (repeating themselves over and over.) The hypocrisy is stark given that the same abusive language and trolling behaviours are apparent in (published) supportive comments.
The best part about all of this is that Bolta has the nerve to link commenting at his blog to exercising free speech! Hands up if you’ve ever had a comment rejected at his blog. Hands up if it was nowhere near as poisonous as a published comment who agreed with the writer.
And it’s not just moderation with extreme prejudice at play here. Comments at Bolt’s (not sure about Blair’s) are routinely “snipped” if Mr Bolt becomes bored with reading them, and comments at Bolt’s have even been outright edited for content. In that particular case, when the commenter in question asked for an explanation he was labelled a “troll” and told to go away.
So it’s time for Pure Poison to use the combined resources of its readership to collect the most poisonous examples of comments at the blogs of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair. Every month I’ll kick off a comment thread where you can cut-and-paste the poisonous comments you find (try to include a link where possible.) Remember that we’re looking for poisonous comments from commenters who agree and disagree with Bolt and Blair.
I’ll place a link to this post at the top of the sidebar so it’s easy to find once it sinks down the page.
Have at it!
And here’s that same block of text with the bits that Andrew didn’t reprint for his readers crossed out.
Anybody who has been unlucky enough to spend time wading through the comment threads at Bolt or Blair’s blogs know that their commenters (supporters and opponents) can say some pretty poisonous things. However, the uneven moderation policy at both sites tends to filter out a lot of comments that are roughly critical of the writers, on the grounds that they use abusive language or that the commenter is “trolling” (repeating themselves over and over.) The hypocrisy is stark given that the same abusive language and trolling behaviours are apparent in (published) supportive comments.The best part about all of this is that Bolta has the nerve to link commenting at his blog to exercising free speech! Hands up if you’ve ever had a comment rejected at his blog. Hands up if it was nowhere near as poisonous as a published comment who agreed with the writer.
And it’s not just moderation with extreme prejudice at play here. Comments at Bolt’s (not sure about Blair’s) are routinely “snipped” if Mr Bolt becomes bored with reading them, and comments at Bolt’s have even been outright edited for content. In that particular case, when the commenter in question asked for an explanation he was labelled a “troll” and told to go away.So it’s time
for Pure Poison to use the combined resources of its readershipto collect the most poisonous examples of comments at the blogs of Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair.Every month I’ll kick off a comment thread where you can cut-and-paste the poisonous comments you find (try to include a link where possible.) Remember that we’re looking for poisonous comments from commenters who agree and disagree with Bolt and Blair.I’ll place a link to this post at the top of the sidebar so it’s easy to find once it sinks down the page.
Have at it!
Bolt also implies that the editor of Crikey, Jonathan Green, has tried to weasel out of denying his publication’s involvement in supposed planting of racist comments at Bolt’s blog by Pure Poison, calling Green’s denial a “non-reply”. Here is Green’s “non-reply”.
The claim in this post that an internet publication connected to Crikey publisher Eric Beecher might be making mischievous postings on this and other blogs is utterly without foundation. We presume Andrew is referring to Crikey. Presumably not to Business Spectator or the other finance-based titles in Mr Beecher’s Private Media stable. We have not made, nor have any persons connected to Crikey made, any comment posts on the Bolt blog aimed at testing the boundaries of the blog’s moderation policy. We do not do this, would not do this, and resent the implication that we might have done this. The suggestion above borders on the defamatory.
Seems pretty bloody clear to me.
UPDATE: Just for clarity, I know that Bolt is very carefully and disingenuously ensuring that he never accuses us or other Crikey staff of actually writing the comments, sticking with the line that we’re encouraging them, but there’s what you say by saying it, and what you say by not saying it. It’s like Donald Rumsfeld’s “known knowns” thang, but different.
UPDATE II: Chances of this comment getting approved?
UPDATE III: Comment approved with — surprise, surprise! — modifications.
So Bolt and his moderators go to extreme lengths to replace “Pure Poison” with “ERIC BEECHER’S SITE” in all approved comments (including mine), and then carelessly leave our blog’s name in the first reply to my modified comments. Slick, Bolt. Slick.
