FINALLY: HuffPost Admits That It Pre-Moderates Comments On News Threads

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In this expose', HB (HuffBusters) provides a detailed, factual, contextual analysis of HuffPost's conflicting assertions regarding which user comments it moderates, and how. Specifically, it exposes the fact that despite HuffPost's repeated denials and obfuscations, it has been pre-moderating comments on its news threads --- to some extent since October 2007, and definitely since March 2008.

Now, HB's ongoing research uncovered Arianna Huffington's explicit admission that it pre-moderates comments on its news threads. From a July 2008 interview with PoynterOnline (the webzine for the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism school):

(Q) What's been the Huffington Post's biggest mistake and what would you have done differently?

Huffington: From the beginning, I would have established a policy of pre-moderating all comments on the site. We started with pre-moderation only on blog posts, since we felt it was important to provide a civil environment for our bloggers (i.e., one where critical comments would of course be allowed but no ad hominem attacks or name calling). Our comments on the news site were originally post-moderated (i.e., objectionable comments were removed only after our moderators were alerted). We eventually decided that it was worth the substantial effort and expense to have human pre-moderation on both blogs and news.

And just in case anyone gets clever and throws this article down the memory hole... the screen capture is below:


Well, well, well.

Given this, it is now absolutely indisputable that every last sordid, hateful, threatening user comment that appear on HuffPost's news threads --- as documented in triplicate here at HB --- have been, and are explicitly approved by its management (which also claims copyright to them; see [3] here).

This is despite HuffPost's false claims to this day --- that it only post-moderates comments on its news threads --- as shown below (screen capture from its "FAQ: Comments & Moderation" page, taken April 26 at 11:10am; click to enlarge for verification)


For anyone who questioned the validity of, and the need for HuffBusters at this point, that gem of a quote should clear up any doubts.

Thanks, Ms. Huffington. You've just made HB's work a lot easier.

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