MailOnline’s toxic comments, part II
Posted by Daily Quail
November 2nd, 2009
In my last post I looked at the effect controversial comments under articles on MailOnline might have on the brands advertised next to them. A number of advertisers had expressed concerns that unmoderated comments on the newspaper’s website might lead to issues with ads appearing alongside offensive comments. O2’s head of online marketing commented:
There’s always the risk with user content that our brand advertising may appear next to a comment we may not agree with or like. In the Mail Online example, we would want to understand the controls the media owner is giving to users of the forum so inappropriate content can be reported. If we’re satisfied with the processes then it’s likely we would consider advertising.
Currently the majority of comment sections on MailOnline remain at least partially moderated, yet, somehow, inappropriate content still seems to be slipping through. But have things improved since the last time we looked at the issue, when a torrent of xenophobic messages were left underneath a story about Asda stocking Asian inspired clothing? To find out, let’s look at today’s article about a man who died of asphyxiation after being trapped in a cramped and airless HGV compartment (thanks to Five Chinese Crackers for highlighting this).
Bear in mind that all comments appearing under this story have been pre-moderated (i.e., checked in advance by a MailOnline employee to ensure nothing ‘defamatory, malicious, threatening, false, misleading, offensive, abusive, discriminatory, harassing, blasphemous or racist‘ gets through) . The article was published at some point before 6.30 PM, at which time these 13 comments were publicly visible. At the time of writing (11.30 PM), the following comments were the highest rated:
If these are the highest rated, and thus most visible, comments, how does that reflect upon the “controls” and “processes” used by MailOnline to prevent “inappropriate content” appearing? Other comments not shown above include:
GOOD RIDDANCE……
I down, How many millions to go????
and
1 down and quite a few to go yet.
and
One less for us to worry about,
Is there a theme emerging? Yes, I think there is. This one sums it up:
One less to support for life.
while this one is more concerned about the cost of disposing of the fellow human being’s body
No doubt this country will be liable for disposing of his corpse.Dead and still costing us cash!
Even death is not enough to placate this pleasant chap’s distaste for asylum seekers.
Now seems like a good time to remind ourselves again that all of these comments ‘have been moderated in advance‘. Someone at Northcliffe House looked at the above comments and decided, ‘Yes, these are fine. Not just dismissing, or ignoring, or joking about, but celebrating the death of another human being is just fine with us. There is no conceivable way our readers and advertisers would find these comments defamatory, malicious, threatening, false, misleading, offensive, abusive, discriminatory, harassing, blasphemous or racist. They are perfectly suitable for publication.’
This also seems like an appropriate point to remember what the MD of planning and buying agency Diffiniti said before:
Advertisers need to be sure they’re in a suitable environment.
Currently, M&S, Channel 4, uSwitch, Zanussi, Kingsmill, Kaleidoscope, Barclays, Anglian Home Improvements, Axa PPP, American Express, Aviva, Job Centre Plus, Weight Watchers, O2, BMW, DFS, Virgin Media, Radisson Blu, Oral B, Kodak, Sainsburys, and RAC, all have display advertisments served to the page on which the above comments are hosted. Their brands appear alongside not just one comment reacting with glee to the death of an asylum seeker, but thirteen. In over five hours not a single comment has been published pointing out the tragedy of the case. The closest we get to sympathy is ‘Shame but I would be a hypocrit [sic] if I said I was sorry!’.
It seems unlikely, however, that not a single reader has not expressed any shred of humanity in reaction to the story. Not all Mail readers are cold-blooded bigots. Some would surely have left comments expressing horror at the miserable circumstances of the man’s death, sorrow for his passing, and shock at fellow commenters heartless remarks. So where are these comments? If thirteen frankly contemptable responses are waved through unedited, I cannot understand where the rest might have gone and how MailOnline can operate such lax controls on its own website. It almost seems as if, not only is “inappropriate content” appearing quite freely, but appropriate content is being suppressed. Whether this is because of technical or editorial reasons is unclear.
I am left wondering how many of the companies listed above, if they were aware of the lack of control MailOnline appears to have over its own readers, would be comfortable with their brand appearing alongside commenters celebrating the death of a man from asphyxiation? Would anyone regard that as a “suitable environment”?
