Guardian deletes 45% of comments BTL to control its Syria agenda
The Guardian wasted no time in further exploiting the al Nusra promotional vid it already splurged on its front pages without bothering to check the source. Hardly was it uploaded to the servers before the Graun was using it as a platform to promote – yet again – the (current) official western narrative on Syria, viz that it’s all about Assad and his Russian allies brutalising civilians and some lovely vaguely-defined “rebels”, and if only they could be made to stop everything would be fine.
We have to say “current” narrative because it changes, frequently. Yes, Assad was indeed previously the premier bad guy du jour, but after the failure to get approval for airstrikes against him, the official narrative started saying ISIS was the problem and no.1 threat to western civilisation, remember? And that remained the line until Russia intervened and started bombing ISIS, which unexpectedly blew that official narrative to bits. Now we have version three, or a reboot of version two. Now suddenly and inexplicably, ISIS has gone from threatening the world with its multi-billion dollar oil and artefact empire to being a sort of barely-acknowledged bit-player whose precise whereabouts are never defined, except that they are never ever located were Russia is bombing – which is always where the “moderates” are. Now, once again the problem is Assad, but mostly it’s Russia, because since they’ve been there they have done literally nothing but bomb hospitals. Because, you see, they are movie bad guys who are evil purely for the sake of it, and we in the west are heroes who have to somehow foil them.
This narrative has never really got much traction, mostly because it’s stupid, and right now it’s not going over at all. The latest serving of it,”The Guardian View on Syrian civilian casualties: Omran Daqneesh – a child of war” was published at 7:58pm on August 18 and remained open for comments for no more than two hours. In that time the BTL section erupted in outrage and was shredded by the moderators. The results are shameful. Of the 75 comments not entirely obliterated (which happens), 34 (45%) had their content deleted. And after all that not even all the remaining 55% were supportive of the ATL line.
The Guardian had to delete 45% of its own readers opinions, just to mantain a bare semblance of its agenda.
No comment that mentioned the terrorist source of the video was allowed to remain. Every comment that identified the media “hero” of the hour, Mahmoud Raslan as a supporter of al Nusra or a friend of child-beheaders was removed. Many others that merely pointed out the gaps and absurdities in the narrative were likewise deleted. Here is just a sample of the carnage, incase it’s tidied up at the source in the future.
Couldn’t be more clear, could it? The editorial line is not reflecting the readership any more. People see through the emotional manipulation, the moral relativism. They know the Guardian is holding a hanky over its eyes and making fake boo-hoo noises while shilling for the lunatics who want to make Syria a new Libya and kill thousands of Omrans in the process.
It didn’t work in 2012, didn’t work in 2013 and it’s working even less now. People don’t want war in Syria because they know even if the Guardian doesn’t, what that would mean for the people of the region and for people everywhere.
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I’ve had comments deleted and account blocked just for posting pro brexit comments. I am pro freedom of movement so my comments were nothing to do with immigration or racism, purely regarding EU political influence and ECJ supremacy. I suppose I should be flattered as it suggests they were effective arguments that were contrary to the official stance on the EU.
Well my first comment here only had the one hyperlink but was still retained for moderation.
Let me try my first comment again, removing the hyperlink. I discovered this off-guardian site today from a recommendation in reply to one of my comments on an Independent story about the war in Syria. Can I just point out that the reason that some of this appears to be “in the shadows” is probably because the Guardian comments moderator keeps putting my username on pre-post moderation so I have given up posting in Guardian comments and therefore those who look to Guardian comments for information are necessarily now going to be “in the shadows”. Luckily for us here at the Indy comments, we are not “in the shadows” because I am allowed to post here with minimal interference from moderators! Not that comment links are clickable on the Independent and comments with link texts in them often get held for moderation, so the Independent is far from perfect for… Read more »
OK that proves that in fact a comment here with only one hyperlink in it, not “more than 2”, will be retained for moderation.
I like paper but not carboard, what do you think does that saying about me?
In Dec 2015 The Guardian opened up its New East Network, a commentary site stuffed with Western regime change advocates. One key source was The Interpreter, headed up by Michael Weiss who also writes regularly at The Atlantic Council on Russian and Syrian regime-change. In case people think that The Guardian’s promotion of an openly anti-Russia website won’t affect us then ponder on this. In Nov 2014 Michael Weiss from The Interpreter published, with Peter Pomerantsev, an article entitled “The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money.” In order to counter what Weiss termed this “Russian weaponized information” he advocated a western media toolkit: The creation of an NGO that would create an internationally recognized ratings system for disinformation and provide analytical tools with which to define forms of communication. A “Disinformation Charter” for Media and Bloggers: Top-down censorship should be avoided. But rival media, from… Read more »
On Oct 30 2014 Michael Weiss, Guardian contributor on Russia and Eastern European affairs, attended a conference run by the Legatum Institute, a Right wing London-based think-tank focused on Russian regime change, held in association with the NATO-aligned Atlantic Council. The conference theme was “The Menace of Unreality: Combating Russian Disinformation in the 21st Century.” The participants included Geoffrey Pyatt, US Ambassador to Kiev; Oleksander Scherba, Ambassador-at-Large for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Michael Weiss, Editor-in-Chief, The Interpreter; Peter Pomerantsev, author of Revolutionary Tactics: Insights from Police and Justice Reform in Georgia; and John Herbst, Director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Centre. The moderator was Anne Applebaum, journalist and former board member of The Washington Post, and author of ‘Gulag’ and ‘Iron Curtain; The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56’. The event was sponsored by the US State Department. And when The Guardian publishes Michael Weiss we are… Read more »
I used to comment frequently on CIF but got banned so many times for having the wrong opinion that I’ve stopped. Not that it matters; I suspect very few people read comments and the Guardian has a dwindling readership just like all of the corporate media.
