Comment Censorship Echo Chamber

I've noticed lately a lot of the news media sites I visit have started eliminating commenting on their websites altogether or setup comment approval systems where your comment is reviewed before being published. My local newspaper changed their commenting to go through facebook so you can't post a comment anonymously. My town is very liberal to the point of absurdity and this effectively killed all but a few conservative voices who rather remain anonymous to their neighbors.

Even though I am a right leaning poster on ATS, I do visit a lot of left leaning sites because I like to get a well rounded view of the news. What I have noticed is that it is the left leaning media sites that are basically censoring commenting. I've found that comments from article readers to be insightful and often give a different perspective whether they agree or disagree.

Many of the sites when they shut down comments tend to blame "trolls" for shutting down the comment sections. While there are always commentators who simply do not know how to write something insightful, I simply ignore these idiots.

I feel like these sites are aware that the comments sections may expose their left leaning bias and are using trolls as an excuse to censor opposing viewpoints.

To just throw out some examples, I used to comment on NY Times articles all the time. However, I've noticed that when I tend to disagree with the author, my comment rarely gets approved. I was huge commentor at The Root (a black media website) and they essentially killed their comment section because myself and few other conservatives would often completely destroy their authors in debates. They moved to some other platform and now comments are reviewed which basically means if you disagree, nothing is getting posted.

What prompted me to post this thread is that Crains, a well known business newspaper in Chicago shut down their comments section now. They editors tend to lean left, so comments were often pointing this out.

Anyway, just a rant on something I've noticed lately.

Welcome to the fold.
If you're not one of them, you're against them.- and now your voice will be marginalized more than ever.

Note that many of the things that turn into laws/regulations in your home town are not voted on by the public- they're simply dictated by those who were voted for. They want to get re-elected, so they're going to dictate what they think the public wants.... based on what input they receive.

Your conflicting viewpoints have been silenced. Groupthink will control law.

I’ve noticed this as well, especially on the left leaning sites. I suppose it’s so they can espouse their socialist propaganda and their readers are given zero chance to listen to an alternative viewpoint. Kind of like universities today. I also notice the authors conveniently leave off any way to contact them.

In the end, just another attempt by the media to CONTROL the narrative in lieu of legitimate journalism.

that's so funny that you mention the root, because when they were asking for advice on improving their site a few years ago, i suggested they should eliminate or moderate their comment section because of the huge amount of racist garbage trolls they had attracted.

not to say you're one of them, of course, but it was a massive problem that made the comments sections pretty much unworkable, imo.

you might be happy to know that they're hosted elsewhere now and they have a comments section. there does seem to be some degree of community moderation but i'm sure that if you're just debating constructively that won't be a huge problem for you.

riiiight....they shut down their comment section because you and a few other conservatives "destroyed their authors in debates"....and....that's the only reason???....ok, got it

Ya gott'a admit, the comments in recent years have become so vitriolic and vicious, something was bound to happen. And with the snowflake epidemic, well..........

They had become the stronghold of Trolls.

a reply to: Edumakated

Because it's a hate-fueled free for all on right-leaning sites.

Liberals don't BOTHER with Fox and Brietbart. No NEED to censor there. Russians and useful right-leaning idiots FLOOD more liberal sites however constantly.

a reply to: Edumakated



Your not gonna like this, I think any unbiased analysis would agree..


A) due to trump there has been a massive influx of trolls to he right side of the conversation. People who will not debate a topic logically, but instead go straight to the BS propaganda/ad hominem attacks..

Only saying things like “fake news”, “libtard”, exc without actually making a counterpoint to go with it..

Which obviously derails any conversation those willing to debate logically are trying to have..

B) look at the sources for each sides facts.. MAINLY, but not exclusively the left uses sources like...

CNN, NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post , the Fox News( hard news), exc..


Though you can point to examples of corruption and propaganda from all of them, they are all brick and mortar news organizations with years of experience and they all employ news desks and investigative reporters. All (except maybe fox) have publicly fired people for publicly lying or publishing fake stories..



B,2) the sources on the right however are...

Infowars, brietbart, Newsmax , FOX NEWS OPINION COMMENTORS, exc and dozens of other smaller sites with even less credibility...

None of those have news desks or investigative reporters.. they are just compilation sites that copy paste other peoples stories after twisting them to their own personal political bend..

None, of those have ever fired a reporter for publishing a fake story... none of them even employ reporters who go around investigating stories...


Hell the saturation of the “the worlds media sources are all In a vast conspiracy to discredit conservatism” narrative has probably stopped more left wing propaganda stories than anything else..

If you broadcast “hey he is gonna lie to you and tell you the sky is falling..”

If I am about to lie to you about the sky falling, I can longer do that now...

a reply to: Edumakated

It's not censorship, it's just making sure opposing views don't see the light of day.

But the "Hey I just made $35,000 this week seeking things online, you can too" posts still stay.

