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What “community standards” did this comment breach? #20

The following comments – sent in to us by a reader – were censored by The Guardian. Which of the well-publicised CiF “community standards” did they breach?

Removed comment, posted under the Politics live feed on Tuesday 5th of March:

…aaannnddd the gap where it used to be:

So: Which of the Guardian’s “community standards” did these comments break?

  • 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 were they 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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Shinra2
Shinra2
May 29, 2019 7:00 PM

I just got censored for commenting on a, Freedman article. It was basically about labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell being thrown out of the Labour Party but also mentions Labours, so called anti semitism. I did mention that it was another load of garbage by freedman (curious to know if this is breaking any community rules?). I went on to explain that anyone who criticises Israel is now deemed anti Semitic. I was first hit, within 1 minute, with pro Israel talking points but within 5 minutes I had 15 up votes and then came the comment deletion.

Pesky Puss
Pesky Puss
Mar 17, 2019 8:33 AM
pablomillerunit
pablomillerunit
Sep 4, 2019 8:07 AM
Reply to  Pesky Puss

wrong kind jews……

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Mar 8, 2019 2:00 AM

Another one that displeased TheGuardian:

Business does not give a toss about the environment because the decision makers are usually financial enough to move somewhere where the effects are not that great.

I spent some time in the fishing and grain shipping town Port Lincoln (South Australia). Yesterday we hear that the railway which transports grain to the silos is going to be closed.

Both the railway and the grain shipping are now owned by multinational corporations so nobody has any influence. They said on TV it would result in 30,000 more trucks (road trains!) moving through that small town which is 82 trucks a day. I think they might have made a mistake with that figure but still, large numbers of road trains reduce the quality of life and property values, plus increase the diesel pollution which would hover over the bay. After a couple of years, it’ll affect the tuna farms, because the dioxins from diesel fumes don’t break down.

It is unbelievable. They all act as if the world is going to end in a few years so our pollution does not matter.

(I think it started off with a new huge coal fired power station in the Australian Hunter Valley. I drifted a bit, okay).

Frankly Speaking
Frankly Speaking
Mar 7, 2019 5:13 PM

“Debunking the myth that anti-Zionism is antisemitic”

None of you will guess which news website this article is posted on, it’s incredible, can’t believe it.
Someone will get the sack for this, even jailed for “hate speeech”.
What on Earth is going on over there?

https://bit.ly/2tX0k8i

Jules Moules
Jules Moules
Mar 8, 2019 2:45 PM

Oh, they occasionally let one through. But three more will pop up with the complete opposite view. If you take three steps forward and one back, guess what? You still end up in Greater Israel. Freedland, I’m sure, like many other Zionists, is well aware of this fact.

Thomas Prentice
Thomas Prentice
Mar 6, 2019 5:34 PM

It is Israel and its Stalinist Comintern-like appendages in the UK, USA and other nations that have the anti-Semitism problem. Anti-Semitic against Arabs.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Mar 6, 2019 1:37 PM

Not all British minds have turned to mush in quite the same way the Guardian has.

Stephen Law (in additions to Kit’s recent assessment) makes some great points. https://www.patreon.com/posts/my-short-intro-24853919

Law asks ‘What’s the evidence supporting the allegation that Labour has an anti-semitism problem?’ He goes on to say ‘For the most part it consists of a few hundred complaints to the Labour Party, out of well over half a million members. That’s a small fraction of 1% of the membership. And then there are various other alleged cases of left anti-semitism that have been featured very heavily in the media. That’s it. That’s pretty much all the evidence. But of course this is, again, entirely anecdotal, cherry-picked evidence.’

Law adds ‘This is not to say that there is no antisemitism in Labour – obviously there is. But the suggestion that the Left is riddled with anti-semitism is clearly entirely unjustified. Indeed, drawing that conclusion on the basis of that sort of evidence is a classic example of confirmation bias. Actually there is plenty of much better quality evidence concerning levels anti-semitism on the Left. However, all this evidence FLATLY CONTRADICTs the claim that there’s more anti-semitism in Labour or on the Left than there is elsewhere.

