It’s tempting, as the editor of a website, to commission subjects that will get as many comments as possible. The theory goes that a lively comments section drives hits and given websites like ours are businesses that’s quite a consideration.
But there’s a serious downside to this. The web’s provided all manner of characters with a brand new opportunity to access a mass audience and quite frankly an awful lot of commenters don’t deserve that.
Previously the chance to feed back into public debates were limited to democratic expressions like voting, petitioning, demonstrating or writing stiff letters to the editor or your MP.
Of course there were exceptions of a few talk radio stations, which I generally like, and the reliably awful Any Answers – the BBC programme which follows Saturday’s edition of the often excellent Any Questions which fields a panel of public figures.
From where I sit you get to see all the comments made on newstatesman.com and you have the responsibility to ensure what the boundaries are. I’ve blogged about this before.
Inevitably – however much one tries not to – there’s a chance of getting dragged into debates because, I suppose, my own views inform some of the decisions I make.
One of the things that annoys me most though is the failure to see – or to admit to seeing – the weakness in one’s own argument. You can always tell when a leader is past his or her sell by date because they start to believe their own bull – Tony Blair was a classic example of this. One could almost see him convincing himself as he fired off an explanation for some decision.
Equally we have commenters who relentlessly push the same world view at any opportunity. Believe me it’s begun to get a little tedious in some cases especially if they constantly accuse you of being part of an SIS plot or, in another case, unwittily insult fellow contributors – over and over and over again.
But all of this is part of the territory and comments can also be extremely intelligent, interesting and funny too.
What isn’t funny, intelligent or interesting is the vileness that appears in our comments section when we run anything to do with subjects like Israel/Palestine, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the division of Cyprus – I could go on.
So having published an article to mark the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht and wasted far too much of our time on trying to moderate the comments I’ve switched off your right of reply. I’m not interested in providing an outlet for revisionist views of what happened in the Holocaust – especially when they blame Jewish people for the climate from which National Socialism sprang.
Equally I’m not interested in being a platform for extremist Zionists who scarcely conceal their racism towards their Arab neighbours and who belittle other victims of Hitler’s vile regime.
The question is, can we now allow debates about these touchpaper issues? I’d like to but some of you are, frankly, changing my mind.
And if this turns me into the role of censor so be it. That is a responsibility that comes with the job.
Now moving on. Sarah Palin plans to allow god to guide her on her decision to run in 2012. Let’s hope it’s a different god to the bigoted, warmongering, morally deficient one that apparently guided Dubbya.
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