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The following are the facts concerning HuffPost's moderation of comments on its news threads --- its contradictory statements, versus the reality. From HuffPost's debut in May 2005 through the present day, HuffPost has claimed in its FAQ: Comments & Moderation and Comment Policy the following:
"Huffington Post pre-moderates comments on our blog posts and post-moderates comments on news stories."The best way to gain an introductory understanding of this reality is to review what HuffPost's own news threads have looked like through time --- because its own statements upon them (and as we'll see shortly, in its public announcements) reveal the truth.
Quick Graphic Summary
Below is a graphical summary (click to enlarge) that provides the newcomer with a quick-reference timeline of the evolution of HuffPost's moderation of news threads. It illustrates the fact that HuffPost implemented major changes soon after major public eruptions over its resident hard-leftists letting loose with their hatred, urgings of violence against protectees of the U.S. Secret Service, etc.
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THE CHRONOLOGY
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THE CHRONOLOGY
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===========================================================(1) May 2005 (HuffPost debut) through October 2007: Post-moderation
(2) September 2007: The Media Research Center report on HuffPost as a facilitator of leftist hatred
(3) October 2007: HuffPost began quietly pre-moderating comments on news threads
(4) March 2008: After another public eruption, HuffPost announced --- in multiple ways --- that all news threads would be pre-moderated from then on
(5) March 19, 2008: Ms. Huffington lashed out at an "O'Reilly Factor" producer
(6) December 2008: HuffPost had up to or more than 1,000 comments "pending" its approval on news threads concerning the Gaza conflict
(1) May 2005 (HuffPost debut) through October 2007: Post-moderation
During this period, there was no statement on HuffPost's news threads as to how it moderated them (except providing links to its Comment Policy, etc.).
February 27, 2007: The "Cheney Thread"
In summary, on February 27, 2007, the Taliban failed in its attempt to assassinate Vice President Cheney during his visit to Afghanistan. HuffPost put up the story of this event as its top news thread. Many of its resident hard-leftists expressed their regret that the Taliban was unsuccessful, and how much better the world would be if someone would murder Cheney.
The only physical evidence of the comments that appeared on this HuffPost thread is found at Michelle Malkin's site, here (story here).
Within hours, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and others were all over HuffPost for this outrage --- and the fact that it then claimed that there were only a "miniscule minority" of "clearly unhinged, fringe" users who put up "offensive" comments, which its moderators then removed. The PDF of that thread proves the facts. This episode was also covered in detail at other blogsites, including TownHall (Dean Barnett), and JonQuixoteWorld, here.
Several days later, Ms. Huffington lashed out at her critics in a blog article she wrote for HuffPost. Excerpts (emphasis added):
A miniscule portion of the people who read that story chose to take advantage of the anonymous, open forum nature of comments in our news section to express regret that the Vice President hadn't been killed in the attack.The reality of the situation --- in contrast to Ms. Huffington's statements --- was proven by the actual thread, and blog analysis of HuffPost's actions concerning it. LittleGreenFootballs provided the most concise debunking of the false issues surrounding it:
As soon as these offensive comments came to our attention, they were deleted from the site.
(…)
No one at HuffPost is defending these comments -- they are unacceptable and were treated as such by being removed. They were not made by me, by our editors, or by our bloggers. They were made by anonymous visitors to the site -- visitors that make up a very, very small unrepresentative portion of our readers."
So, please, spare us the bogus indignation. And stop trying to build an illogical but politically-convenient thesis on the backs of a few unhinged and clearly fringe commenters.
The simple fact is that Arianna Huffington deleted hundreds of those comments about Dick Cheney, and when another topic about Cheney was posted there, the exact same thing happened again.
(2) September 2007: The Media Research Center report on HuffPost as a facilitator of leftist hatred
In September 2007, the Media Research Center published a report, "Huffington's House Of Horrors," detailing how HuffPost was becoming a locus of leftist hate speech --- in contrast to its statements about itself, its moderation practices, etc.