For example:
Jewish Policy Research – a Jewish think-tank – conducted an extensive survey looking into anti-semitism, including on the left (2017). They concluded, and I quote, ‘antisemitism is no more prevalent on the left than in the general population’. That’s a Jewish think-tank’s conclusion.

A Cross-Party Home Affairs Select Committee was tasked with looking into levels of anti-semitism in the UK (2017). It concluded, and I quote, ‘…there exists no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party.’

There is, further, yougov data on antisemitic attitudes that indicates antisemitic attitudes have actually *reduced* in Labour under Corbyn (2018).

The Chakrabarti inquiry looked into the accusations of significant antisemitism in Labour and found no significant problem.

In 2016, Channel 4 Dispatches programme did a 6 month undercover investigation of Momentum, looking for dirt, including anti-semitism. They found none at all. After six months of undercover investigation.

So, so far as I can see, all the available hard evidence not only fails to support the allegation that Labour has an anti-semitism problem – it directly contradicts that allegation.

Law concludes, ‘Those who do fire off accusations cavalierly, without taking care with the evidence are;
(i) are disrespecting the memory of the millions who were slaughtered by real antisemitism during the Holocaust,
(ii) drawing our attention away from the real anti-semites in our ranks,
(iii) crying wolf: making it more likely that genuine reports of a/s will not be believed.

These are what as known as facts and since facts, especially when placed in the wrong hands are like kryptonite for Guardian dissemblers- the only way to deal with them is by pretending they don’t exist, or censoring them.

Olivesnightie presented unpalatable facts about Hodge and nowadays the Guardian doesn’t do reason or balance so as per usual resorted to their phony comments policy to subvert reality – absolutely pathetic when you think about it.

WakaJawaka
WakaJawaka
Mar 6, 2019 1:33 PM

The Guardian’s systematic censorship of comments critical of Israel’s violence against Palestine’s civilian population and of Zionism in general is not a recent thing. It’s much older than some people here seem to think and it all happened during Rusbridger’s regime.

On maybe 3 or 4 occasions between 2006 and 2010 I posted a comment on cif containing a link to Vanessa Redgrave’s famous “Zionist Hoodlums” speech at the academy awards ceremony in 1978 …

https://www.youtube.com/results?q=Vanessa+Redgrave+1978+Oscars

… and although I thought my comments were perfectly reasonable (no abusive language, no shouting or anything of that sort) all of them were more or less instantly deleted. From this I concluded that it wasn’t my words but Vanessa’s words that so enraged the Guardian’s censors. To find out if this was so, I “smuggled” the link in once more, this time omitting Ms Redgrave’s name and choosing an article that had absolutely nothing to do with ME politics or Zionism …

Helen Mirren accuses Hollywood of penis worship – Thu 9 Dec 2010 10.29 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/discussion/p/2yyay?page=2

WakaJawaka 9 Dec 2010 13:38

Loz8188: Hats off to Helen!

Yes, Helen Mirren was right to stand up and speak her mind on the issue. Hollywood’s sexism is a disgrace and should be exposed at every possible opportunity. On the other hand … sexism is a rather uncontroversial issue among civilized people and speaking out against it doesn’t pose any risk. Things were quite different when during the academy award ceremony in 1978 another British actress spoke out against one of the evils of our time. The few words she said then never made the headlines and still cannot be quoted anywhere after more than 30 years … including here on cif.

… and of course, it was instantly deleted, this time even before a single recommendation was made.

P.S.: Ever since I was first hit by the Guardian’s political censorship sometime in 2006 I have kept all of my comments in a local file, just for the record.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Mar 10, 2019 5:57 AM
Reply to  WakaJawaka

I am just posting less, although one runs the risk of ending up in echo chambers.