UPDATE IV: (This is all getting very Blair with the updates, innit?) Mere minutes after I published update III the comment containing our blog’s name was disappeared.
UPDATE V: Oh, dear. Bolt’s moderators aren’t having a very good night, with a link to Pure Poison slipping through in a comment by Tobias and remaining on the site for nearly an hour despite “Infidel Tiger” dobbing on him.
UPDATE VI: (This update thing is fun! No wonder Tim loves it.) Jeremy wins best SNIP ever.
57 Comments
Good post.
Andrew Bolt has all the professional ethics of an (No). Cases in point:
1. His history of defamation, and his failure to apologise for this in any way
2. (Can’t say that THR, sorry: JG)
3. ‘Pandagate’, whereby he attacked individuals without a shred of evidence whatsoever, eventually making a total goose of himself. Rather than eating a little humble pie, he then began threatening the employment of individuals behind his errors.
I’m sure other readers have more examples. We can conclude that he is a proven (Cut here) several times over.
Furthermore, I doubt anybody who has had the misfortune to stumble across his sewer of a blog would seriously doubt that his commenters are frequently venomous little bigots. Take, for instance, his first commenter in the post above – MK, proprietor of a certain hate blog to which I won’t link here.
Little wonder that when Bolt starts getting called on his nonsense, he exceeds himself in cowardice and dishonesty. Keep up the good work, PP-ers!
and just like all his other (sorry can’t say that. JG), I’m sure this one will also remain uncorrected even though bolt’s been caught out. again.
when will the herald sun take responsibility for its errant columnist and ensure that bolt reports the facts as they are available in the public domain? and more to the point, who if anyone is doing bolt’s fact-checking? seems they need the boot.
Panic stations at the sewage farm! Keep up the good work, Scott, I’m sure there will be an increasing number of whiney pieces from Andy B.
Great post, Scott. And Bolt’s confident assertion about the “lack of poisonous material on this blog” is belied by the instances we have collected here in just a few days, let alone the loads of earlier instances noted in many different parts of the blogosphere.
And, as always, Bolt won’t link to a site that shows up his falsehoods and distortions. He and his supporters will claim it is to avoid giving them advertising revenue, but it conveniently serves to keep his readers from coming into contact with the facts.
UpdateII is a Boltslapping masterstroke.
Good stuff, Scott.
It’s hilarious that the deeper the hole Bolt digs for himself over this ill-conceived smear campaign (what is it with right-wingers and smear campaigns?), the more he’s showing himself to be guilty of precisely the kind of dishonesty and cowardice his critics constantly point out.
Honestly, Andrew — keep up the good work. It’s money for jam here while you’re intent on behaving in so childish and disgraceful a manner.
Nice work, Scott. I can’t believe how nutty Andy’s going lately over PP and this so-called smear campaign. Paranoia strikes!
1st comment…
“It’s a well known tactic of the left, to bait and do just about everything possible to discredit us conservatives. They’ll resort to anything and everything to silence those they hate.
MK (Reply)”
Looking forward to the subsequent tirades, I’m sure they won’t disappoint.
Any minute now he’s going to put Scott’s comment & link up….
Scott’s comment has appeared now – along with a few others critical of him and his conspiracy theory. But my favourites are the ones telling Andrew that he’s obviously getting under our skin – got irony?
This one’s terrific. And respect to the Bolterator who let it through:
Gone by the morning?
I cannot believe all references to Pure Poison have been “snipped”.
Bloody hell. Andy really isn’t such a strong defender of “free speech” and shit, after all, is he?
Irony and hypocrisy abound on his blog.
It’s interesting that of all the participants in these political debates, it’s only Andrew Bolt who refuses point-blank to link to critics when addressing them. Blair’s also on News Ltd, and he’s apparently allowed to link to us.
The only people I won’t link to are those who’ve gone after my family and private life. Since we’ve never done anything like that to him, I don’t know how Andy justifies his cowardice.
