Also amusing is this — "The Left's War on Comment Sections" — from Breitbart.com:
The internet was born open but is becoming closed everywhere. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the rush to shutter readers’ comments sections at major news organisations. Cheered on by intolerant, snobbish cultural elites, news organisations from The Verge to The Daily Beast have, in recent months, informed their readers to take their opinions elsewhere.
Dozens of progressive blogs and news outlets are following suit, citing "abuse" and "harassment" as the primary reasons they no longer want to hear the opinions of their readers. But that’s not what is really going on.
So … I hear you cry … what is really going on? Breitbart is ready with the answer:
Psychologists have long been aware that political extremists have the most negative reactions to contrary information. Combine that with [leftist "cultural elites"] disdain for free speech, a core cultural authoritarian value, and you get a frantic rush to remove the opinions of ordinary people.
I love it. "Ordinary people." That sounds a bit elitist itself, but never let it be said that Breitbart.com is self-aware.
What intrigues me about this article is that a few years ago I posted a comment on the right-wing FreeRepublic.com. I doubt my comment survived, for when I went to post a subsequent comment, I was informed by a FreeRepublic editor that my comment was unwanted, and thus both it and I had been banned. A regular commenter here, Peter G., informs us that his observations are banned at RedState.com, and I can only assume they're banned elsewhere in the pseudoconservative blogosphere.
This is not to argue that "progressive sites" are, on the whole, much different. As for sheer numbers, I can't say, but the level of thin-skinnedness out there can be breathtaking. To wit, after I once critiqued the hysterically progressive Stonekettle.com, I went to see what wisdom its scribbler had on his main page — his Facebook page. But there was nothing to see, you see, for Stonekettle's proprietor had banned me from even accessing his FB page (which I didn't even know was possible). He was — is — that terrified of criticism. (By the way, I had no intent to leave a comment. I was just curious.)
That leads us to the real divide here, which Breitbart, unsurprisingly, fails to mention. Some sites — the intellectually shallow, emotionally infantile sites, such as Stonekettle and FreeRepublic — ban commenters or even readers simply because the sites can't handle criticism. Other sites, however, have banned commenters because of an onslaught of abusive language, harassment, and so on. This, Breitbart does acknowledge, but also dismisses. Yet the second type of censorship is entirely legitimate; no respectable site should tolerate unrespectable comments, which merely detract from the subject at hand.
I have been lucky. Criticisms roll in here — which are most welcome, indeed the most welcome — but abuse has been exceedingly rare. In the past few years I believe I have banned a total of maybe three or four commenters for having relentlessly committed that sin. They were quickly un-banned (though I doubt they realized it). I just don't like bans. Period. Still, when it comes to distracting abuse, that's a different matter — which Brietbart has so characteristically twisted out of all recognition.
Want to have some fun? Link to this piece in Breitbart's comment section. I'd love to hear from its unabusive readers.