(3) October 2007: HuffPost began quietly pre-moderating comments on news threads
The below screen excerpt was captured from an October 22, 2007 HuffPost news thread, showing that while 926 comments had been posted, 0 comments were "pending," meaning they were waiting for HuffPost moderator approval.
The full page from which this excerpt is derived is shown below:
(4) March 2008: After another public eruption, HuffPost announced --- in multiple ways --- that all news threads would be pre-moderated from then on
On February 16, former First Lady Nancy Reagan fell in her California home, and was hospitalized. Initial fears were that she’d broken her hip, but tests proved that she had not.
On February 17, HuffPost put up a news thread dedicated to this subject, as a story near the top of its front page. If you follow that link, however, you’ll see that HuffPost management has thrown all comments posted to this thread “down the memory hole” (Internet parlance for attempting to remove all evidence of postings; see the “Cheney thread” for precedent).
As on the “Cheney thread,” HuffPost's hard-leftists to unleashed their hateful fury and death wishes --- this time, against an elderly former First Lady in ill health. Bill O’Reilly described what happened at HuffPost in an article he entitled “Hate Speech And The ‘Net.”
The difference this time, however, was that unlike the "Cheney thread" incident, for approximately 5 months (since October 2007) HuffPost had been at least partially pre-moderating its news threads.
As before, however, Ms. Huffington lashed out at her critics, claiming in a late-February interview with Conde Naste Portfolio:
On March 1, 2008, HuffPost's news threads changed in a fundamental way --- and its users took note. Specifically, a new notice appeared on each thread, which read (emphasis added):
Below is the full page from which the above excerpt is derived (click to enlarge):
HuffPost users immediately began to complain about how long it was taking for their comments to appear. Apparently, the volume of complaint emails HuffPost received concerning this delay prompted its Community Manager, Chrissie Brodigan, to address this issue in her debut blog articles:
On February 28, Ms. Brodigan introduced herself via a blog article and stated that HuffPost then had 15 moderators. (here and here; HuffPost has removed the article from its archives; it was located here --- but ironically, it left the comments up).
On March 3, Ms. Brodigan directly addressed HuffPost's embarrassments over the O'Reilly eruption re Nancy Reagan, and made several startling announcements (blog article here and here; as before, HuffPost has since removed it from its archives; it was originally located here --- but ironically, it left the comments up). In this blog article, Brodigan announced that HuffPost was about to begin pre-moderating all news threads. Emphasis added:
The following video shows what happened when Ms. Huffington was approached by a producer of "The O'Reilly Factor," when he asked why hard-leftist hate comments against Nancy Reagan were still published at HuffPost --- a month after the site claimed that they were all taken down:
The following day, Ms. Huffington again lashed out at her critics (specifically O'Reilly), in a blog article:
And as in earlier instances (discussed elsewhere on this blog), Ms. Huffington resorted to personal attacks and conspiracy theories to lash out at O'Reilly (and by default, against anyone who dares to expose the reality of HuffPost's "fringe, unhinged" leftists):
(6) December 2008: HuffPost had up to or more than 1,000 comments "pending" its approval on news threads concerning the Gaza conflict
The screen excerpt below was captured in December 2008, from atop a HuffPost news thread dealing with the Gaza conflict. It shows that as before, HuffPost was pre-moderating comments on its news threads --- but in this case, while there were 425 comments "published," 892 were "pending" its approval:
And as is shown in this excerpt (taken from screen shot, below), HuffPost still included the following notice:
(Note: As is documented elsewhere on this blog, of the hundreds of comments that were awaiting its approval for publication on its Gaza news threads, HuffPost "approved" a wide variety of Jew-bashing, slanderously anti-Israel comments that appearedon these threads, while removing the comments from/banning non-violating users.)
CONCLUSION: From October 2007, and certainly since March 1, 2008, HuffPost has been pre-moderating comments on its news threads
Contrary to the statements in its in its FAQ: Comments & Moderation and Comment Policy, in which it claims it "post-moderates" comments on its news threads, the fact is that --- as is shown on its own screens, and in its articles --- HuffPost has been pre-moderating comments on news threads for a very long time.
