Comment filtering at Toledo's liberal newspaper

Started by quiller, June 25, 2017, 06:34:05 AM

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quiller

Jack Lessenberry is a professor of journalism at the University of Detroit, a committed dyed-in-the-wool flaming Fabian socialist who spews his garbage at the Detroit edition of the Metro Times and, unfortunately, as "ombudsman" at the Toledo, Ohio daily newspaper, The Blade.

I say this because as a leftist he sees nothing wrong with letting artificial intelligence decide what does and does not get printed in a newspaper...all over wording otherwise quite innocent in context.

It started when a minister got busted in a sex case and his wife, a prominent Toledo political figure, got mentioned in the new stories. That led to her complaining to the paper and Lessenberry drops this little bomb while discussing a second matter, at the bottom of the column.

QuoteBut recently, he contacted me to say he was puzzled and annoyed. He had tried three times to post an online comment on a lead editorial, only to get a message indicating what he had to say had inappropriate language.

This baffled him — and me. His comment was scholarly, totally appropriate, and in good taste. He quoted an allegory in one of Aesop's famous fables, one that is approved reading for elementary school kids. So why was it flagged?

No editor has the time to monitor every online comment, and the newspaper properly doesn't want to allow hate speech or obscenities to be posted under their stories.

Turns out that The Blade uses a computer program to monitor comments, and it is set to look for certain unacceptable words that will stop an entire posting. The fable included a quote from a little girl telling a snake, "If I pick you up, you will bite me."

That was fine — but in our less genteel times, "bite me" is often used as a vulgar insult. This isn't a problem unique to The Blade. News organizations all over the country have been struggling with the issue of policing online comments.

National Public Radio and Michigan Radio, where I work, have stopped allowing online comments, partly in the belief that policing them was an inefficient use of valuable staff time. 

http://www.toledoblade.com/JackLessenberry/2017/06/25/Blade-had-responsibility-to-name-wife-of-suspect-in-sex-case.html

Just thought you should know, if you ever send an email letter to the editor. You MIGHT get an editor to pry time away from the latte machine to actually read a printed letter, and so odds improve you can maybe even get it published.

But with software like The Blade's, and NPR's, and Michigan Public Radio's...don't bet on it.

Solar

I have seen this countless times, sometimes 3 or more times a week, got so bad, I was test posting before investing any time at all.
Leftist sites aren't the only ones doing it and I find it extremely irritating, but once you know no human is watching, it's truly funtofuck with the filters.
Did I say just howfuckingmuch Ihateliberals?:biggrin:
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quiller

Liberals will do whatever it takes to silence opposing opinion. They will kill you if they think it is necessary, just as leftists were responsible for every political assassination in our national history.

If I said that in a letter, even with 100 references as back-up, I would be forever denied that letter and any future submissions. In their eyes telling the truth is a hate crime.

If so, I stand j'accused.

Solar

Quote from: quiller on June 25, 2017, 06:58:51 AM
Liberals will do whatever it takes to silence opposing opinion. They will kill you if they think it is necessary, just as leftists were responsible for every political assassination in our national history.

If I said that in a letter, even with 100 references as back-up, I would be forever denied that letter and any future submissions. In their eyes telling the truth is a hate crime.

If so, I stand j'accused.
Yep, that's why they fought so hard for net neutrality. Can't have those evil Conservatives spewing truth and facts, now can we?
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quiller

Quote from: Solar on June 25, 2017, 07:35:38 AM
Yep, that's why they fought so hard for net neutrality. Can't have those evil Conservatives spewing truth and facts, now can we?

And this returns me to my Theme Du Jour about what are we actually trying to conserve, and why. Each of us wants to hold on to SOME thing about either the past or our present, and not let it slip away in the tumult of "change for change's sake," a Democrat Party favorite, and their enduring "politicky" version of bright-and-shiny.

Here. Investigate Trump, not Eric Holder over his blatant crimes, or Hussein the Magnificent™ over his, and so on down the list of the Party of Crime. Here, bright and shiny, we'll blame the Russians for Shrill running the worst possible campaign, sucking the money up and blowing it for nothing in a mismanagement of epic proportions.

Solar

Quote from: quiller on June 25, 2017, 07:43:04 AM
And this returns me to my Theme Du Jour about what are we actually trying to conserve, and why. Each of us wants to hold on to SOME thing about either the past or our present, and not let it slip away in the tumult of "change for change's sake," a Democrat Party favorite, and their enduring "politicky" version of bright-and-shiny.

Here. Investigate Trump, not Eric Holder over his blatant crimes, or Hussein the Magnificent™ over his, and so on down the list of the Party of Crime. Here, bright and shiny, we'll blame the Russians for Shrill running the worst possible campaign, sucking the money up and blowing it for nothing in a mismanagement of epic proportions.
I think the answer in beyond obvious. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
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quiller

Quote from: Solar on June 25, 2017, 07:51:49 AM
I think the answer in beyond obvious. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Oh, I swore an oath to defend "that sorry rag," including the Amendments which history has shown must never be prey to public sentiment (such as Prohibition) or denied due to self-interest (such as opposition to the women-voters movement).

That oath was for my lifetime.

But it's much more than that. Conservatives are the people who say not only no but HELL, NO to out-of-control leftist brainlessness, taking us at express train speed toward the abyss. 

Solar

Quote from: quiller on June 25, 2017, 08:11:02 AM
Oh, I swore an oath to defend "that sorry rag," including the Amendments which history has shown must never be prey to public sentiment (such as Prohibition) or denied due to self-interest (such as opposition to the women-voters movement).

That oath was for my lifetime.

But it's much more than that. Conservatives are the people who say not only no but HELL, NO to out-of-control leftist brainlessness, taking us at express train speed toward the abyss.
History evidences the left always wins in the end but it also shows, from the ruins, a new order is born, tossing off the shackles of the oppressors.
Conservatism is not about stopping all change, but to slow its decay so that no generation experiences a disruptive nature to their way of life, in other words, Conservatives prefer natural change, while keeping a single set of values intact, from which to work as a guide for the future, hence the Bill of Rights.
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