The possibility to expose some people for what they do in a more mainstream string is of course very tempting. I spent considerable time and some money on trying to find proof that our grandfather had been Jewish because then our land in the former East Berlin might not have ended up as a gift to a French government owned company (elf Aquitaine). The Jews all got their land back, from Germans the Kohl-Regime just stole. I had a lot of sympathy for the Jewish people but they carve out just too many privileges and trample on others.

notheonly1
notheonly1
Mar 6, 2019 1:13 PM

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”?

Well, maybe it’s a simple form of psychological projection?

Therefore, a comment will breach the ‘rules’, if:

It represents the Guardian and its ‘journalists’ truthfully.
It is not persistent trolling and mindless abuse.
It is not spam-like, or obviously not commercial.
It is not racism, sexism, homophobia, or hate speech.
It is not extremely offensive, or threatening.
It is not flame-wars based on ingrained partisanship or generalizations.
It is relevant.

Maybe that makes more sense than any attempt to figure out why comments that are important from a perspective of necessary societal changes are erased asap? The Gonadian has turned into a sub mediocre satire magazine without ever noticing it. This needs to be pointed out – otherwise there might be people who take it serious…

vwbeetle
vwbeetle
Mar 6, 2019 12:34 PM

It’s all a bit strange really. If I say to a Jew “You don’t belong here, this is not your home. Israel is the Jewish homeland so you should go and live there”, I would quite rightly be condemned as an anti Semite. However, if a Jew says the same thing he will simply be described as a staunch Zionist.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 6, 2019 2:22 PM
Reply to  vwbeetle

Like Lily Tomlin said, “when I speak to God it is called prayer. When God speaks to me it is called hallucination”

Gwyn
Gwyn
Mar 6, 2019 11:32 AM

They should change the name to CiA: Comment is Anti-Semitic.

vwbeetle
vwbeetle
Mar 6, 2019 11:03 AM

My first comment here. Can someone please explain what has happened at the Guardian? For years it published articles critical of Israel, and opened them to comments. I used CIF as a vehicle to counter the propaganda (and plain lies) posted by Zionists and was very rarely moderated. However, such articles seem to have disappeared and comment is rarely allowed. As for the Corbin anti semitism smear campaign, dissenting voices are just about banned on CIF in the very rare instances that comments are allowed. What has happened?

Paul Rigby
Paul Rigby
Mar 6, 2019 11:36 AM
Reply to  vwbeetle

MI6 & CIA appointed a securicrat as editor & tightened control. Part of the motivation appears to be a conviction that the paper is doomed & might as well go down in flames.

Haltonbrat
Haltonbrat
Mar 6, 2019 2:05 PM
Reply to  vwbeetle

Guardian has always been pro-Zionist. Chaim Weizmann, leading Zionist in England, was introduced to Lloyd George by CP Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian. Lloyd George arranged for Weizmann to see Balfour. Scott used the editorial section of his “liberal” newspaper to support Zionism. A 1917 leader described Palestinians as being “at a low stage of civilisation”.

DunGroanin
DunGroanin
Mar 6, 2019 3:38 PM
Reply to  vwbeetle

Go read Jonathan Cooks blog for a catalogue of how, when and why the putridness set in at the Graun.

Also David Hearst. Both were senior journos at that paper when it was still doing ‘news’ and ‘investigative reporting’ as opposed to Integrity Initiative bollocks.

That’s why I dun groanin.

Some Random Passer-by
Some Random Passer-by
Mar 6, 2019 7:11 PM
Reply to  vwbeetle

The agenda took over. Quite who runs the agenda is beyond my speculation, too many characters, too much information, not enough time or IQ.

The G has shifted violently rightwards, and so to have the comments (when they are allowed).

If I was going to state anything, it would be that it happened around the same time that Snowdens information was smashed up.