This is vitally important to keep in mind as one reviews this blogsite, and the incendiary, hate-filled, threatening comments that HuffPost reviewed and made the decision to "publish" since March 2008, and possibly stretching as far back as October 2007.
It is doubly important to keep this in mind when one considers the fact that (as is documented elsewhere on this blog) HuffPost made the conscious decision to continue enabling some of its most vicious, well-known comment policy abusers to use the site --- even after it had "banned" them for their behavior.
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4/26 UPDATE: HUFFPOST ADMITS THAT IT PRE-MODERATES COMMENTS ON ITS NEWS THREADS
A belated find by HuffBusters... which validates the above contentions, here.
On February 17, HuffPost put up a news thread dedicated to this subject, as a story near the top of its front page. If you follow that link, however, you’ll see that HuffPost management has thrown all comments posted to this thread “down the memory hole” (Internet parlance for attempting to remove all evidence of postings; see the “Cheney thread” for precedent).
As on the “Cheney thread,” HuffPost's hard-leftists to unleashed their hateful fury and death wishes --- this time, against an elderly former First Lady in ill health. Bill O’Reilly described what happened at HuffPost in an article he entitled “Hate Speech And The ‘Net.”
The difference this time, however, was that unlike the "Cheney thread" incident, for approximately 5 months (since October 2007) HuffPost had been at least partially pre-moderating its news threads.
As before, however, Ms. Huffington lashed out at her critics, claiming in a late-February interview with Conde Naste Portfolio:
(A) few ugly - and anonymously posted -- comments appear(ed) on HuffPost, which were removed as soon as we become aware of them (…)Apparently, this latest public exposure of the reality of hard-leftist hate speech at HuffPost prompted the site to formally begin pre-moderating its news threads --- an action it announced in the following days, in multiple venues.
On March 1, 2008, HuffPost's news threads changed in a fundamental way --- and its users took note. Specifically, a new notice appeared on each thread, which read (emphasis added):
“All comments are moderated by 15 real-humans 24/7; approved comments are published to our site very quickly, but not always instantly!”The following is an excerpt from a PDF taken of a thread on March 1, showing this notice (click to enlarge):
“Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to”
Below is the full page from which the above excerpt is derived (click to enlarge):
HuffPost users immediately began to complain about how long it was taking for their comments to appear. Apparently, the volume of complaint emails HuffPost received concerning this delay prompted its Community Manager, Chrissie Brodigan, to address this issue in her debut blog articles:
On February 28, Ms. Brodigan introduced herself via a blog article and stated that HuffPost then had 15 moderators. (here and here; HuffPost has removed the article from its archives; it was located here --- but ironically, it left the comments up).
On March 3, Ms. Brodigan directly addressed HuffPost's embarrassments over the O'Reilly eruption re Nancy Reagan, and made several startling announcements (blog article here and here; as before, HuffPost has since removed it from its archives; it was originally located here --- but ironically, it left the comments up). In this blog article, Brodigan announced that HuffPost was about to begin pre-moderating all news threads. Emphasis added:
Bill O'Reilly's report on HuffPost community gave me heartburn and a headache and likely aged me by at least 5 years.(…) We unfortunately did not pre-moderate comments around former first lady Nancy Reagan's fall. As a result, some of the most awful, hateful commentary emerged around that article, and we weren't aware of the meanness that had seeped through, until it was just too late.On March 4, Ms. Brodigan then announced via a blog article (here; again, HuffPost removed this from its archives; it was located here) that in response to many user inquiries re delayed comment posting, HuffPost's goal was to publish approved comments on its news threads "within 8-10 minutes."
As you can imagine the really un-fun part of my job came to dominate conversations for two days. A small amount of community members can do a lot of damage…(…)
(C)urrently, all blogs are pre-moderated (by those mythical 15 real humans alluded to in the credits), but all news stories are not pre-moderated by default (hint: things will be changing).
(Note: At the same time HuffPost implemented this radical change --- from post-moderating comments on its news threads, to pre-moderating them --- it "approved" a wide variety of Jew-bashing, slanderously anti-Israel comments on a news thread dealing with the Gaza Strip. Shortly thereafter, it removed all comments and shut the thread down. This sordid incident is described and documented elsewhere on this blog.)
