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What “community standards” did this comment breach? #16

This comment – written and sent in by Jay-Q, one of our readers – was censored by the Guardian. Which of the well-publicised CiF “community standards” did it breach?

Removed comment, posted under the opinion piece “The ruins I saw in Syria stand as a rebuke to western inaction”:

The article was published at 6.00am this morning – May 1st – its comment section was closed by noon.
Screen shot of where it used to be:
  • Does it “misrepresent the Guardian and its journalists”?
  • Is it “persistent trolling or mindless abuse”?
  • Is it “spam-like”? Or “obviously commercial”?
  • Is it “racism, sexism, homophobia or hate-speech”?
  • Is it “extremely offensive of threatening?”?
  • Is it “flame-wars based on ingrained partisanship or generalisations”?
  • Is it not “relevant”?

If none of the above – why was it taken down?

see our archive of censored comments. And if you see any egregious examples of the Guardian censoring its “free” comment sections – email us at [email protected], and send us screen caps if possible

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edikryer
edikryer
Aug 2, 2018 12:43 AM

Censored from the Guardian comments…
I was staggered tonight to see Louise Ellman MP telling Newsnight how shocked she was by hearing that Jeremy Corbyn had hosted a meeting on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2010 where a speaker compared Israeli and Nazi policies — staggered because she was actually present throughout that meeting!
I was there too, in that House of Commons committee room in 2010.
Nowhere tonight did Emily Maitlis or the Times reporter mention that the speaker, Hajo Meier, was a Holocaust survivor. The other speakers were survivors of Atlantic slavery, Native Americans, Bangladeshis, Roma and others who shared their experiences with the many Jewish survivors of genocide in the audience. (It was my own family’s experiences that drew me to the meeting).
As it happened Jeremy Corbyn had to leave the meeting after introducing it, to attend a debate in the House. Louise Ellman, by contrast, was present throughout the meeting.
She sat calmly by when the room was invaded by five members of the small but fanatical Zionist Federation, who proceeded to shout until no one else could be heard. I particularly recall their shouts of ‘Boring!’ whenever any other survivors were speaking. As an MP Ms Ellman could have called the Hous eof Commons security to evict the disruptors but she did nothing.
Ms Ellman’s attendance is a verifiable fact, and I have written before to Emily Maitlis calling attention to the biased way that this issue is being covered.
The IHRA definition is not ‘internationally recognised’: it was dropped by the EU and has been bitterly criticised by the very lawyer who drafted it.
The ‘examples’ outlaw terms which are commonly used by Israeli critics of their own government, such as comparisions with apartheid. One of the leading anti-apartheid campaigners, who is also Jewish, has said that the Israeli occupation-system is in some ways worse than apartheid. David Steel has also made the comparison with apartheid. Are all these people antisemites?
It is essential that a future Labour government should have an ethical foreign policy.
The shouts of ‘antisemitism’ from self-appointed community leaders are deeply upsetting to many of us of Jewish descent who do not identify with them or Israel. Tonight you claimed to interview ‘the whole spectrum of the left’. Where were our voices?
Amanda Sebestyen

Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore
Aug 2, 2018 6:33 PM
Reply to  edikryer

Staggering is right. Thank you Amanda.

Alan
Alan
May 3, 2018 10:35 AM

Unlike a general comment it provided reference and sin upon sin, held the author accountable. Mrs Darke’s time at GCHQ speaks for itself.

intergenerationaltrauma
intergenerationaltrauma
May 2, 2018 6:02 PM

The corporate media in the U.K. & U.S. and I suspect most of the Western world are and have been accessories to mass murder and war crimes. As more of the public challenges their lies, the lies themselves become more and more untethered from “reality” – if we define reality as involving -“events that occur in the physical world.” When people stop believing the first set of lies (Syrian’s are having a civil war) for example, media up the ante to another level of lying. Now it’s (a Syrian civil war – with Assad gassing his own people). Since no evidence exists to support the second lie, when challenged they are left with then moving up their deceit to the next logical level, which is to call everyone who doubts their lies some sort of either dupe of Assad and Putin or traitor. Of course the next level beyond that is what the Guardian did in this case, simply censor the offending viewpoint altogether.
This is a very brittle house of cards Western elites and their media minions have constructed. It is one that does not seem likely to survive even a faint breeze – be it’s cause, economic, environmental, false flag, social unrest, etc. In such an environment every word of “truth” spoken or published or shared is much more than the truthful analysis of the specific situation in question. Due to the MSM’s non-stop lying, the simple act of speaking the truth has become “in reality” a public attack on the very legitimacy of our corrupt media & political leaders and the oligarchic power they represent. This is a very serious state of affairs. Our lives count no more to them than the lives of Syrians, or Iraqis, or Palestinians – (see” Operation Gladio”). If their “soft power”- in the form of non-stop media lying to control the public mind no longer effectively works to keep we the rabble in line – (since they monitor social media they know the public mind in ‘real time’) – we know what comes next will reflect their desperation rather than their strength – and will up the ante of their deceit yet again.