Each day that passes convinces me more and more that we are living in a fascist state, and there’ll be no turning back either…

Pesky Puss
Pesky Puss
Mar 15, 2019 7:06 AM
Reply to  vwbeetle

Has reader disgruntlement with The G started to get to them? In the last 3-4 days two pieces at least that I know of from the Palestinian side of the fence regarding repression. Comments not allowed under the pieces. As we did a few years ago, a friend was planning to end her subscription to The G on the basis of the hostile environment to pro-Palestine and anti- ”antisemitism pandemic” sentiments she also holds. Certainly I and my friends have been networking Offguardian’s presence and sneakily tried to refer to it in CiF post. This thawing of its attitude to Palestinian rights is yet to transfer to a review of its kow-towing to the Hodge/Watson Truth Ministry subservience though. The AWL faction which has infiltrated some Labour wards wants any call for Palestinian Right of Return to be an automatic expelling offence. Let’s see if this is where that cabal wants to take the matter and how The G reacts.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Mar 17, 2019 1:09 AM
Reply to  vwbeetle

It is not just the Guardian. On RI I posted this for an article that dealt with book banning and censorship. Less than a day later the article is called ‘unpublished and not accessible’. Text:

For the record: Australian censors killed this book.
“Sydney Inc: The Murky World of Michael McGurk by Kate McClymont, Vanda Carson (ISBN: 9780522857818)”
I don’t ‘know’ what’s in there, obviously, but McGurk was a former secret service operative from Glasgow who was then a ‘businessman’, connected to a developer Medich who had hired a former Senator (Graham Richardson) for facilitating connections. McGurk was executed in front of his house. We are not allowed to know what these guys were up to. (Authors and Publishers are beyond reproach). End of posted text.

Who is behind the ‘book burning’ and is it just business or war preparations so the population doesn’t get proper info. Will I vanish here, too?

Philpot
Philpot
Mar 6, 2019 8:18 AM

The labour anti semitism charade is a total psyop backed by UK and Israel and possibly USA. All major media and ‘think thank’ groups are part of this cash-funded set up. Few ‘journos’ can earn a living without it and so go along with it. It’s cold on the outside you know…

Antonym
Antonym
Mar 6, 2019 7:50 AM

Why again on antisemitism? I had dozens of comments deleted, erased, vanished on the Graun’s Green threads.
Don’t question that man made CO2 is evil !!!!

John
John
Mar 6, 2019 9:49 AM
Reply to  Antonym

Back doing hasbara I see

mark
mark
Mar 6, 2019 3:47 PM
Reply to  John

The troll factory has just put on an extra shift.

Why the interest in “anti Semitism”?
Because it is a hoax to meddle in and subvert our democracy, and provide cover for the crimes and atrocities of the Zionist Regime. Also to protect the super rich billionaire class and their activities from scrutiny.
Because it smears and traduces decent public figures like Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn, Chris Williamson and many others.
Because it dishonours the memory of genuine victims of anti semitism and racism.
Because the claims and allegations of the smear campaign are so extreme and hysterical as to generate this amount of attention.
Because it diverts time and energy from genuine issues more deserving of attention.

I can sympathise with anyone who is sick and tired of hearing about “anti Semitism.”
There is wall to wall and back to back coverage of these allegations on the MSM. You hear of little else.
From the amount of time devoted to it, you would think that Corbyn spent most of his time polishing his jackboots and building a gas chamber down his allotment. This is the old ploy of repeating a lie a million times in the MSM echo chamber till it becomes the truth.
There has been no rational assessment of these allegations. What do they actually amount to?
A few hundred comments that some people with an agenda claim to find objectionable, a lot of them generally critical of Israel and the bulk of them made BY NON LABOUR PARTY MEMBERS.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Mar 6, 2019 11:12 AM
Reply to  Antonym

‘Why again on antisemitism’ – because the antisemitism psyop exposes the nature of our media, and depths they are willing to sink to at the behest of their sinister overlords.

On the one hand we have the venal Margaret Hodge, the epitome of everything that stinks about Blair’s Labour, and on the other a politician who is arguably Britains foremost MP in the fight against racism or negotiating with groups despised by the media (such as the IRA and Hezbollah) – yet according to the Guardians ludicrous narrative Hodge is the victim rather than the other way round.

