Guardian censors facts BTL
The recent Frankie Boyle article in the Guardian contained his usual mix of dark humour and on-point political satire. However, most people who follow the Syrian situation closely know his summary of the “civil war”, and assertion that “nobody likes Assad”, to be inaccurate.
Unfortunately efforts to point this out in the comments were met with the Guardian’s usual response to fact-based constructive criticism:
As you can see, Mr Purkayastha’s comment is civil, constructive, on topic and backed up with sources. And yet…
Seems like questioning the MSM agenda doesn’t abide by their “community standards”. Thanks to Bill Purkayastha for bring this to our attention. If you have had similar experiences at the Guardian, or any MSM web-site, please let us know.
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[…] by an all-out western-sponsored propaganda war, and the importance of faux liberal newspapers like The Guardian in censoring commentary and promoting the drive of […]
[…] by an all-out western-sponsored propaganda war, and the importance of faux liberal newspapers like The Guardian in censoring commentary and promoting the drive of […]
[…] by an all-out western-sponsored propaganda war, and the importance of faux liberal newspapers like The Guardian in censoring commentary and promoting the drive of […]
I got put on pre-moderation (again- I was never even sure what the first time was for….) for posting a legitimate Winston Churchill quote “The British government have promised that what is called the Zionist movement shall have a fair chance in this country, and the British Government will do what is necessary to secure that fair chance…We cannot tolerate the expropriation of one set of people by another or the violent trampling down of one set of national ideals for the sake of erecting another…”from a site called ‘Churchill’s Karma’ (which can be quite excellent).
This was the day before Netanyahu came out with his looney statement about the Mufti of Palestine designing the Holocaust.
I guess I should have known the capital ‘Z’ word was banned in the Guardian.
The Guardian has long been the Washington establishment’s pipeline to the British centre-left, with much of the work subsidizing and steering it entrusted to the CIA. There is only certainty in the life of a CIA asset, and that is that you will, sooner or later, be “cashed.”
I don’t get it, it appears that the comment was deleted 4m after it was posted while the screenshot was taken 11m after it was posted. What am I missing?
Hard to say. The Guardian time stamps are very buggy and unreliable. But we’ve checked the comment in question and it has been deleted.
I assume that the 4m refers to the time elapsed since the censor blue pencilled the post.
The timestamp on the users end is the time that the post or reply was begun not when the user hits ‘post comment’. I’m fairly sure that is what is going on…..
I had wondered if that might be the case, but I have just posted another comment on CiF (I haven’t been bothering much with it in recent weeks, having become rather obsessed with Media Lens instead), and I’m pretty sure the timestamp “33m ago” is far too long, even allowing for the time it took me to compose the comment.
The Graun had yet another article by a rad-fem concerning Amnesty International trying to decriminlise prostitution. As usual I mentioned the lack of protection for men and boys dying doing dangerous jobs, and the lack of interest in it.
I was censored. As usual.
Here’s another one, nltimes.nl: http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/10/15/ukraine-no-reason-to-close-airspace-before-mh17/ “According to Olexander Horin, the Ukrainian ambassador in the Netherlands, his country had no reason to close the airspace above the conflict area before the disaster with flight MH17. “We did not know that the separatists had weapons with a range of ten kilometers altitude”, he said in an interview…” I saw this article and commented on it, quoting WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-knew-of-separatists-air-defense-capabilities-say-officials-1405781508 “KIEV—Ukraine intelligence officials said they knew three days before the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that rebels in the east of the country possessed sophisticated air-defense systems capable of felling a jetliner at altitudes in excess of where the Boeing BA 777 was flying. ” Next time I checked, the comments under this article all disappeared. You can’t comment on it anymore. Now Mr. Horin, the Ukrainian ambassador in the Netherlands, can lie all he wants, and no one is allowed to confront… Read more »
Life was better before the war? Well Duh… How many support the Assad government?