Categories: Immigration, Media |
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Sim-O, alibrown18. alibrown18 said: Excellent post on the inhumanity of Daily Mail online comments, and the irony of the advertisers supporting such pages: http://bit.ly/1wELwK [...]
Thanks for is excellent post, drawing attention to the breathtaking inhumanity of some Daily Mail readers and commentators. It is certainly strange, though, that the comments seem so one-sided; surely not all readers can be so bigoted? On the other hand, even if it is not the case that the moderators deliberately censored a number of more sympathetic viewpoints because none were forthcoming, one aspect of the moderation should surely have been to cut out subsequent racist comments, after the first representative few, rather than allowing such a brutish view to be perpetuated.
I reported about 5 of those foul comments, sadly still there though. Fucking crazy to allow comments on the article at all.
They’re still there this morning. How long before they disappear? We could do a sweepstake.
Some people who saw this in the forums here at MailWatch tried to get comments published on this story unsuccessfully, so there have been some attempts to counter the glee at the fatal suffocation of another human being.
I’d like the Mail’s view on why they thought them acceptable. Though I suspect a silence if we asked.
I have left a comment on the Mails’ website. I doubt that it will be published.
The Daily Heil – a paper for the scum of the earth. Dacre is a nutter, the readers are vermin
One comment ( the one about the “free car and house”) have been removed, but the rest are still there.
Seen all the green arrows? The scary thing is that it might not be long before that lot are in charge of the country. it’s not just the comments but the people agreeing with them, they can do it anonymously, without the already lax moderation..
We’re down to five comments left up on the site, and ‘1 down and quite a few to go yet.’ seems to have been deemed acceptable comment.
Nice.
I see the Mail hasn’t bothered to publish my comment about the vile and racist content of the other ones on there.
Down to four comments now but “1 down and quite a few to go” is still there.
Why dont we email some of these companies attaching the picture of the most recommended comments and ask them why they are supporting this?
Indeed, I’d love to know what they think of having their ads stuck next to this stuff for nearly 24 hours. All but two of the comments have been deleted now, but that doesn’t change the fact that someone at MailOnline actively let them through in the first place.
Mail some of the companies and tell them that they will have an anti Nazi demonstration outside their head offices if they don’t withdraw their adverts in the racist daily mail.
Bunch of leftie cunts. Up the bnp
Think yourselves lucky you can get a repsonse posted. I have been trying for weeks to get anything on and as yet no luck. Going to give up on mail and go over to a different paper.
I know Mail readers’ comments can be cruel in the extreme, but this little lot have surprised even me. I just can’t get over the fact that they celebrate the death of someone who died of suffocation. And they have been green arrowed many times! Truly disgusting.
Monitoring the Mail message boards on a daily basis, for an essay I’m writing, it’s not a one off thing.
The moderation of the Daily Mail boards has always been very very suspect.
Can I explain how this sort of press works. It’s not random. It’s a media tool.
The Mail can only say certain things, legally. This annoys them. So newspapers print a story, in order to try and incite the general public to say what they wanted to say on the subject.
They then get these comments, and put them at the bottom of the story.
So it’s almost continuous.
It’s illegal for the Mail to say these things. It’s not illegal for the general public to say it, and the Mail to publish these as an addition to the story.
Why? Because when you register, the user signs a waiver, diminishing responsibility from the publisher.
I assure you. It’s a well known newspaper tactic. On certain subjects, they will very much be trying to incite these comments out of people, so that they can publish them.
If you actually look at how the message board works:
1: A user comments
2: A moderator decides whether it’s on topic, and acceptable
3: The Mail publishes it, as an adjoining piece to the article.
4: They then bump it up to the top, so everyone can see these comments, with their controversial voting system.
It’s a very shady subject, message boards. Are they giving people a voice? Or are they merely using the public to say what they can’t?
Are they writing these articles, and publishing them, in such a way, that they are trying to incite people to say these things?
As for what to do about it.