A cartoon is required of an old toilet with a very high cistern and long chain. On the cistern is written “because facts really should be sacred”. A hand and arm extend out if the bowl, gripping and pulling the chain at the same time. The caption “Journalistic Integrity”.
Steve Bell would do your idea justice, bless him, but I’m sure his contract forbids it…
Gave up on Steve Bell after his disgraceful performance during the Scottish independence referendum and never went back. As for the Graun itself, I read the football section and that’s it. This article is a perfect illustration of how pointless commenting is.
Thanks again OffG for a much-needed article.
It’s encouraging to see that what is as plain as day to reasonably well educated readers is also as plain as day to real journalists. Even without the above, simple experience was enough to make me absolutely certain as to what was going on, but it’s nice to have it all so succinctly confirmed. This situation is really unbelievable, isn’t it?
That said, please go easy on the acronyms. I’m reasonably well educated myself, I do pay attention, and I actually worked out for myself that BTL probably meant “Below The Line”, but I would have enjoyed not having to look it up in order to be sure. Not even Wikipedia included that translation in its list of about 20 BTL possible meanings, so I’m fairly sure it hasn’t actually achieved “received English” status yet.
This happened at the Daily Telegraph too on the right wing side of politics. They now don’t even have comments sections as there was no correlation between editorial line and readers’ opinions. I’m amazed they are still in business to be honest….. The Spectator, from the same stable, is not quite as far down the line, but I regularly embarrass Fraser Nelson by submitting directly to him, via email, cc’ed to national political figures, comments I have written, clearly within the rules, which have been ‘deleted’ by Disqus, a US-derived comment programme which acts as a global online censor more and more with each passing day. It really is the height of pathetic nonsense that we saw all the Press begging for Press Freedom in front of Leveson and now we see them censoring their own readers. If I were Theresa May, I would be throwing all the editors in… Read more »
If you were Theresa May, surely you would be paying the editors to carry on as before …?
I watched this slowly happen to the Huffington Post during the final Bush years, and, as usual, the UK mainstream media like to copy the worst excesses of the US specimens.
With HuffPo, it was the deal with AOL which predictably hammered in the last nail.
With the Goniad, I expect it was a Pentagon deal or something else from Washington.
Using a wounded child as an excuse to murder other children is pure perversion, and they think we would not notice that. Shame on the MSM.
Israel and Wall Street have decreed that Assad must go, and if Syria has to be destroyed in order to accomplish that, so be it, after all, what’s a few eggs broken to make an omelette?
King Benny has spoken!
Yes, well put. I admire the way you have used the utterly revolting israeli method of pulling in an assumed, or slyly presumed to be, sympathetic audience by the use of down-home, simple language and metaphor. One wonders what the next vicious attack on Gaza will be called…
““The media are misleading the public on Syria” author Stephen Kinzer recently wrote “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.”
This goes for all western medias – they are playing a dangerous game right now – as USA are confronting Russia directly in Syria now. Will the war explode soon and spread – the Medias have the most to be blamed – because not having the population brought into delusional about the real fact – they wouldn’t have allowed it. This is a media initiated war.
This look really bad.
When will people realize that all significant wars are media-initiated? Public passion for war always has to be stirred up before the shooting begins, because otherwise families would be VERY upset about their boys (and now girls) being killed.
The media is owned by Wall Street. Bankers and arms dealers need war – it’s how they make most of their money.
It must be such a sad job to be a CiF moderator, if you do have a brain, of course. This is, for example, what I got as a reply requesting my profile to be removed after I got my account suspended. I was also genuinely interested in knowing what the hell could I have done so wrong, so I inquired; I was surprised for the reply, even when aware of Guardians standards. To be fair, they did offer me a magnanimous deal to reinstate my account “albeit under an extended period of premoderation” (I was pre-moderated for couple of months, not for the first time) if, and only if, I refrained to call things by their name: “The moderators would need sincere assurances from you that you will refrain from things like calling other users and authors “liars” and similar before doing so. If you are willing to make… Read more »
Corbyn is being called a liar on every other comment . That seems to be fine by them..
WHOOSH. Into the memory hole they go.
I don’t doubt your point, but as presented, we have no idea what these comments said or why they were deleted. We only have the weirdly large proportion of comments deleted, which, yes, in itself is noteworthy. But it would be much more useful if the assertions that the comments were about the terrorist-related source of the video could be backed up by screen grabs or other actual evidence. Again, I don’t doubt it, it’s highly plausible, even likely, but without evidence, your assertions plus £0.99 will get you a white filter coffee at Pret.