PS I love the “Readers tell me…”, “some people…”, “Not that I hold Mr Eric Beecher or his quality staff personally responsible, of course…” cop-outs.
What a complete wuss.
And the clumsy ERIC BEECHER’S SITE replacements just highlight how scared he’s running.
I don’t know why, but I’d actually expected better of Bolt. I never realised how scared of open debate he really is.
Oh, Bron – this one’s gold.
“mh replied to mh
Tue 24 Feb 09 (09:28pm)
Are you one of the radical leftist smear-campaigners, Bron? Sounds like you have something to hide.”
ARE YOU, Bron? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE?
We’ll see if this one gets through:
“Oh, alright, you win, Andrew. I admit it. It was me.
I’ve actually been writing all the racist, stupid, deranged, hysterical, violent, hateful, illiterate left-abusing comments on yours and tim’s blogs for the past four years, just to give conservatives a bad name. None of the bad ones were really from conservatives – the genuine right-wing contributions were the reasonable, well-argued and respectful ones. The rest were mine.
I apologise to your moderators for all the work I’ve forced them to do, occasionally deleting my stuff when it became embarrassing not to – and I regret that I did make it so unnecessarily difficult for them, by following my most unacceptable posts with such effusive praise for Andrew that obviously removing them was heart-breaking.
Hell, I’ve even been doing it on this thread.
I just wish I could stop. I am so sorry to your one or two genuine commenters for wasting their time for so long.”
I hope he accepts it. I’d hate for him to go on being angry with me.
ARE YOU, Bron? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE?
Oh shit. How did s/he know about my items from Club X?
Yawn…
This is great sport you’ve initiated.
Imagine how much the coordinated green leftists & haters of freedom are gonna get away with tonight because you’ve got Andrew wetting his knickers in consternation rather than concentrating on the progressive evildoers wreaking havoc throughout the land while he takes his eye off of the ball.
Remember, even when he loses he actually wins.
There must be some frantic vetting & editing happening.
Ant,
Terrific? You really think that’s terrific?
That post was just mindless abuse which deserves to be snipped.
If someone from Bolt/Blair posted that kind of rubbish here I’d expect it to be censored as well.
Shame on you for encouraging it.
HAHAHAHA. Jeremy’s comment got a SNIP FOR STUPIDITY.
Bolt *knows* smearing works, he’s done it enough times to see how effective it can be.
He tends to go for the three pronged attack: Misquoting, Misaligning, Misrepresentation, followed by the ‘moral’ outcry over words and scenarios they’ve entirely concocted.
The conservative cocoon is scared of being broken by reality.
There seems to be some sort of imagining that a site plumbing Andrew is just for click ad revenue; rather than any real or perceived grievances against Andrew’s intellectual slop.
I’ve never read a crikey blog prior to registering here earlier in the week & it isn’t costing me a cent to be here.
The SNIPS are especially vigilant at the moment.
“HAHAHAHA. Jeremy’s comment got a SNIP FOR STUPIDITY.”
I can retire happy.
(I won’t, but I could.)
and my question still remains: when will the herald sun take responsibility for its errant columnist, who has now been shown to be so loopy as to be seeing mccarthy-like conspiracy theories at every turn? when will the herald sun return to opinion that has basis in fact, especially when those facts can be easily discerned from what is already on the public record? and why does it keep on its payroll a clearly (Cut there JG) individual posing as opinion writer who is now on record as changing facts to suit his own idealogical agenda?
Its hilarious watching all this unfold. I have resisted completely labelling
Andrew Bolt with insulting generalisations, but I now completely declare
that Bolt is a 100% (Cut here too JG) and (again). Perhaps the most prominent and sadly influential one that I have ever seen.
He has managed to build up a divise tribal, almost cult-like following, through (no), distortions and (no), combined with zealous protection from his loyal mods. But he does seem to be getting rattled here. The underlying question here is that if racist supposedly “planted” comments are appearing on his blog, why are his moderators
letting them through in the first place? They were on the ball enough to prevent
approval of Scott’s link. Why not all the hate material?