I mean can you imagine the way it would have played out in the Guardian if Luciana Berger or any of the other pro-Israeli MPs had been assaulted at a place of worship?
But as it stands this is a news outlet that has not only minimised the significance of Corbyn’s vulnerability (because that egg might have been a knife or gun) but also fails to understand the difference between ACTUAL violence and fears that are largely imaginary, fears that would quickly dissipate without the febrile atmosphere continually whipped up by the media.

According to Media-lens since Corbyn became leader there have been over 10,000 items in the media linking him to antisemitism, whereas the were just 18 before this.

In other words the Guardian is asking the public to believe that since assuming the leadership Corbyn has orchestrated a fiendish plot to persude Blairites to switch their usual hatred of muslim and African states (or at least I assume they hate these countries given the amount of devastation they have inflicted on them) to those who are sympathetic to Israeli interests.

Of course nobody has been able to uncover any actual evidence of this but that’s where the Guardian comes in – this outlet is quite capable of bringing operatic dimensions to even the most trivial infraction, such as an MP who wants to watch a film, or support a colleague who has been unfairly victimised. Apparently, in the alternative reality constructed by the Guardian this makes the likes of Chris Williamson and Jackie Walker antisemitic,

May I respectfully suggest you carefully read Kit’s masterful analysis – he takes this whole sorry spectacle, places it across his knee then spanks its arse. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if horrible Hodge has not already forwarded it to Tom ‘kangaroo court’ Watson as yet another example of antisemitism in the Labour party.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/05/anti-capitalism-is-not-anti-semitism/#comments

Mikalina
Mikalina
Mar 6, 2019 2:31 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

“On the one hand we have the venal Margaret Hodge, the epitome of everything that stinks about Blair’s Labour, and on the other a politician who is arguably Britains foremost MP in the fight against racism or negotiating with groups despised by the media…”

All the world’s a stage
And the men and women in it merely players……

I’ll get the popcorn……

Pesky Puss
Pesky Puss
Mar 6, 2019 6:51 AM

I made a similar comment to the OP’s and it was blocked by CiF. They don’t explain what their stylebook says on their “position” but we can guess from the above pattern what it is. At least Readers’ Ombudsman Mr Pritchard (?) was willing to be challenged on these issues but no more. I’d say be careful about praising Oliver Twist and Dickens’ portrayal of the underworld created by grasping capitalism- if The G’s attitude to the Monopoly painting is anything to go by, soon it too will be regarded as antisemitic and then everyone will be damned.

Archie1954
Archie1954
Mar 6, 2019 5:27 AM

The Guardian is corrupt MSM in operation. Don’t even bother to reply to any comments on its website. Don’t even bother to read its website.

Godfree Roberts
Godfree Roberts
Mar 6, 2019 4:28 AM

Commenters who know something about China get the same treatment and that seems to be hardening as policy across academic sites (The Conversation, U Notts), specialty sites (Naked Capitalism, Zero Hedge) and ‘news’ sites (South China Morning Post).

Even entire comment plugins like Disqus–which reaches 100 million readers–are wiping out both comments and commenters.

Anyone remember Fahrenheit 451?

Martin Hawes
Martin Hawes
Mar 6, 2019 2:02 AM

In his March 5 Guardian article ‘Science never quite clicked for me at school. Then I discovered science YouTube’, Tom Hawking denigrates 9/11 truthers as a ‘lunatic fringe’. My comment suggesting he acquaint himself with the University of Alaska’s 3-year study into the collapse of WTC Building 7 was ‘disappeared’ without a trace. Yet another example of the Guardian’s role as propaganda mouthpiece for the Neocons.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Mar 6, 2019 1:59 AM

It is good that the deleted analysis of imagined Labour anti-semitism sees the light of day here at least. A similar critical analysis of alleged incidents compiled by Jewish organizations might reveal similar hyperbole but it would have to be done with transparent objectivity.

mark
mark
Mar 6, 2019 4:11 AM
Reply to  George Cornell

AIPAC’s “epidemic of anti semitism” in the US includes 163 bomb threats to synagogues………………….made by one Jewish man in Israel.