Actually we don’t say that all the missing 45% were about the terrorist-related source do we? Because we can’t know that. We say that all the comments about the terrorist related source were deleted, which is not the same thing. But you’re missing the real point which is that any publication that has to delete this high proportion of its BTL comments is fatally out of step with its readers.
However we do agree that screen grabs of the comments before deletion is important in any individual case and we always encourage people to make caps of any comment they think likely to be taken down.
Reblogged this on Worldtruth and commented:
The Graund really has outdone itself – no wonder Viner is cap in hand for donations. They have alienated thousands of their readers over the last 12 months and now they ostracise 45% of the negative comments. What is the point, as one commentor put it, in having the CiF site if no comments not following the farcical line of more killing of Syrians by US/UK head choppers in favour of a resource grab are censored?
“Like”
“Of the 75 comments not entirely obliterated (which happens), 34 (45%) had their content deleted. And after all that not even all the remaining 55% were supportive of the ATL line….”
Its worse than that: you aren’t counting the comments in ‘pre-moderation’ . You can’t count them. And then there are the commenters who know better by now than to bother: those formerly in pre-mod who don’t comment any more.
By the way: what an incredible wealth of comments there is above!
“And then there are the commenters who know better by now than to bother:”
Absolutely. The Guardian once had “Credibility”, and in my opinion that credibility was greatly enhanced by the quality of the comments made by some very intelligent people.
I hope the Guardian never ask me for payment in future. If I want bullshit in future, I’ll go to a rodeo………
“Its worse than that: you aren’t counting the comments in ‘pre-moderation’ . ”
It’s not always exactly like that. I’ve been in ‘pre-moderation’ a couple of times recently for brief periods. But in fact there was no moderation. The comments were published straight off. Except one which went straight in the glory hole.
Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.
A Vicious Experiment in Wheenland By Paul Rigby April 1999 A Vicious Experiment in Wheenland By Paul Rigby April 1999 https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:A_Vicious_Experiment_in_Wheenland.doc As prelude to conscripting Orwell (1) for Washington’s war of petro-strategic position in the Balkans, Guardian columnist Francis Wheen bravely invited readers to mock an unnamed correspondent. The holder of conveniently pat Old Labour views, the angry straw man of Glasgow had written to object both to the war, and Wheen’s support of it (2). Like LBJ contemplating Vietnam in the autumn of ’64 (3), the certain cost – both domestic and to the inevitable victims – held no terrors for Farringdon Road’s unfailingly “progressive” voice of conscience. He was even less troubled by his correspondent’s opening salvo, “Have you been got at by MI6?” The very suggestion that a Guardian journo might act as a spook mouthpiece was so self-evidently absurd that Wheen generously proceeded as if the… Read more »
About three years ago I used to leave comments on CIF but the moderators started removing my comments. I was quite shocked when it first started happening and I thought I must be a revolutionary leftie of. I felt bad, after all, the Guardian was left wing, so I believed. Then they had an article about the City of London and right wing were going at it in CIF with no one gettin the left fighting back. These right wingers were saying about all the benefits the City of London brings. So I did a search and found an article by a policeman who had worked in the City of London and was now a private investigator. He said that the City of London was the crime centre of the world so I copied and pasted some of his stuff on CIF, but the Guardian promptly removed it. So I… Read more »
“Like”….Sad to say, The Guardian today is just a ‘rag’. I used to read The Guardian, as much for the (mostly) intelligent comments by the readers. Now, lots of articles don’t even have comments at all, and those that do are heavily “moderated”. I recommend the “Off Guardian” to people these days.
Thank you OG for your work at exposing the Guardian for it’s moral bankruptcy. From myself and all the Chaps and Chapesses at Going-Postal.net. . . . and NO I am not looking for cheap clickbait,. . .we already have more comments on our site per day than any other site in the country. Please keep up the good work. We will continue to post your links at every opportunity.
Thank You.
James.
It isn’t just crazy, it’s moronic.
The tactics of the KGB: airbrush out all opposition. Though in full view of the world. Some rational thinking there. I didn’t know why they didn’t even go for the full delete (as above, they probably did as well). But that can be also be spotted a mile away if you know how… Crazy doesn’t cover it.
And who are the ‘moderators’? UKIP? CIA interns? Jewish Chronicle readers? The Conservative Party? Kibbutzim? Who?
The Guardian were even worse back in 2011. I had loads removed. A comment detailing that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was one shop owner in Coventry would get wiped off the ME Blog in no time. The narrative has only changed to accommodate what has been obvious from the start to some of us but became too obvious for even western govts and media to cover for. Beheadings, people ending up washed up on rivers, – the hallmarks of extremists who were dressed up as democracy loving peaceniks. Atrocities blamed on ‘The Shabiha’ up till then. Then come brand ISIS – which we’re told just turned up later in the day…but of course have nothing to do with the lovable FSA! Early in 2011 the Guardian claimed Iranian special forces had been spotted in Syria. Chulov also gave a video report (below) where he spoke of fully bearded… Read more »