A Guardian columnist,Jonathan Steele, asserted that western media tend to suppress or not report on ‘inconvenient’ facts, such as a respectable opinion poll held in Syria late 2011, finding out that 55% of Syrians inside Syria wanted Assad to stay in office, which disharmonized with the then dominant view in western countries that Assad had to go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Censorship_of_events
Two years ago a poll commissioned by NATO revealed that 70% of the population supports the government: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/21/faulty-analysis-and-conclusions-on-syria/
It’s got to the point where I immediately question any line being sold by the mainstream, and especially the Guardian since it has become the mouthpiece of choice for swaying would-be liberals and left-leaning people. Basically if the Guardian is pushing it then the PTB have a motive for getting the population on board.
So, why currently is a sugar tax something they want to get us on board with? And what about global warming? Real or not (I don’t know enough to comment on that), I am worried when mainstream media are selling this as a social conscience and environment issue and it is back by people like Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Goldman Sachs and the US Department of Defense!
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/22/fight-climate-change-for-global-stability-says-us-defence-and-diplomacy-leaders
I know nothing about the sugar tax, but it sounds like the cigarette taxes.
don’t stop anyone selling the unhealthy products, but make money off the people who are hooked on them.
[…] http://off-guardian.org/2015/10/21/guardian-censors-facts-btl/ […]
I was banned by the Guardian on 13 October 2015. To put the record straight, I have been under ‘pre-moderation’ several times before, but then ‘released’ back into commenting. I also wrote some emails to the Guardian moderators, but never got a proper reply as to WHY I was under pre-moderation or WHY I was now banned (they only regurgitate some general mantras along the lines ‘you breched the rules’, but never explained to me for a particular case which rules exactly I breached. I also got a very ‘general’ reply when I asked about why I was banned – and only after I inquired three times. I should say that once I got my deleted Guardian comment back (hooray) – but only several days after the article was passé. My Guardian username was Abiesalba, and here is my posting history: https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/10511313 (still there now – I just checked, although… Read more »
Zvezdicaslo. I have an Irish name and probably got away with a lot more than you did, but on one occasion I emailed the Guardian political editors asking them to moderate their Russophobic editorials and promoting Kiev’s propaganda and I supplied links to reports by Int’l Journalists reporting on Poroshenko’s admission to the Ukraine Supreme Courts that Yanukovich was ousted illegally. They did not reply to me directly but 2 days later they cobbled together an article demonising Russia with two well-known Russophobes who predictably misrepresented the facts of the Ukraine US disaster and one Russian Editor who refused to sling mud at anyone and tried instead to represent the issues in a reasonable manner. The majority of people reading that particular argument would have been impressed with the lies of the Russophobes and would have failed to recognise the obvious sincerity of the Moscow editor, such is the cognitive… Read more »
“It is for that reason I no longer read mainstream trash” My mother tongue is Slovene, so I suppose my primary source of information are Slovene media (where I am quite familiar with the political agendas of various media and journalists). When it comes to world news, Slovenia is hardly ever of world importance (apart from rare occasions like the present refugee crisis). So our world news tend to be much less tainted with propaganda than the British-American media possibly also because there is hardly ever our domestic bickering among the parties at play when it comes to world news. We are observers rather than major world players. Although the aggressive western propaganda does get through in particular in some media, and people here complain about it. Slovenia is very small (2 million people with our own language), so if one drives for about one hour in any direction from… Read more »
I’m an American. Britain follows our lead, whether it be Blair as Bush’s Poodle and fellow war criminal in regard to the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the overthrow of the legitimate government in the Ukraine; or the slimy regime changes throughout the Middle East, the British Government continues to act as a US Vassal. It is sad that this is so, but there’s a gentleman named Corbyn who may soon have a say in this regard and I suspect that it may change. By the way, I once passed through your country on my way to Croatia and spent a very lovely three hours talking to some Slovenians that spoke a little broken English and German. I have never been back, but I was very interested to read your comments. In November, we will be traveling to Budapest for dental work. After that, we may be traveling South… Read more »
“I’m an American. Britain follows our lead” Yes, indeed. The UK is also an American Trojan horse in the EU. However, it is the UK’s choice (!) to be a US poodle, so the UK is a co-perpetrator. Similar to people with a phantom limb (after amputation), the UK has a phantom British Empire. The UK is only used to bossing other nations around and imposing its will and rules on others. It is not capable of forging long-term partnerships with other nations, which requires solidarity, patience, readiness to compromise etc. So the Brits will vote themselves out of the EU. It seems to me that in the role of the US poodle, the UK tries to pretend that it is still very important and very powerful and capable of ‘ruling the world’. Back in the real world, the UK was not even invited to the Minsk II negotiations (Ukraine,… Read more »
The British Empire still exists it has simply been rebranded the Commonwealth. Very few countries in the Commonwealth have ever left, regardless the plan is for this commonwealth and the UN to be part of the New World Order.