Jay-Q
Jay-Q
May 2, 2018 10:30 PM

A truly excellent and insightful comment.

Mark Thompson
Mark Thompson
Oct 11, 2018 6:46 AM

Wow, I’ve got to say, I’m FLOORED by the quality of the journalism and comments here, and I’ll be visiting this site regularly for my daily dose of sanity. I am so sick of the censorship, I regularly read the AVClub for my entertainment news, and even measured, thoughtful comments which calmly disagree with a given articles premise of say, “Racist, alt-right trolls getting James Gunn fired over some old, offensive tweets” (How can you agree that his pro-pedophilia tweets are ‘offensive’ but then label anyone who is offended by them as racist, alt-right trolls?) get immediately deleted or disallowed from even being posted in the first place. It’s truly incredible how the internet went from being a relatively free space for discussion to an Orwellian nightmare practically overnight.

tomiejones
tomiejones
May 2, 2018 6:00 PM

Reblogged this on circusbuoy.

Julie
Julie
May 2, 2018 1:59 PM

we have to hope – I read comments Daily Mail Independent and even sometimes the Guardian – what is encouraging the comments contradict and criticise the obvious bias and M SM nonsense written in their papers – out of them all the Daily Mail comments have given leads to other sources to investigate

proudscouse
proudscouse
May 2, 2018 8:20 PM
Reply to  Julie

Don’t read too much into the Russian bots in St Petersburg flooding their propaganda onto DM or Guardian. Most of us Brits support the removal of the butcher of Damascus

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 2, 2018 10:13 PM
Reply to  proudscouse

You should either support your accusation that there are Russian ‘bots’ posting on this site. or I shall ask the moderators to have your actionable lies removed.
You yourself are a paid shill – working either for the Guardian, the BBC, or Caversham.

JudyJ
JudyJ
May 3, 2018 2:13 PM
Reply to  reinertorheit

To be fair, proudscouse hasn’t actually referred to ‘Russian bots’ posting on this site. As a former ‘Russian bot/troll’ on the Daily Mail reader forums myself, it is certainly evident to me that the majority of pro-Assad and pro-Putin supporters posting comments there were people of the same mindset as me and most of the people on this website – accusing them of being ‘bots’ or ‘trolls’ was obviously an easy and ignorant way to respond without having to provide any substantive counter-argument based on…dare I use the word… evidence. I used to find that most of my constructive comments referring to substantive and evidence based facts were usually moderated (i.e. withheld altogether) and now, it appears, I am barred from posting any comments at all so I have given up trying. As noted by Julie above, wherever possible, I and others used to deliberately provide cross-references to other sources of information – and consciously tried to avoid cross-referring to RT because of the immediate raft of insults that would trigger – in the hope that at least one open-minded person might be inclined to investigate further. That presumably became a step too far for the DM and was beyond the wit of the majority of brainwashed Establishment believers.
Overall my exclusion from DM discussion forums is of little consequence to me and, I am sure, to the brainwashed numbers who are clearly quite happy to live out the rest of their lives under the delusion that the West can do no wrong without going to the trouble of investigating alternative viewpoints and evidence.
Going back to proudscouse’s comments I would suggest that it would be inappropriate for a website which justifiably prides itself on its genuinely democratic philosophy to either bar someone with certain views or to moderate those views… UNLESS such comments are repeated ad nauseam to disrupt the effectiveness of the discussion threads and/or they are insulting (e.g. any description of someone as a ‘bot’, ‘troll’, or mention of St Petersburg, weather in Russia, or referring to posters by assigning them Russian sounding names). I suspect this may present difficulties for proudscouse so I suggest he/she may wish to stick to commenting on the DM or Guardian where he/she is clearly welcome.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 3, 2018 4:29 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

Accusations that Russian bots from St Petersburg are posting on this site are actionable calumnies. Allowing this user proudscouse to make such accusations is simply perpetuating the lies. Delete the lies, and delete the liar along with them. End of.