Can't people freely exchange speech without having to censor them? Afraid of mere words I guess.

They think they can control the flow of information on the internet.

They are sorely mistaken.

originally posted by: Ohanka
They think they can control the flow of information on the internet.

They are sorely mistaken.

But if you get Google to shape the searches correctly and Facebook to edit what you see, that's half the battle. Hell Amazon owns a newspaper for all intents. It's not like they aren't trying to control the info.

I'd like to see a comparison of the sorts of comments removed from left-leaning vs. right-leaning sites. Somehow I think there's more to the story than OP lets on. Of course you're going to notice when your own comments get removed especially if it happens on a site leaning contrary to your political views. But would you notice when it happens to lefties on right-leaning sites? Would you even know in most cases what the nature of the content was that was removed?

I'd rather no comments sections at all, personally. I read the article for the article, not the pissing match under it which detracts greatly from the author's efforts in the first place.

A resounding round of applause for modern blocking add-ons -- at least I can block the bulls# underneath and never have to see someone go full retard for multiple posts under a good article

originally posted by: Nyiah
I'd rather no comments sections at all, personally. I read the article for the article, not the pissing match under it which detracts greatly from the author's efforts in the first place.

A resounding round of applause for modern blocking add-ons -- at least I can block the bulls# underneath and never have to see someone go full retard for multiple posts under a good article

To be sure 95% of comments are drivel, but some lead you to further research of the topic at hand. I try to investigate all side's claims when that happens. A lot of people spew claims that simply can not be proven with the info that is available.

For example if you had said in Feb of 2016, the FBI was investigating aspects of the U1 deal before it was approved, you'd be accused of lying.

You have to bale a lot of hay to find that gold nugget sometime. Sometimes it's horse manure not hay.

not every place, everywhere is craving the crap you guys think is 'being a devil's advocate' but is often just being a verbally abusive bottom-feeding noise creator. you're not entitled to spew garbage everywhere, and there's plenty of places for it if you want to do it.

funny you get so mad about protestors and have a lot of opinions about where and what and when is appropriate for them, but you're not allowed to spew all over one or two websites and suddenly you and your whole belief system has been oppressed.

must be tough!

The fox and cnn live news streams on youtube don't censer anything.
Now go read ether of those for an hour and tell me that some kind of moderator is not needed.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
The fox and cnn live news streams on youtube don't censer anything.
Now go read ether of those for an hour and tell me that some kind of moderator is not needed.

Go to 4 Chan. So you have a sift through a lot of garbage to get to useful comments, big deal.

a reply to: pavil

I will always be on the side of private business rights.
If a business wants to censer their comment sections and you don't like it , well so what? Big deal.

originally posted by: DanteGaland
a reply to: Edumakated

Because it's a hate-fueled free for all on right-leaning sites.

Liberals don't BOTHER with Fox and Brietbart. No NEED to censor there. Russians and useful right-leaning idiots FLOOD more liberal sites however constantly.

This basically sums up why liberals are often in an echo chamber...

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
a reply to: Edumakated



Your not gonna like this, I think any unbiased analysis would agree..


A) due to trump there has been a massive influx of trolls to he right side of the conversation. People who will not debate a topic logically, but instead go straight to the BS propaganda/ad hominem attacks..

Only saying things like “fake news”, “libtard”, exc without actually making a counterpoint to go with it..

Which obviously derails any conversation those willing to debate logically are trying to have..

B) look at the sources for each sides facts.. MAINLY, but not exclusively the left uses sources like...

CNN, NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post , the Fox News( hard news), exc..


Though you can point to examples of corruption and propaganda from all of them, they are all brick and mortar news organizations with years of experience and they all employ news desks and investigative reporters. All (except maybe fox) have publicly fired people for publicly lying or publishing fake stories..



B,2) the sources on the right however are...

Infowars, brietbart, Newsmax , FOX NEWS OPINION COMMENTORS, exc and dozens of other smaller sites with even less credibility...

None of those have news desks or investigative reporters.. they are just compilation sites that copy paste other peoples stories after twisting them to their own personal political bend..

None, of those have ever fired a reporter for publishing a fake story... none of them even employ reporters who go around investigating stories...


Hell the saturation of the “the worlds media sources are all In a vast conspiracy to discredit conservatism” narrative has probably stopped more left wing propaganda stories than anything else..

If you broadcast “hey he is gonna lie to you and tell you the sky is falling..”

If I am about to lie to you about the sky falling, I can longer do that now...

You are attempting to argue by "appealing to authority" by claiming that NY Times and other mainstream sources produce more factual stories. While this may be true in some cases, it can also be shown to be completely false as well. I don't care about source, I care about facts and logical arguments. Do we really need to start listing out all the times the sources you mentioned have been caught outright lying and obfuscating facts been upstaged "bloggers" writing real news?