George cornell
George cornell
Mar 6, 2019 10:21 AM
Reply to  mark

Important to know that. The next time a JDL or JDL-like organization declares another rise in anti-semitism only to be ubiquitously reported in the MSM, the methodology should be detailed. I have tried twice on this, having my neutral queries in response to a Fraudian claim of increasing anti-semitism deleted by the Fraudian anti-truth patrol. Some years ago, I also asked a JDL org. 1) if the criteria for categorization of an an incident as anti-Semitic could be made available 2) how they avoid bias in this 3) how they correct their numbers for the inevitable attacks on Jews that occur in the non-Jewish population too and are part of undirected background noise 4) how they standardized each survey so the comparisons in time might be validated 5) would they be open to independent audit and 6) do they have non-Jews participate in the assessments. No reply.

mark
mark
Mar 6, 2019 4:01 PM
Reply to  George cornell

There are a lot of similar cases. In France a few years ago, there was a lot of vandalism in Jewish cemeteries. After a lot of hysteria, the offender was found – a young Jewish man. He said he did it to increase sympathy for Israel when it was being criticised for one of its periodic Gaza massacres at the time.
He obviously wasn’t very concerned about the genuine distress he caused. If you go back in history, in the 50s and 60s there were bomb attacks on synagogues in countries like Iraq and Arab countries. These were carried out by Mossad agents to cause fear and induce Jews in those countries to emigrate to Israel.

There have been so many of these hoaxes and dirty tricks you have to wonder how many are genuine. When I was a lot younger, there were incidents where drunken half wits thought it was funny to leave a pig’s head outside a synagogue or mosque. You don’t seem to get this any more. I suspect most of these incidents now are bogus.

milosevic
milosevic
Mar 6, 2019 8:58 PM
Reply to  George cornell

Jules Moules
Jules Moules
Mar 6, 2019 1:13 AM

I’d always been convinced, completely and utterly evidence free, that the Guardian regime employ their moderators from the rather large pot of unhinged readers at the Jewish Chronicle. (a right wing, Zionist enterprise by any measure). Added to that, I’d never seen an advert for a Guardian regime advert.

But then, all was revealed. Just take a look at this: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/welcome-to-the-worst-job-in-the-world-my-life-as-a-guardian-moderator

To summarise Chomsky, you wouldn’t sit there deleting shite.if you believed anything else. And so we beget thus: comment is free but facts are sacred. Orwell should have written that…

mohandeer
mohandeer
Mar 6, 2019 10:54 AM
Reply to  Jules Moules

@JoulesMoules.
Followed the link and actually read the article to the end(with great difficulty and restraint)utter shite in responding to the real criticism that any honest comments abiding by the community standards are routinely vanished. What a propagandist article attempting to excuse(failing badly)the constant and consistent moderating of all voices of opposition to Guardian truthless bilge.

Badger Down
Badger Down
Mar 6, 2019 9:59 PM
Reply to  Jules Moules

And yet “the moderator’s” carefully-written piece mentions neither Jews nor zionism.

IntergenerationalTrauma
IntergenerationalTrauma
Mar 6, 2019 1:10 AM

“Truth itself” – now is an obvious and egregious violation of the West’s “community standards.” Meanwhile, “random Guaido” can be referred to as the “president of Venezuela” with no conceivable violation of “community standards” even imaginable.

Julio Bigtime
Julio Bigtime
Mar 6, 2019 1:46 AM

Random Juandering El Presidente Moped Guyaidó, if you please!

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Mar 6, 2019 1:09 AM

The ‘guardian’ of the $$$$$$$tatu$$$$$$$$ quo.
Lily livered sycophants.
Jackboot lickers.