Admin
Admin
May 3, 2018 4:31 PM
Reply to  reinertorheit

We don’t censor lies. Free speech includes the freedom to lie.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 3, 2018 5:01 PM
Reply to  Admin

A noble policy indeed. Yet it makes everyone who posts here a Russian bot, by implication.

balkydj
balkydj
May 4, 2018 8:19 AM
Reply to  reinertorheit

Wrong in every sense. The policy is not simply “noble”, it is unequivocally ‘Principle & Science’ based and you seem to overlook, that somewhen somehow , everybody has to account for their actions & words, under the all seeing eye of A.i. , in the end, because of ..
S U P E R C O M P U T I N G
which unequivocally knows not just ‘proudscouse’s IP address! Also the very equipment he was using and the very nature of his mind .. even if he doesn’t use FB or Google, &&& Apples really don’t fall so far from the tree !
You should spend a little time reading up on Kosinski & Stilwell’s 2008 programming, (that was subsequently exploited by Cambridge Analytica, to influence both the Brexit vote & secure Trump the 2016 US elections): then you will grasp better the O.C.E.A.N. ‘s of DATA that we ALL freely make available about ourselves online, in order that you may C.A.N.O.E. better through the turbulent “rapids” of today ..
After that, you might like to consider that Kosinski , today, only needs 5 photos of you to determine your sexuality to 91% accuracy.. Way above my or your capabilities, I assure you 🙂

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 4, 2018 8:42 AM
Reply to  balkydj

You’re pretty lippy, aren’t you?

balkydj
balkydj
May 4, 2018 10:39 AM
Reply to  reinertorheit

Unfortunately for you Reiner, I am not just “Pretty” & “Lippy” 🙂 & I don’t just pay lip service to things I don’t understand,
Like you do ..
Start reading something seriously, before making yourself sound foolish !
I’ve helped you already, if you are interested?Take the direction , like a man, not a boy !
Show some interest ..

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 4, 2018 11:54 AM
Reply to  balkydj

Bye-bye, you witless, gutless, brainless troll.

balkydj
balkydj
May 4, 2018 9:00 AM
Reply to  reinertorheit

Just to be sure you fully understand that last comment:
5 PHOTOS & ZERO TEXT !
(not one darn word !!)
Worth considering seriously, as I am damn sure Dr. Alan Turing took this factor wholly seriously, in his concepts for the first ever
S O F T W A R E !

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 4, 2018 9:08 AM
Reply to  balkydj

I have no clue what you are writing about. I doubt you have either. Alan Turing? You need to smoke less dope, Buddy

balkydj
balkydj
May 4, 2018 11:50 AM
Reply to  reinertorheit

Oh well, at least you concede:-
“I have no clue what you are writing about”
Therefore, a ‘bud’ you are not and likely never will be, if you are the type to resort to cheap abuse & attempts at belittlement for to cover your ineptitude: unless you can inform yourself better over the work of Kosinski & Stilwell, first, it would seem pointless to continue even attempting to explain why “Admin” are totally correct in their appraisal of your comments above ..
More fool you sunshine:
Reiner reinigt den Hirn Täglich mit Alkohol, dass führt zum Verlüst des Hirnzellen , und die Kapazität zum lernen , vielleicht? lol,
Ich weiß es nicht , aber du weißt sicher Bescheid ..
What you clearly don’t know anything about is computing, past, present & future ..
FYI. Dr. Turing is the founder of ALL SOFTWARE TODAY and Professor Atanasoff built the first digital computer, with the help of his student ‘Berry’. The first computer was called the ABC (work it out).. All back in the first early days of programming A.i. (which you no doubt believe is something ‘new’, in your self confessed clueless state,
at present ..)
Tchüss4now.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 4, 2018 11:57 AM
Reply to  balkydj

Let me guess – you;’re American, right? Full of the mistaken idea that you’re ‘right’.
But you’re so very, very, very wrong.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 4, 2018 12:00 PM
Reply to  balkydj

Concede? To a moron like you???

Smitty
Smitty
May 3, 2018 6:29 AM
Reply to  proudscouse

You tell ’em Langley. Sock it to ’em puppet!

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 3, 2018 9:29 AM
Reply to  proudscouse

Answer: Choppedliverpool.

James Graham
James Graham
May 3, 2018 7:47 PM
Reply to  proudscouse

There’s nothing “us Brits” about the Devil’s Advocate and sourcing “the truth” from a Hell hole of lies and deception. You won’t get away with that pish in this company.

balkydj
balkydj
May 4, 2018 7:39 AM
Reply to  proudscouse

Well, you can’t get much more presumptuous, oblivious & ignorant than a comment like that, ‘proudscouse’ ! You just breached the lower threshold of any community standards, anywhere, and shamed the whole of Liverpool ..
Honestly speaking it makes you sound like some ex-squaddie living in LALA Land, trying to morally justify yourself to yourself, fighting your own previous immoral actions & the devil within; because a wholly guilty conscience would ensue from within your obviously twisted and perverted psyche, were you to think otherwise: a psychosis which cannot reconcile itself without living & spouting the lies publicly, trying to convince others who unequivocally know much much more than you and therefore you feel distinctly inferior, intellectually ..
Greetings from the real frontline of perverted NATO deceptions >>
Bog off , your comment was bordering on insanity incarnate (i.i.) >>
“Can’t buy me love”, respect or my loyalty ..
In view of your wholly ignorant brainwashed war cry, I thought you might appreciate knowing how you would be viewed, should you ever have the courage to venture (out of LALA Land) down here within the border zone to Turkey, in order to avoid any further conflicts of interests: Listen to this from Cozy Powell, coz’ it might just help you to address your psychological difficulties, head on, before you ever again contemplate utilising that collective “US & Brits. & pseudo FALSE scouser pride” that you just shamed into moral oblivion >> ‘IMAGINE’ !!