And if Bolt’s idiot minions are so sure that their “side” represents the best logic, humanity and honesty, why don’t they visit and debate on blogs outside of the
warm confines Andy’s blog, where their mindless babble is cheered on by their fellow brainless, sycophantic drones?
Just brilliant. This gave me a good laugh.
Don’t people deserve the other side of the story Andew? Why the cowardice?
Okay, reading Bolt’s post, he says this:
And then he says this:
So he’s not saying you’re leaving those comments on your site, but you are. And I’m sure he has so much proof he’s going to give it to us any moment now…..no…..NOW…..oh, um, maybe…..NOW……..Christ….
Weird. Isn’t the usual response an attempt to flood the comments section of the critical blog?
Mantaray (Tue 24 Feb 09, 8:34pm) made a reference to “‘lefty wannabe death-camp-operators” here
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/we_didnt_actually_write_it/P20/
after listing Mussolini and Mugabe as “lefties.” Just stupid.
Archer (Tue 24 Feb 09, 9:47pm) writes:
“Wasn’t it Ironman of Preston who wanted to:
a/ Tie Greenies to the burning trees of the Kinglake fires.
b/ Dig a ditch, fill it with Greenies then concrete over the top to construct a town hall.”
Here http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/we_didnt_actually_write_it/P20/
Dan R (Tue 24 Feb 09, 9:18am) accuses Bolt of being in denial about global warming, and says that no scientific body would agree with him.
Andrew replied (calling him Roger for some reason):
“What website can I visit to find out what happens to the characters in this series? I am not really interested in watching this series, but would prefer to read all the facts on the characters and what happened to them all.
Where should I start?”
It’s a bit of a lame reply, but anyway. Further down, OzConfusedAndConcerned of Melbourne (Tue 24 Feb 09, 09:45am) makes a comment about the insurance aspects of global warming, and Andrew uses the exact same reply (again addressing the poster as Roger). How lazy is that?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/nelson_unloads/#commentsmore
strange days indeed (Tue 24 Feb 09, 11:30am) makes an interesting observation about Bolt’s two-facedness on global warming. He has one face for TV and another for his blog.
“(Bolt): It’s interesting that so much media attention is on the Coalition being divided on what to do about a global warming that stopped in 1998, and seems not caused primarily by humans, after all…”
“SO you ARE indeed a through-and-through AGW denier. This is now different to what you said to Robyn Williams, where you accepted AGW but claimed to be against alarmism (because you have the only crystal ball that tells you that our fears are unfounded).
Nice of you to bravely show your true colours for once, though you have not made your reasoning clear. Are you going to stick to this position or morph yet again?”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/nelson_unloads/P20/
It would be nice if someone in the ABC could track down Bolt saying this to Robyn Williams.
Hang on a second – I’ve figured it out. Scott Bridges is a right-wing sock puppet set up to make lefties look bad by sending us over to Bolt’s blog to make righties look bad by abusing lefties in obviously bad wa…
Oh dear, I’ve gone cross-eyed.
Credit for Toaf’s reply to MK:
Toaf replied to MK
Tue 24 Feb 09 (10:29pm)
MK, have you heard of a blog called ‘A Western Heart’? It does a fine job of discrediting conservatives. It features a retired academic/poet who’s obsessed with race, a high school drop out who’s obsessed with guns, and some other loonies who contribute vile hateful comments whenever they’re on day release. No lefty deception required; these folks are – tragically – for real.
Excellent stuff, Scott.
For those who haven’t been aware. Bolt’s blog has had a persistent glitch lately, where replies in the “Comments” section stray into completely different subjects, which probably accounts for the ‘non-sequitur’ that Silkworm comments on above.
But I have noticed during research into archived material that this has also happened in older posts….cue conspiracy music. Could Bolt’s winged monkeys have been attempting to excise all the racist drivel from archived posts, and somehow made a technical snafu? Otherwise, why would such a supposedly-tech-savvy organisation run such a weird cack-handed operation?
monkeywrench – It has been happening on all NewsCorp blogs so I doubt it has anything directly to Bolt. Don’t go all tin hat on us!
monkeywrench, I think you have the most plausible explanation yet for this mystery.