The power of British Commonwealth over the world
http://www.rense.com/general62/britt.htm
Thanks for the link. Excellent concise(for the purpose of demonstration)article.
“Can you recommend a place to visit that has a wonderful Christmas Market?” The capital of Slovenia – Ljubljana, definitely. Ljubljana is very charming and lively in December, with all the lights and the Christmas Market along the river and in the old city, open-air ice skating in front of the parliament and all sorts of events, with the smell of roasted chestnuts, cooked warm wine and warm honey spirit, and the castle sitting above it all on its hill… Usually the Christmas lights are turned on around 4 December (because we traditionally celebrated 6 December = St Nicolas). The stalls also open then. Some photos for the general impression: the old city and the castle http://www.delo.si/assets/media/picture/20141203/670x420_Delo_Foto-20141203191635-05159900.jpeg?rev=0 the river http://www.delo.si/assets/media/picture/20111216/lu%C4%8Dke.jpg?rev=2 Christmas market on the river bank http://citymagazine.si/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/visitljubljana-1000×500.jpeg And while you are in Ljubljana, you may also want to see some other Christmas things out of the city: the live ice… Read more »
Hey ‘Slovenac’!
Same here, I don’t comment on the Guardian website for awhile now…must be a year (or more) since I was branded a “Pro-Russian/Pro-Putin Troll” and was pre-moderated because my comments didn’t fit the narrative that The Guardian is pushing… Finally – I just gave up commenting or even reading The Guardian.
(I’m Macedonian BTW)
— Hey ‘Slovenac’! Slovenka. 🙂 Greetings to Macedonia. The Guardian has a very poor understanding of the ‘Balkans’. — I was branded a “Pro-Russian/Pro-Putin Troll” I was branded a Putinbot. Apparently according to the Brits 90% Slovenes are Putinbots. Namely, it seems to me (judging from my conversations with others and comments on Slovene websites) that Slovenes overwhelmingly support Russia in relation to the Syria crisis. I should say that in this case, even if tiny Slovenia is not a world player, we have quite direct interests in resolving the Syria crisis and stabilising Syria and the whole region, because the whole Balkan flow of refugees in now directed via tiny Slovenia (2 million people). Well, the migrants are also marching through tiny Macedonia with about the same population size as Slovenia, so I am sure you understand what I mean. We have about 10,000 migrants per day entering Slovenia,… Read more »
Off guardian might want to investigate a new propaganda source the Guardian is using to repost negative stories about Iran, the mysterious ‘Tehran Bureau’.
Sample story:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2015/oct/21/iran-emad-tayefeh-public-enemies-documentary-dissidents
The Tehran Bureau is an independent media organisation, hosted by the Guardian. Contact us @tehranbureau
Oh hang on, wiki has the answer.
Starting out as an independent news organization, Tehran Bureau had no affiliation with and received no funding or support from any government, religious, or interest group.[3] However in September 2009 it began a collaboration with the Public Broadcasting Service television series “Frontline” which will provide it with financing, host its Web site and provide editorial support. In return Tehran Bureau will help shape a coming “Frontline” program about Iran.[4]
The British news website The Guardian has been hosting Tehran Bureau since January 2014, and still does today. In an article revealing the new arrangement, The Guardian assured that the magazine would “retain its independence under Niknejad” [5]
The real answer comes from Tehran Bureau itself:
“Major funding for Tehran Bureau is provided by The William H. Donner Foundation and the Flora Family Foundation.”
This means that one of the sources of funding for Tehran Bureau is an organisation with a link to Hewlett Packard.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Flora_Family_Foundation
Jen. Hewlett Packard are the company making lots of money supplying Israel with their passport identification system at checkpoints throughout the occupied territories and is one of many being targeted for BDS. You are probably aware of this (hence the reason you mentioned them) but others may not. Thanks for the link.