(5) March 19, 2008: Ms. Huffington lashed out at an "O'Reilly Factor" producer
The following video shows what happened when Ms. Huffington was approached by a producer of "The O'Reilly Factor," when he asked why hard-leftist hate comments against Nancy Reagan were still published at HuffPost --- a month after the site claimed that they were all taken down:
The following day, Ms. Huffington again lashed out at her critics (specifically O'Reilly), in a blog article:
HuffPost gets around 500,000 comments a month. These comments are anonymous and in no way represent my opinions, or the opinions of HuffPost or our bloggers. We have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to abusive or hateful language or comments – such comments are taken down as quickly as they come to the attention of our moderators.(*In fact, as other evidence on this blog will prove, HuffPost had, by this time, made it a practice of shutting down comments on news threads that it feared might cause more embarrassment --- including those regarding the illnesses/deaths of prominent non-leftists, and even its 2007 "Happy New Year from HuffPost" thread.)
And we are constantly working to develop new technologies -- and backing them up with more and more 24/7 moderators -- which will allow us to more effectively filter out objectionable comments. But no system is perfect and offensive comments occasionally slip through -- on our site and any place else on the Internet that encourages a free and open exchange of ideas.
Let me be as clear as possible. We find the kind of toxic comments O'Reilly is pointing out utterly repugnant and take them down. Period. But we refuse to let the vile actions of a miniscule number of anonymous, trouble-making trolls force us to shut down our comments section* (…)
And as in earlier instances (discussed elsewhere on this blog), Ms. Huffington resorted to personal attacks and conspiracy theories to lash out at O'Reilly (and by default, against anyone who dares to expose the reality of HuffPost's "fringe, unhinged" leftists):
(O’Reilly) spews hate as readily as he breathes. It's his lifeblood. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if O'Reilly had one of his staffers put these offensive comments up on HuffPost, just so he could have something to rail against.From this point on, HuffPost made it known that it was pre-moderating its news threads, particularly those that appear at the top of its front page, which is where the vast majority of commenting activity is focused.
(6) December 2008: HuffPost had up to or more than 1,000 comments "pending" its approval on news threads concerning the Gaza conflict
The screen excerpt below was captured in December 2008, from atop a HuffPost news thread dealing with the Gaza conflict. It shows that as before, HuffPost was pre-moderating comments on its news threads --- but in this case, while there were 425 comments "published," 892 were "pending" its approval:
And as is shown in this excerpt (taken from screen shot, below), HuffPost still included the following notice:“Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to”
(Note: As is documented elsewhere on this blog, of the hundreds of comments that were awaiting its approval for publication on its Gaza news threads, HuffPost "approved" a wide variety of Jew-bashing, slanderously anti-Israel comments that appearedon these threads, while removing the comments from/banning non-violating users.)
CONCLUSION: From October 2007, and certainly since March 1, 2008, HuffPost has been pre-moderating comments on its news threads
Contrary to the statements in its in its FAQ: Comments & Moderation and Comment Policy, in which it claims it "post-moderates" comments on its news threads, the fact is that --- as is shown on its own screens, and in its articles --- HuffPost has been pre-moderating comments on news threads for a very long time.
This is vitally important to keep in mind as one reviews this blogsite, and the incendiary, hate-filled, threatening comments that HuffPost reviewed and made the decision to "publish" since March 2008, and possibly stretching as far back as October 2007.
It is doubly important to keep this in mind when one considers the fact that (as is documented elsewhere on this blog) HuffPost made the conscious decision to continue enabling some of its most vicious, well-known comment policy abusers to use the site --- even after it had "banned" them for their behavior.
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4/26 UPDATE: HUFFPOST ADMITS THAT IT PRE-MODERATES COMMENTS ON ITS NEWS THREADS
A belated find by HuffBusters... which validates the above contentions, here.
Original content is © Copyright 2009 by HuffBusters.blogspot.com.
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