I was gonna’ choose “Fanfare for the common Man.. ” by ELP, but that would be insulting to all men ..
How’s life at the 77th Brigade, you numbskull ? 🙂 )
Take a long hard look in the MIRROR, Daily !!

balkydj
balkydj
May 4, 2018 12:02 PM
Reply to  balkydj

lol: Ta, for the heads up ! you certainly know better than me the ‘cover’ names of folk round here & their tendencies: I’m still PH/fishing for minnows, it would seem .. 🙂

John Marks
John Marks
May 3, 2018 6:32 PM
Reply to  Julie

Independent has excluded me, blaming “technical problems” that months of their assistants can’t solve.
I’ve survived on the Grauniad by commenting very seldom and scrupulously politely, relevant, etc., but still get some deleted. But interesting Grauniad articles seldom allow comment or, if the comments are too near the truth, are closed soon afterwards.

johnny
johnny
May 3, 2018 7:25 PM
Reply to  John Marks

Even relatively harmless articles like this:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/27/digital-killed-the-cd-compact-disc
are closed down when they realise hardly anyone agrees with them and their silly positions

A J Benge
A J Benge
Jun 3, 2018 11:45 AM
Reply to  John Marks

I had same problem on the Indy for a week, (posts vanished immediately I added them) The complaints person mentioned their ‘moderation partners’. So…… if moderation is outsourced, who is it outsourced to?

George the Blot
George the Blot
May 2, 2018 1:53 PM

Possibly Harry Karmichel is a proscribed user or on a watch list for completely different posts or reasons – he doesn’t appear on search, so that seems likely. Or possibly Operation Timber Sycamore has a D notice on it, or the moderator thought it might have, in which case the Graun had an obligation to remove it (that shouldn’t be the case, but it is). Or possibly the moderator just made a mistake – they have thousands of posts to deal with in seconds each, and these things happen. I’m just saying I don’t see anything sinister in this – esp as other off-message posts survived.

Ray Raven
Ray Raven
May 2, 2018 2:44 PM

Your vain attempt to justify the comment’s deletion reminds me of the Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister episode in which Appelby (or whatever the public servant’s name is) is trying to justify a work blunder on his part during earlier times (whilst stationed in the Scottish office as a junior “it was a stressful period”, “we were under-staffed”).
You are trying to fabricate specious excuses, that frankly are plain BS.

George the Blot
George the Blot
May 2, 2018 7:26 PM
Reply to  Ray Raven

Except that the alternative theory is that the Guardian is spending money paying an educated and informed moderator who does nothing but look for well-reasoned posts critical of the article, and deletes only them while leaving more critical but less well-argued ones. Why would they do that? Why would anyone?

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 2, 2018 8:53 PM

How is the weather in Caversham?

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 3, 2018 9:32 AM

Yes, George-you have a point. I go for the D notice theory, because the May regime, such a beacon of ‘Freedom’, is throwing them about with Inquisitorial enthusiasm.

Jen
Jen
May 4, 2018 6:20 AM

Because the more critical but less well-argued posts can always be dismissed as “hysterical” and “ignorant” whereas the better argued if rather less critical posts cannot be so easily spurned without an answer (that inevitably fails to counter them)?

Jay-Q
Jay-Q
May 3, 2018 10:08 AM
Reply to  Ray Raven

I don’t know what point you are trying to make. It’s ludicrous to consider Operation Timber Sycamore is under a D-Notice; it’s in the public domain. It’s a little bit stupid to think that the ‘moderator made a mistake’. However, you are right about other critical comments remaining on the thread. It’s possible that Harry’s comment got to close to the nerve.
Searching for that user on the Guardian isn’t going to yield results. The easiest thing to do is go to the article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/01/syria-rebuke-western-inaction-military-intervention-assad
and click on his username to see his comment history:
https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/18263449?page=1

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 2, 2018 8:14 PM

Well said, Nick.

Smitty
Smitty
May 3, 2018 6:33 AM

The Graun yanks comments all over the place. Disappears them as well. Banning occurs all the time. Pre-moderation is another one of the fakestream Graun’s censor ‘tools’ as well. Shambolic!!

EggMcMullah
EggMcMullah
May 2, 2018 1:51 PM

Gentle Forumites, at the risk of showing myself to be several pages behind everyone else, I’ll throw out the question anyway. What happened to the Guardian? I’ve never understood. How did they abandon their statement of principles?