I wasn’t aware of that. Thank you. I was about to buy another computer and have always purchased HP’s in the past. I’ll be looking at other brands and will not purchase another HP Product.
Thanks again for the information.
I have comments every day about people taking the BDS seriously in the hopes of alleviating the suffering of the Palestinians, it really is good to know that so many care enough to make a difference if they are able. I haven’t bought a Jaffa orange in 8 years and apparently other people have made the connection too. My HP al in one printer is still working but would certainly not replace it with HP and I don’t buy their cartridges. Glad you’re on board!
And HP put a secret clock in their Inkjet Cartridges that time expired even if still full!!
I think it’s located within the gold sensor which indicates ink levels and it can be removed with a box cutter. A company called Unielectronics on eBay supplied my last cartridges for a fraction of the price and they lasted just as long as HP’s.
[…] OffGuardian | October 21, 2015 […]
A couple of weeks after being banned by Medialens on a flimsy pretext, I posted a comment on CiF from their message board about the Graun with a link. Now I’m banned by the Graun as well.
I’d happily give a like to all these comments, but to do it iv’e got to go through wordpress and having recovered my computer from a number of trojans picked up on the Disqus commentating circuit, i now stick to only a few and stay low key . iv’e put your link up a few times as there’s quite a few graun banees out there. This is an excellent site I wonder what would happen if you put the link off this sit onto the graun
The Guardian deletes references to this site and others like it as soon as they are found. It’s almost automatic now.
I have for my sins been banned from the Grauns commenting community 4 x under various different usernames,
I won’t be going back, there’s no point, it gets to the stage where you get bogged down by the censorship and you’re trying to hold up a 1 sided argument with a Graun troll who can say virtually anything,and you know a meaningful reply will see that comment removed, it’s as if they hate their commenting community. The contempt in which they hold them is breathtaking
in other news 1 of your articles has been featured on Syrian Perspective It’s rough and ready but has a truly international flavor
http://syrianperspective.com/2015/10/hama-33-nusra-terrorists-killed-in-failed-attempt-to-storm-syrian-army-position.html
An interesting article v David Cameron
http://syrianperspective.com/2015/09/mad-rats-and-englishmen-cameron-is-a-bloodthirsty-sociopath-heading-into-the-maws-of-the-bear.html
Done
Why were you banned by Media Lens may I ask?
They banned me temporarily, after assuming that some general comments I made about censorship and identity politics, illustrated with the film clip above, were aimed at another poster. I sent the link to the Daves by e-mail to give them the pretext they wanted and got a life ban for it. They deleted most of the threads about it and banned someone else yesterday. A caucus of pseudo-feminists have now got a de facto censorship over the message board.
Not that I’m bitter about it….;O))
The Graun also censors any questioning of the motives if certain correspondents, including Bates, Valennta, and now Proudman – three feminists. All three make money out of writing men-hating columns, pointing this out – that they’ve generated their own income from effectively nothing – is banned
The fact is The Guardian supports a great deal of extreme violence against women.
The ones we bomb in the numerous wars cheerled by The Guardian.
The Laura Bates type articles are just noise compared to this undeniable reality.
None of the MIddle East countries we have bombed had a record of treating women badly.
God that Bastard Nick Cohen and his warmongering make me so angry. He called Ed Milband and coward and practically a “bad Jew” for not letting Cameron bomb Syria in 2013. It’s just craven.
What happened? When did everything become so morally bankrupt? I feel like I’ve split off into an alternate reality.
(This is Twirlip again, even if the comment appears under another name. I haven’t posted at OffGuardian before, and I’m not yet familiar with how the system works.)
My theory is still that the CiF “moderators” automatically censor any comment that refers to the CiF censorship process itself.
I would be interested to see an example of a political comment which is censored in spite of not having drawn attention, in advance, to the likelihood of its being censored.
They do, discussion of moderation activities is forbidden.
Often people will be banned or premoderated and have their comment deleted for pointing out that another comment which has been deleted broke no rules.
Agree to some extent – it is possible to be quite critical of the approved narrative on the Gandrian (a proper news site…) as long as you play the game of not questioning their journalistic integrity. Any direct criticism of their often lopsided and agenda driven pieces in terms of how they are worded, phrased, conflated and made misdirectional through the way the English is written (ie a journalist is manufacturing propaganda again), will most of the time get the comment scrubbed.
