Tengchong, border of Burma and Laos, China, December 2019
Comment is Free Censorship – a Guardian Tradition
Part of an email from the Community Moderator who continues the long tradition of Guardian censorship.
Thank you for your email.
Your account has been banned for violating our community standards, namely points 2 and 8, replicated below:
2. We acknowledge criticism of the articles we publish, but will not allow misrepresentation of the Guardian and our journalists to be published on our website. For the sake of robust debate, we will distinguish between constructive, focused argument and smear tactics.
8. Keep it relevant. We know that some conversations can be wide-ranging, but if you post something which is unrelated to the original topic (“off-topic”) then it may be removed, in order to keep the thread on track. This also applies to queries or comments about moderation, which should not be posted as comments.
My reply:
Hi and thank you for your reply.
I didn’t realise that Ms Hyde, (who writes – “all this shit” and “a full-spectrum clusterfuck”) was such a delicate flower that she needs a team of moderators to look after her mental well being.
My first moderated post was exclusively about Brexit, [a word that did not appear in the article, although Wednesday’s trade deal debate was included] and that the “mutually beneficial deal”, about which I’ve posted more than 60 times since June 2016, has now been achieved. Yet “Brexit” is mentioned 71 times in the first page of comments, 48 on the second, and on the subsequent 7 pages, 35, 47, 43, 48, 43. 59, and 63 times. Not one of these comments has been moderated.
The second post was to point out that Boris Johnson’s popularity was likely to be temporary given the way electors change their minds. Just look at Jeremy Corbyn’s experience. [And to prove the point in Saturday 2nd January’s paper is an article – Boris Johnson would lose majority and seat in election tomorrow – poll]
The third post was to point out that the UK’s equality legislation made it as acceptable for men as it was for women to take pride in their appearance in public. I might also have pointed out that Hyde’s closing remark – For God’s sake, prime minister – do man up – relates to ancient stereotypes about what it means to be a man. Or is Hyde also allowed to contravene the Guardian’s rules on the use of sexist stereotypes?
The fourth used the word oneupwomanship to emphasise the point about equality of the sexes in the third.
Finally I and other posters who have defended the right of UK voters to leave the EU have been called – among others things – thick, ignorant, moronic, stubborn, deluded, racist, bigoted, fascists, nazis and the equivalent of Mussolini and Pinochet.
Yet I have never retaliated in kind.
Here are the four moderated comments:
1. As the anti-democrats are gradually abandoning their four year campaign to overturn the June 2016 Referendum result and the EU – UK mutually beneficial deal has confounded their hopes for a no deal WTO result and a UK thrown into chaos, is it time for an apology from those many here who have denied day after day, that such an outcome was possible?
I very much doubt it although I notice that poster SteveinBavaria has already jumped ship.
It isn’t specifically mentioned in Hyde’s article, but “Brexit” is mentioned 71 times in the first page of comments, 48 on the second, and on the subsequent 7 pages, 35, 47, 43, 48, 43. 59, and 63 times. Not one of these comments has been moderated.
2. …in Britain (or more specifically England) Johnson is still mysteriously popular. (quote from Hyde’s article)
Is he popular?
Or have you completely misread that political situation here.
The UK electorate has a long history of saying thank you to its leaders who have, in the case of Johnson achieved what the Guardian has since June 2016, been predicting would be impossible, by concluding a mutually beneficial deal with the European Commission.
It would not be the first time if in the coming months, Johnson is quietly removed from office so that those who have the ability to deal with the post-Brexit situation, can quietly get on with reaping the benefits that Boris Johnson’s and Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen’s deal has presented to the UK.
We shall see, let’s say in 2031?
3. Speaking of touches of affectation, when the prime minister comes through the No 10 double doors to announce close to a thousand deaths, as he has twice this week, it can be seen that this 56-year-old man has nonetheless still taken the trouble to mess up his hair just before. (quote from Hyde’s article)
That is just a little bit unworthy, given the UK’s long overdue equality legislation, when at last it’s not just women who quite correctly demand to be presented at their best, but also its male journalists and even its Prime Ministers.
4. Clearly incapable of feeling compassion for anyone other than himself, Johnson declined to express any, and handed the question over to Chris Whitty. (quote from Hyde’s article)
According to Johns Hopkins we now have 83,474,757 confirmed cases world wide, no doubt a serious underestimate, and 1,818,759 deaths.
Why is this pandemic continually used here as a vehicle for political one upwomanship?
When I tried to post my tenth comment I was met with the following:
“No comments found for user” and for a while my most recent 1000 comments and replies disappeared. While these are back – every article that’s open for comments has in large letters at the start – Commenting has been disabled for this account
And why?
Because the Guardian and it’s remainer cult cannot abide being confronted by their anti-democratic position.
Abuse from those who occasionally praise is considered to be personally offensive and they who give personal offense will sometimes make the world too hot to hold them. But censure from those who are always finding fault is regarded so much as a matter of course that it ceases to be objectionable. –
Anthony Trollope – ‘The Way we Live now’.
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From the Observer:
Legal aid cuts, and rise in digital evidence and sexual abuse cases affecting profession, says CBA
The Observer 6 May 2018 reports that Self-employed barristers with a tendency to take on whatever work came their way could end up handling back-to-back cases involving allegations of a serious sexual nature for months.
Is this any surprise given this sample?
BeautifulBurnout – calling Bitey a paedophile; – frankly, it is fair comment
BeautifulBurnout is Judge Anthony Pitt also a paedophile?
HankScorpio, BeautifulBurnout, Backtothepoint and Paedophilia
How False Accusations by the Untrusteds have allowed the guilty to avoid detection
BeautifulBurnout and Backtothepoint – 7/7 London Transport Truther Conspirators
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There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.
John Kenneth Galbraith
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Welcome to The Real Untrusted
for a brief introduction to this site – read here
“The citadel of established practice seldom falls to the polite knock of a good idea. It may however yield to a long siege, a pre-emptive strike, a wooden horse or a cunning alliance.”
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Why I would have voted to Leave the EU is now here
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