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 2, 2018 9:08 PM
Reply to  EggMcMullah

The Guardian got into a debt position from which it couldn’t recover. “Sponsors” appeared (the Heritage Insitute, the Rockefeller Institute, and other which do not care to be a named) who ‘buy’ the editorial position of this once-renowned newspaper – and use its masthead to promote NATO values instead. An army of compliant trolls from Caversham, the BBC, and other sources) keep the comment sections filled with pro-Tory tripe. Compliant ‘journalists’ (Katherine Vyner, Owen Jones, Rafael Behr, Jonathan Freedland, Hadley Freeman, Marina Hyde, Tanya Gold, and many others) keep up the simulcrum of journalism – in exchange for a job in the newspaper business. For many (most?) it’s been a ragmag-to-riches journey of highly-paid non-achievement. The truly talentless, such as Julie Bindell and Owen Jones, have even reworked their own failed lives (career failure. relationship meltdown, rejection, alcoholism) into the raw material for stuff to fill the columns up.

EggMcMullah
EggMcMullah
May 3, 2018 12:19 PM
Reply to  reinertorheit

Thank you.

John Marks
John Marks
May 3, 2018 6:41 PM
Reply to  EggMcMullah

It all went pear-shaped when Alan Rusbridger published Julian Assange’s Wikileaks.
The Graun got a visit from the plain-clothes Plod and were told to hand over all the Graun’s hard disk-drives or destroy them in Plod’s presence.
Rusbridger took a hammer to the drives, then resigned
The rest is history.

johnny
johnny
May 3, 2018 7:27 PM
Reply to  EggMcMullah

I wonder if maybe it was always so (to a degree), and it has been exposed by the internet age. Was even The Manchester Guardian “controlled opposition”?

mohandeer
mohandeer
May 2, 2018 1:44 PM

Ah! He told the truth without breaking any standards but it was cohesive and well informed. That must have stung the Gaurdian immensely. THAT is why it was removed. Comment is Free? “Call it Farcical” more likely. What is encouraging though, is that we have so many well informed comments here on OffG and that the site is attracting more and more people.
It’s what keeps me sane in this mad world.

John Marks
John Marks
May 3, 2018 6:45 PM
Reply to  mohandeer

Yes, the Graun seems desperate to keep up the impression it’s “free” so allows some comments counter to the NATO narrative, especially if they’re ill-thought out. So they can say “we’re free – see?”

mohandeer
mohandeer
May 2, 2018 1:17 PM

Reblogged this on Worldtruth.

EggMcMullah
EggMcMullah
May 2, 2018 12:30 PM

Most of the Middle East has been turned into a flaming train wreck and there will be no peace without justice. When those responsible for the horrific carnage stand at sentencing I expect to see a fair number of editors in chief among their ranks.

Savorywill
Savorywill
May 2, 2018 12:16 PM

It is interesting, though, that the other comments on the screenshot, that weren’t taken down, were also uniformly critical of the narrative of the article. Perhaps it was the expanded reasoning and explanation supporting the ideas that the moderator found objectionable (more ‘threatening’ I expect).
It is obvious that the Guardian isn’t writing articles for the ever-dwindling number of readers or subscribers that they used to have, but only for their owners, who want more war to justify having all those weapons and armaments. It is a huge industry, especially in America, always needing excuses to rationalize its existence. So, they plow funds into the media to demonize one enemy or another to justify it all. They could care less about the truth, that is for sure. The truth is the bottom line of how much they earn, that is the only truth these interests care about.

notheonly1
notheonly1
May 2, 2018 12:33 PM
Reply to  Savorywill

I gave you a thumbs up, but it disappeared immediately thereafter. So, consider this being it.

It is obvious that the Guardian isn’t writing articles for the ever-dwindling number of readers or subscribers that they used to have

That is an important realization. The Guardian is Frankenstein’s monster like. On the outside it resembles the shape of a human being, but on the inside it misses what makes a human being. On the outside the Guardian pretends to still be considered to be at the readers’ service in providing essential information. Inside though, the cancer of propaganda has eaten away all the important parts of what make a noteworthy publication to help people in being able to arrive at a well informed opinion, or knowledge about domestic and global affairs.