I’m more inclined to believe that the News Ltd. comments system going postal is unrelated to Bolt’s paranoid accusations.
Pity. mind you, it’s no more far-fetched a scenario than suddenly having one’s blog invaded by nasty Leftists pretending to be racist wingnuts, all magically organised by a blog that had existed approximately 48 hours.
Agreed – it’s the platform itself that has gremlins, not Bolt’s blog in particular.
Although it was interesting the other day to see commenters over there trying to link the comment bugs to the alleged “planted” comments.
We’re 1337 h4×0rz.
i see the misquoted misrepresentations are still uncorrected on bolt’s blog despite there being clear evidence that he has decieved his readers with selective sentences. what a disgrace!
I hate to break it to you guys, but your original post, with a link to your blog wasn’t edited by Bolt to remove the URL.
You shot yourself in the foot, using the “a” tag, rather than the “[url]” tag that site requires.
This is demonstrated by the errant “” appearing within the post that ultimately appeared.
This is your screwup, not some grand conspiracy. Nor is it a fault of their (admittedly dodgy) blogging platform. You simply didn’t read the instructions, before going off half-cocked.
Sorry.
My preceding comment is unclear, as the tag was stripped by *this* blog’s dodgy software.
Insert an /a in the otherwise empty quote marks in the third sentence.
How expensive is a preview button, Crikey?
No cigar, Daniel. My comment (in Update V) was done using the conveniently-provided buttons on Bolt’s blog to produce a [url] code. Mind you, I have used HTML anchor codes in the past on Bolt’s blog, and they work fine – as the link in Scott’s comment did between the time his comment appeared and the link was removed. About the only “screwup” is that the Bolterator failed to remove the closing tag for his link.
Also, you might notice that the entire comment I wrote – which actually answered a question asked by nic – was removed, and not just the link and its contents. Would you care to address how the removal of that substantive comment was a result of me going off half-cocked?
Why are you asking me?
Because you were professing to have the answers about why our comments were edited. Since your first explanation is wrong, I thought you might want to make a second attempt.
How delicious to see those whose entire raison d’etre is “taking down” the blogs of those popular and widely read mainstream bloggers they purport to hate with every fibre of their being, being reduced to abjectly begging for a link from them.
Sad, but funny. :LOL:
I replied to the following poisonous comment on the Bolt blog from “Bob”
“If he was trying to take my sandwiches I’d smack him in the mouth then knee the povo in the guts. And if he asks for More sandwiches please…..I will give him a five fingered one right in his fat gob.
bob (Reply)”
I asked Andrew whether this was one of the supposed “leftists” impersonating his usual posters, or whether it was just an extremely unpleasant person threatening physical violence.
Didn’t get posted, of course, not even a SNIP. This has happened to me before.
I have this guilty addiction to the Bolt blog: probably as unhealthy and unethical as peering over the fence of an asylum for the criminally insane. I’ve noticed no increase at all in the frequency of vile, racist, hate-speak over the last month: it’s always been there whenever Bolt delivers his disingenuous dog-whistles. I think now that he knows he’s being watched, he’s invented this alibi that all the venom is due to naughty lefties impersonating his acolytes.
We’re 1337 h4×0rz.
Umm, Jeremy.
Your geek is showing.
1337 |-|1|*|*`/ h4×0rz
SNIP FOR IMPERSONATING LEFTIST.
“I have this guilty addiction to the Bolt blog: probably as unhealthy and unethical as peering over the fence of an asylum for the criminally insane.”
We have another recovering Boltaholic in our midst.
Keep at it Penguin, and with gods help you can beat this terrible affliction…
“Andrew Bolt has clearly been sweating bullets since Pure Poison was launched. ”
Wow, add delusions of grandure LOL!
I’ve read Bolts blog as much as I’ve read this one… and let me say, there is a lot more one handed clapping over here
Bolt is still yet to provide a single drop of evidence for any of his claims. Nice.