The ABC’s Media Watch looks into something we’ve been covering for a while – the issue of media sites publishing repulsive comments on their articles:
The responses sent in by various media outlets – particularly those with pre-moderation systems who nevertheless still regularly show up in our own Cut & Paste Trophy – are worth a read. I was curious to read that they don’t want to publish offensive comments, they just occasionally slip through. Which doesn’t really explain the sheer volume of the material we see – or how easy it is to find.
Do the tabloids in particular expect us to believe that they haven’t noticed by now which sorts of articles garner the most objectionable comments, or that if they have noticed that, they can’t allocate staff to moderate those threads very carefully?
6 Comments
Refugees and aborigines garner the most hate but they still put them up with comments allowed.
Refugees and aborigines garner the most hate but they still put them up with comments allowed.
Got any research on that? I’d bet my house the majority of un moderated hatesludge in the last year is about Julia Gillard. Hundreds of thousands of sad bitter little men and angry resentful women tapping away in the fading light of their “study”, finding the reason for their life’s disappointments embodied in the brave articulate face of a 21C woman.
Most of the comments I’ve seen lately on these Noise Ltd blog sites are versions of “You’ve got my vote, Tony!” This comment is repeated so often you’d almost think it was a case of the dreaded “groupthink”!
If “CENTCOM” uses “persona management software”:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/22/exclusive-militarys-persona-software-cost-millions-used-for-classified-social-media-activities/
Why wouldn’t well organised “operatives” (paid or simply ideologically motivated) engage in the same activity to achieve much the same ends as sought by CENTCOM?
Hell, it may even be CENTCOM actually doing it for all we know.
Apart from a small percentage swept along in the fury of what they perceive to be a real crowd of like-minded silent majority types (groupthink??), I suspect most are “personas” one way or another.
How timely this post is. Just this morning Yahoo7 had an article on how Gillard has put a gag on her ministers talking to the media about leadership speculation. (How The Australian, which originally reported this, would know this is another matter!) As usual, comments are switched on, to allow Abbott’s army to lay into Gillard, and of course they have taken the opportunity given to them by Yahoo7 to do so. However, despite Media Watch’s item on their lack of moderation, numerous objectionable comments have crept past the moderators. Here’s a sample.
ulia j a gag for your ministers and a big plastic bag for you do us all a favour
malcolm 06:59am Friday 10th February 2012 EST
James you are just a c—k head.
John 07:04am Friday 10th February 2012 EST
This little jem should show everyone just how DESPERATE comrade ju-LIAR ‘PINOCCHIO’ dullard is becoming to cling to power at any cost. Now we have PROOF that she doesn’t trust any of her ministers to stick to what she wants the public to believe. How typical of this lying, back-stabbing TRAITOR !
Ghost Hunter 03:46am Friday 10th February 2012 EST
We are living in a system shockingly similar to the Soviet Union.In the Soviet Union,if you disagreed with scientific material-ism you got sent to the Gulag.In Australia if you disagree with ‘multicultural-ism’ or whatever else (it’s all Anti-White),they shut you up,charge you with a ‘hate crime’ or ‘inciting hate’.It’s very much the same.’Anti-racism’ is a codeword for Anti-White
chris74 07:24am Friday 10th February 2012 EST
dictating cow
Paul 06:05am Friday 10th February 2012 EST
I will put a gag in its mouth before i hang it from a tree with a rope around its neck,i have the tree and i bought new rope to do the job.
Wayne 07:11am Friday 10th February 2012 EST
And on and on it goes.
lgf does cut and paste trophy:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39912_Fox_News_Commenters_Respond_to_Whitney_Houstons_Death_With_Deluge_of_Hatred_and_Racism