Jay-Q
Jay-Q
May 2, 2018 10:43 PM
Reply to  Savorywill

Good points. Look at the comments section – although it is now down from a high of 406 comments to a curtailed 387 – and they are unanimously critical of the article or the situation in Syria. Maybe Harry Karmichel just got to close to the nerve, particularly drawing attention to the international mujaheddin who ‘zig-zag across Eurasia’ at will. I think he’s right. Identifying this well-resourced mercenary army is crucial to understanding geopolitics of the last 40 years, from the Russo-Afghan war in the 1980’s through to Syria and various places in Africa today. This part of his comment really opened my eyes as I have never even considered it in this context before.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/01/syria-rebuke-western-inaction-military-intervention-assad
*Apparently a judge in the USA has chosen to fine Iran to compensate victims of 9/11!! Despite 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers coming from a state central to the international mujaheddin, Saudi Arabia.

bill40
bill40
May 2, 2018 11:59 AM

I’ll tell you exactly why the comment was censored, it gave the names of western operations in Syria and that’s jolly poor form. How are those poor put upon propagandists for the MIC supposed to fool the public when their operations (that don’t officially exist) get called out? One day the Graun will grasp they aren’t fooling anyone.

Andy
Andy
May 2, 2018 1:10 PM
Reply to  bill40

That was my first thought, you have given a name to something that could be researched further by interested readers. My second thought was the censor didn’t know what you were talking about, didn’t have time to check and thought better not take a risk. There’s even the possibility s/he just thought zig zag was some new coded insult for a Jew
! :-/

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 3, 2018 9:38 AM
Reply to  Andy

Any word but ‘Sir’ is considered an ‘antisemitic’ slur these days.

Greg Bacon
Greg Bacon
May 2, 2018 11:50 AM

You must of not gotten the memo that commands TRUTH IS VERBOTEN!
Put on your cheerleading skirts and start waving those pom-poms, cheering for another glorious war for Apartheid Israel.
Naturally, their will be some collateral damage, gasoline will spike to $10 a gallon and economies in the West will collapse, but that is a small price to pay to make Israel happy and keep PM Nuttyahoo out of prison for corruption.

Harry Law
Harry Law
May 2, 2018 11:21 AM

Diana Darke sounds like another member of the cruise missile left or R2P, she should have consulted her husband John McHugo [International Law Lawyer] about the breaches of International law the US/UK presence in Syria entails, and that the doctrine of R2P is not an accepted International norm. The latest cruise missile strike on Syria was an act of aggression, the supreme International crime. But then idiots like Diana Darke think confronting Russia outside the rules of International Law is a good thing.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
May 2, 2018 9:21 AM

The Guardian is flat out propaganda for the warmongering, Imperialist (((globalist))) establishment. My own comments were banned the moment I tried to start posting online more than ten years ago. But so what? Who cares?
However, The Guardian cheerleads and lies for Lucifer. It is the enemy of its own deluded readership. And the rest of us.
A LIAR. Of Satan.
Moreso than most of the rest of the MSM.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
May 2, 2018 8:34 AM

They tend to censor any commentor exposing the ludicrous incoherencies of the Solon-Freedland-Tisdall axis.
The reporting of Syria proves that the Guardian and real journalism became strangers a long time ago

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 2, 2018 8:53 AM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Chomsky and Herman shewed, in ‘Manufacturing Consent’ over 25 years ago, that the western ‘Free Press’ is nothing but a propaganda system for the capitalist owners of societies. It was always ‘bleedin’ obvious’ to any even half-witted observer that dared break out of the brainwashing system, but they described the process, the ways and means and the drives behind the propagandisation of the system. The situation, today, is vastly worse, and the critical necessity to mentally anaesthetise an increasingly restless populace, languishing under the vicious economic repression and geo-political madness of the last forty years, plus increasingly becoming aware that the gathering ecological Holocaust is going to destroy us all, has created a fakestream media and cadre of presstitutes in fits of desperation and rage at the insubordination of the serfs. The transition of that Dr. Jekyll, the ‘Guardian’, into the hideous Mr. Hyde of the ‘Fraudian’, is one of the more tragic events in this descent into the moral and intellectual sewer.

johnny
johnny
May 2, 2018 3:24 PM

Out of interest, when do you think the transition occurred?

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 2, 2018 8:30 PM
Reply to  johnny

Bit by bit the Fraudian was Zionised, Blairised and Sorosised. From 2001, and the Zionists’ ‘War of Terror’ after the 9/11 ‘New Pearl Harbor’ false flag, the process has been gradual, but inexorable. We’ll need a high-level whistle-blower, I think, to get the precise details.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
May 3, 2018 11:26 AM
Reply to  johnny

[[ when do you think the transition occurred? ]]
There was a slow build-up towards it for many years – with Simon Tisdall posting paid anti-Russian hysteria for a full ten years prior. But the catalyst for the switchover appears to have been the Graun’s wanton desctruction of hard disks of incriminating informtion from Wikileaks – ‘allegedly’ under police coercion.
Editor Alan Rusbridger thereupon resigned immediately (having smashed a few disks himself) – allegedly to ‘pursue other career opportunities’ i.e. (he has never published a single word since). It remains unclear whether he did a non-prosecution deal with the cops in return for his silence – or whether he was paid off for it?
The shunt to Guardian Lite came the following week.