The line seems to be drawn at any intelligible deconstruction of their method. Simply shout “propaganda!” and you will likely be left alone. Show that you can accurately deconstruct and lay bare the way they are skewing their storytelling and you will inevitably get the delete buttons clicking.
The Guardian routinely censor comments purely for their political content. The idea they only do so when the commenter predicts the comment will be taken down is absurd.
Mary Evans. Not absurd. The Guardian is it’s worst enemy. People are now posting comments which are not particularly politic but suggest censorship may be applied obviously copy and paste their own comments then copy and paste the message from the moderators using the Guardians own site buttons and up it pops on face book. Try it yourself. I have wondered why some comments have been deleted and low and behold come across a F/B posting by accident, followed it back and they have indeed copied and pasted their censored remarks prior to censorship. As it happens, I often post on F/B and copy and paste in the comments section. I will do that on this post because I know I will get comments from some who agree about the Guardian censorship.
That’s really not fair. What I wrote is not absurd. (What about it is illogical or inconceivable?) And it is based on observation of the way in which my own comments and comments made by other people have been deleted. Also, I said quite clearly that it is only a “theory”. And I said very clearly that I would be interested to see some examples that do not fit my theory. (Perhaps you read this comment as ironic or “rhetorical”, but I meant it straight, and I do not see why anyone would assume otherwise.) Finally, I have now read (or at least skimmed through) all the articles listed here under the tag “Censored on CiF”, I think some of them do convincingly disprove my theory, and I have even just gone to the trouble of posting on Media Lens (in the thread “Guardian Comment is Free censorship”) to say… Read more »
The strange thing about the CIF is if you merely hint at censorship let alone mention the dreaded word that comment will be removed
A while back they featured an article by Anna Neistat then of HRW about Assads rape rooms The article in question was riddled with inconsistencies and terribly written, a few of us blew it wide apart, I got banned for the reply i gave with an accompanying link
I went back through their history a few weeks later and passed the link on to a young Syrian partisangirl on another forum. Even she was shocked by it ,that article was removed from the Guardians history within a week of passing the link That woman Neistat is now a big shot with Amnesty . Another Soros run NGO
Partisangirl is cool. I posted one of her vidoes here a couple of weeks back.
I used to chat to her on various Disqus commenting forums ,now i hardly see her other than twitter. She can hold her own but the abuse she was taking was an absolute disgrace
Nick. If I post something on a site, it will be available for me on MY laptop for a long time afterwards. If I go back to the site and the original article which I have deleted from my inbox, the post has been removed possibly only a few minutes later, it’s still showing on my screen as awaiting moderation but not on the site.
I’m puzzled that the screenshot of Bill’s message says “11m ago”, i.e. the screenshot was taken 11m after the message was posted. But the screenshot of the removal/censorship says “4m ago”. How can the actual message have been screensaved (and thus visible) at least 7 minutes after it was removed? Unless the ‘4m’ means since removal rather than since posting; but that’s not what it says. Are we sure the two screenshots refer to the same message?
Yes I thought the same!
Bill P seems to have made only one comment on that thread, or indeed on any thread in the Guardian, so it must be the same one. In any event the comment quoted above is definitely now deleted.
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/61823991
This is a technical defect of their software. I think every comment I have ever posted there (and there have been lots) as initially been shown as having been posted “15m ago”, or something of that order. (Perhaps it always starts at 10m, or 11m, as in the screenshot – I’ve never bothered to check.)
That’s why I didn’t crop the URL from the message. In real terms it was only about four or five minutes.
I am totally grateful to the Off Guardian for existing 🙂
Oh, by the way, I’m Bill Purkayastha.
Like the West’s IS-embedded specialists who are also getting busted in Syria by Bad Vlad, who also ‘nobody likes’
Tut tut, Vladbad = Hitler, do try to stay on message.
Busted……….Again
NEW SONG IDEA:
When the article’s bad
And your comment’s banned
Who ya gonna call?
Graun-busters!
…
I ain’t afraid of no moderator!
…
Bustin’ makes me feel good!