It's Your House - Keep It In Order!

This is a quick post about Guido Fawkes' recent outburst on Laurie Penny.

I don't care which side is wrong or right. Nor do I care what sexual orientation Ms Penny is of, nor do I condone the bullying of her in the comments section and on Twitter. If somebody is wrong on something (and I'm not saying she is), then this is to be discussed with intelligent discourse, not hate mail.

Bullying is not "the new racist" (as some commenter claims). They're both nasty things which you simply shouldn't be doing in 2011. I thought we'd pretty much accepted that? One commenter even suggests that as the comments are anonymous (mostly) then it's not bullying.

Even threats to have her hung are still floating high up in the comments thread.

Guido may or may not share the opinions of his readers. The issue that I take is that, as the moderator of his site, it is his responsibility to keep his own 'house' in order. If he can't do this because of the volume of comments - he should reconsider his comments policy. To quote Guido's own website:

"The comments policy is arbitrary and inconsistent. Bear in mind hundreds of thousands of comments get made every year. There is a vague ad hominem offensiveness level that merits deletion as well"

Why, when he's running a Wordpress instance, he hasn't got a report comments plugin (of which many are available for free) is beyond me. Why do death threats and hate based upon an irrelevant sexual orientation count as above his "offensiveness" threshold? If he simply can't be bothered to do some proactive moderation (removing the anonymity of commenters would significantly reduce this workload - a simple step to a larger cleanup that hasn't been taken) - then he is advocating their views by proxy, by allowing his site to play host to them. Absolving himself of guilt by saying he might not moderate just shows idiocy, and the fact that his house is very untidy; metaphorically speaking. Or - he agrees with them. It's got to be laziness or agreement somewhere down the line; both are not desirable traits in this context.

Another commenter said that "if you don't like it - then leave". I'd like to introduce Kenneth Tong - whom Johann Hari has already demolished for publishing on Twitter that "hunger hurts but starving works". A follow-up email explained why criticism on the internet can stick. Once you've seen it, it can do a considerable amount of damage. Only with the gift of foresight could an "if you don't like it - then leave" system work - and even then it doesn't resolve the absolution of guilt of the twat who made the comment in the first place.

Politics does not need to take such a childish attitude and bring out the worst in people. Especially when people can hide behind anonymous comments on blogs with admins who can't be bothered to remove the stupid amounts of hate and trolling on their website.

Grow up.