James Graham
James Graham
May 2, 2018 8:02 AM

Darke’s pathetic article is written from the standpoint of the aggrieved looser…trying to and failing to “set the record straight.” Her beating the war drums…again…is what is “surreal.” With an attitude like that I think she just said goodbye to her house in Damascus…and good riddance. It’s a hit piece from the Devil’s Advocate. If she cared she would have investigated the Shamnesty report on Saydnaya Prison and the Ghouta CW attack claims of 2013. But then she may have had to consider giving the benefit of the doubt to Assad…because the jury is still out on those, to say the least. How many fatalities she is willing to accept, 500,000 or 1 million or so, she does not say. All will be well so long as she get’s her way and her man…Assad. It’s thoughtless and mindless stuff. Jay-Q’s fair comment invites discussion. Check out the small print…the owner’s word is final. The Guardian isn’t going to open the critical floodgates on their “Assad Must Go” propaganda. They want a future in the US. How would, “WE GOT IT WRONG ABOUT ASSAD…TRUMP MUST GO,” go down in the US? All Hail Assad!

MichaelK
MichaelK
May 2, 2018 8:01 AM

I think the comment’s very character suggest that the Guardian is willfully misleading its readers and deliberately ignoring the true context of the conflict in Syria. From the Guardian’s perspective this amounts to an outrageous ‘conspiracy theory.’

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
May 2, 2018 8:53 AM
Reply to  MichaelK

What is especially striking is the unseemly haste with which Freedland, et al, seize on any event in Syria that supports the western narrative without ever waiting to verify sources or check out counter narratives – needless to say he can’t rely on direct reporting because the Guardian team tend to stay well clear of the war zone.
In other words the Guardian seems to have lost all interest in due process while willfully ignoring the long history of false flags – what’s particularly sickening is the way the Guardian then reverses its position by moralising about false flags but only after they have been sanitised or have lost their immediate political significance.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 2, 2018 8:58 AM
Reply to  MichaelK

They are lying in service to Imperial power. It is more or less all they do these days. I assume some of the presstitutes are so brainwashed that they believe, or half believe, the crap they peddle, but many, I believe, are knowing liars, accomplices before and after the act in aggression and genocide.

Zara Ali
Zara Ali
May 2, 2018 7:45 AM

…because it was the truth, had it been a lie, it would have been promulgated everywhere and anywhere…

Ivan
Ivan
May 2, 2018 7:21 AM

I think that the community guideline which this comment has violated is that it was one too many 🙂

Ivan
Ivan
May 2, 2018 8:22 AM
Reply to  Ivan

(most of the comments on this article, even those which managed to pass Guardian’s “thought control”, are exposing the fact that the west knowingly caused and supported the war in Syria on the part of the sunni fanatics).

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 2, 2018 9:00 AM
Reply to  Ivan

That was plain from 2011, to anyone with any knowledge of the Real Evil Empire’s modus operandi, and the history of US and Israeli aggression against Syria from the late 1940s.

notheonly1
notheonly1
May 2, 2018 6:51 AM

Actually, the removal of this comment is a good thing – as long as it is recorded. Needless to mention that I am not the only one, that makes screen captures after commenting, there has to be a nice collection of proven censorship on behalf of the most decrepit powers that be in human history. The old mare that the Nazis were so vicious becomes more ludicrous by each progressing day. The Nazis were unprofessional, ineffective botch-up artists compared to the crimes perpetrated by the string pullers today. They have hijacked the narrative incrementally since 2000 and widened their reach down to individual hack-‘journalists’.
At this time it must be obvious that any publication attracting more than a certain amount of thinkers will be controlled and if necessary changes its ownership to reflect the pursued ‘Gleichschaltung’ of the myriad ‘information’ outlets.
When the day comes in which those who were instrumental in the deception of their respective population have to stand trial for treason, promotion of illegal wars of aggression, support for acts of terror, countless violations of international laws an human rights – to which truthful information is an integral part – then we have documents verifying these crimes against humanity.
It is moot to not give this outcome any consideration, as that would mean that the string pullers will ultimately get away with their crimes – and in that case, we might all find ourselves in the same concentration camp, or re-education center.
Thus, keep making those screen captures and store them outside of your computer. And yes, you may call me an optimist, but I know who is really in control and it is not those who believe they call the shots.
BTW: RT is as despicable of a censoring online rag as the Fraudian. Unless the censoring is done by ‘spotify.im’ or what the embed is called. Intelligent comments are truncated, vile, racist, homophobic and utterly moronic comments remain in the threads.
Thanks be given to the Universe for Off-Guardian and if I wouldn’t be in such lousy state of finances, I would give plenty to cover its expenses. Keep your fingers twisted that my situation will improve.

