Ben's Blog
New Statesman website editor Ben Davies's weekly ramblings plus feedback on hot online topics
Free speech and censorship
- Posted by Ben Davies
- 24 June 2008
The danger of being cheery, how we should deal with unruly commentors, and some of the exciting things ahead on newstatesman.com
Let me take a few minutes to put the boot into the Cheery Digest. A confirmed miserablist, I'm clearly not the target audience for this sort of thing.
Nor have I any idea who is behind this blog so why not read this and draw your own conclusions...
NEWS: Why we love the Queen ...
There's no two ways about it, our dear old Queen has a twinkle in her eye - apparently she has revealed (we're not sure who to) that whenever she hears Abba's Dancing Queen come on the radio, she "always tries to dance, because I am the Queen and I like to dance".
That's rather charmed us.
Staying on the regal theme, we were also amused to hear Nelson Mandela's reasoning behind simply calling our monarch 'Elizabeth' when they speak on the phone: "Why not? After all, she calls me Nelson."
Possibly the most nauseating outpouring since Violet Elizabeth Bott had a good scream.
Moving on to the knotty issue of commenting, censorship and what lines should be drawn.
This is an increasingly vexed issue on newstatesman.com. First of all, there are some contributors who use this website - and others - to propound a particular world view. Some of the right, some of the left. Others use it as a place to insult people, belittle their intelligence. Somewhere in between the two there are the humourists who are often funny but occasionally cross the line. Most people are interested in the articles and fire off our content and off each other. They manage to disagree without being personal.
Ultimately the decision on when things should be removed falls to me and up until recently the decision to unpublish comments has been taken only because there's been some pretty extreme unpleasantness such as racism or homophobia or something that is likely to cause great offense. That's partly because I don't believe in censorship.
However, we've had to toughen up the stance in recent weeks. In particular we've focused on those who are just tediously rude and who put off other commentors but also on those with views which most right-thinking people will find offensive. We're also being tougher on some of the nastier personal attacks that occur - thankfully rarely - on some of our writers.
By enlarge, I'm grateful that so many people wish to hold intelligent debates about important issues. One good example of debate, I think, was this thoughtful exchange on homosexuality and Christian notions of marriage.
Coming up on newstatesman.com...
Unison boss Dave Prentis writes on why his members would be right to strike over a 2.45 per cent pay offer. As many as 800,000 workers from dinner ladies to binmen are set to walk out next month having rejected the rise.
Look out for criminologist Mary Lynn Young on the severed feet that keep floating into shore in British Columbia.
Heard the one about the obscenity trial judge caught with smutty images on his website? Alex Kozinski, said he wasn't sure whether he or some other family member had intentionally stored the sexually explicit images. Log on to find out more about how he caused a mistrial.
Jonathan Calder ponders the strange link between a cult children's TV show and New Labour. “The Roman Emperors used to keep a slave to whisper “remember thou art mortal” when they got above themselves. Tony Blair would have done well to have an aide close at hand to say “remember you’re a Womble” now and then.”
All this plus our new column on gaming – CultureTech
– and much, much more.
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We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