0use4msm
0use4msm
May 2, 2018 5:56 AM

Obviously Harry Karmichel’s astute observation (doubt if I could have written it better myself) was censored for being threatening in nature: it threatened the Guardian of the Cabal’s “framing of the narrowtive” due to its veracity. The writer of this particular post should consider its subsequent censorship as a badge of honour.

Jen
Jen
May 2, 2018 5:38 AM

Harry Karmichael committed the unpardonable sin of appearing more informed about the situation in Syria than the article’s author, by naming more than one terrorist jihadi group at large in the country. We’re not supposed to know anything more than ISIS.
He also saw the situation from the Syrian point of view – another abomination in the eyes of the “omniscient” Fraudian.
For these and other heinous transgressions in his comment, the whole mini-essay had to be expunged so that the Comments Forums could remain virgin-ignorant.
Funny how the panoptian hydra-beast moderating the Fraudian’s comments forums didn’t pick up on the one mistake Harry did make in saying “eastern China” instead of “western China”, where Uyghur pro-independence fighters have been seduced by foreign recruiters into travelling into Syria to fight with the takfiris there.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 2, 2018 9:04 AM
Reply to  Jen

‘Uighur pro-independence fighters’ are jihadists. They do not need any inducement to serve their US paymasters, while getting a little training in head-lopping and child crucifixion, in Syria.

Jay-Q
Jay-Q
May 2, 2018 10:42 AM
Reply to  Jen

Hi Jen, excellent post and thanks for highlighting the mistake in Harry’s post. I didn’t notice it yesterday and have added a comment under the original Tweet, crediting you with pointing out the Uighur error (eastern/western China). Thanks.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
May 2, 2018 8:33 PM
Reply to  Jay-Q

Uighur jihadist terrorists have committed atrocities for their US paymasters as far afield as in the mass stabbing in Kunming, in China’s south.

rtj1211
rtj1211
May 2, 2018 5:26 AM

The real question is whether this is a commercial fraud or not and, hence, wilful mis-selling?
Sueing the Guardian into liquidation for commercial mis-selling is a very attractive propostion, but without a jury willing to over-rule misdirection by a handpicked judge, it would get nowhere.
Even if there were a prima faciae case, which is certainly open to question….

John Marks
John Marks
May 3, 2018 7:14 PM
Reply to  rtj1211

Judges cannot overrule juries.
In England juries are the common law.

falcemartello
falcemartello
May 2, 2018 4:22 AM

How Goebbelesque our legacy media have become.
RINSE LATHER AND REPEAT.
What I fear is that the western sheeple have such a short memory span that they can even fall for such deceptive ,mendacious fabrications of reality. Mission Creep all over the maghreb in particular Syria. Macron the Cazzon Small man syndrome and such a blatant insult to any human individual with a modicum of grey matter is beyond me.
BY DECEPTION YOU MAY WAGE WAR .WOLFAWITZ DOCTRINE : Categorically states and advocates perpetual war and dismantling sovereign states that do not follow the Washington consensus. Plus all those think tank documents from Chattam House ,the Atlantic Council, Brooking Institute and CFR all stating the same thing.
Boy the fascistic times we are living. WW2 in the end was all ruse
Heres to our dying western civilisation
Guns Gold and a getaway plan . if any of us are smart.

tutisicecream
tutisicecream
May 2, 2018 3:14 AM

“What “community standards” did this comment breach?” Ah, clearly the Guardian’s “Truth to Power Standard”? [please don’t laugh] Much vaunted by Viner only er… yesterday…

HannaB555
HannaB555
May 2, 2018 2:24 AM

Thank goodness for this site and all who contribute here – otherwise things would have been just too dismal and hopeless. Have turned back on mainstream UK media for years now because of the lies.

archie1954
archie1954
May 2, 2018 1:44 AM

It was taken down because it was true!

Patrick Armstrong
Patrick Armstrong
May 2, 2018 1:23 AM

That easy to answer: it violates Big Brother’s community standards, The standards on Ingsoc.

flaxgirl
flaxgirl
May 2, 2018 1:01 AM

And it was such a well-written comment too. Shaaaaaaammmmmmmeeeeeee.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
May 2, 2018 12:46 AM

What’s heartening though, is that the other comments depicted in the screenshot are also very skeptical of the official narrative. Maybe daylight is finally beginning to pierce the fog … just a little, at least.

Baron
Baron
May 2, 2018 1:11 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

You, Seamus, are an optimist of the Mark Twain’s mould – ‘a day dreamer more elegantly spelled’.
If anything, the filtering practised by the Guardian will become more the norm, the freedom to post anything that corrects, challenges or, God forbid, fully contradicts the official line will have to go, if it were to stay, those in governance will lose the power to control us.
You may have seen the call by the Pinocchio at Defence to everyone in the MSM to join the Army Reserve, that’s what the future holds, a bunch of MSM scribblers getting orders from the top, weaponising news, ‘educating’ the unwashed.