Complain. Complain. And then complain again. And don’t just say “unacceptable”. Tell them exactly what you are complaining about, and how they are not doing their job in moderation. Moderators sign contracts, and work under very strict media rules.
Flood the message board with liberal, sensible comments. You have the power to counter the message the Mail is trying to promote, by giving an alternative view. I try and send at least 10 comments a day on the web site. If everyone on here did that, they’d have a pretty balanced message board. If everyone on twitter did it, they’d probably take the message board down!
E-mail companies, and make complaints about them condoning these sort of comments, through there funding.
The paper has been running riot over media laws for a decade. You can just accept it, or try and do your little bit to put an end to it.
This is *exactly* why I set up http://twitter.com/FixDailyMail
I really want a different type of person to comment in the Daily Mail online. It is open to everyone and there should be more variety of views.
Sadly I find people giving all kinds of excuses for not writing a comment in the Daily Mail. I think it’s better to write down what’s wrong than just hate it silently or agree like-minded friends. It might even change people’s minds.
“Sadly I find people giving all kinds of excuses for not writing a comment in the Daily Mail. I think it’s better to write down what’s wrong than just hate it silently or agree like-minded friends. It might even change people’s minds”
I hate the Daily Mail. But I still contribute to the boards, on a daily basis, for that very reason.
They are trying to incinuate that the majority of the country are raving, right wing loonys, by trying to promote the feelings of their readership.
You know, when the tory leader decides that right wing loonyism is simply un-electable in 2009, and is trying to promote progressive-ism, I think it’s quite obvious that the mail’s tactic is just smoke and mirrors
For me, attempting to comment on the Mail website is pointless – I’ve never had a comment of mine passed by the mods.
However…
What you guys at MailWatch (or any other appropriately skilled reader) could do is highlight one Mail story per week which has such unpleasant comments displayed so prominently. Readers can send in screengrabs of comments they had submitted to the Mail but were never published. All the companies that had adverts appear with the offending article are then sent the above with a calmly-written open letter explaining succinctly why such advertising is damaging to their precious brands. At the same time, a league table is kept of advertisers who appear on such offending pages.
“For me, attempting to comment on the Mail website is pointless – I’ve never had a comment of mine passed by the mods”
Perseverance
They’ll keep blocking comments while you are new. After a few months, they’ll stop posting everything you write.
They only moderate new people basically. After a certain time period, your comments are un modded, and appear every time.
I don’t think that the get out clause of stating that comments don’t reflect the publication’s point of view can hold especially when comments which could be seen as possibly illegal and inciting hatred and violence are kept up. Maybe it should be a police job.
These comments are typical of the nastyness, racism and bigotory that comes from the Daily Mail and their readers.
But I don’t think they should be censored.
Then we are just acting like the Mail who wants to censor things it doersn like
I completely agree Dan. The only way to deal with this is freedom and speech and debate from a range of different types of people.
The advertisers don’t care, obviously. Even bigots need to brush their teeth, and shop.
This subject is by no means a one-off when it comes to the lowlife which populated the Mail Online. I have contributed to an equally racist line of posts, highlighting just how disgusting the contributors were. I used no bad language, so any argument that certain words (and thus posts) are booted out automatically does not hold water. I’m of the firm belief that the Mail is completely happy to stir up xenophobia and then only publish the slightly less vile replies, and to ignore those which are contrary to the right wing bile.
[...] were left on the Mail’s site from 6.30pm to 11am the following morning, before being taken down. MailWatch has the details, including the comments that were allowed [...]
I have never had a post published, they only allow comments that they agree with, typical junta trick, “pre moderation,”
I have everything possible to get my comment in but it has never found a place !!. It is one of the most disgusting newspapers I have ever come across in my life… and everytime I see somebody reading (on the train, workplace etc) DM, I can only imagine faces of a Littlejon or a melanie philip superimposed on them.. or the classic stereotype of a Daily mail reader writing such comments flash in front of me. So much for the damage DM has caused to my psyche !!!!
mail regularly refuses to publish any of my sensible comments…apart from crucifying anything non white and non christian and sucking up to cheryl cole and katy perry it does little else..besides the amount of racis homophobic filth that is in the forums(the articles are like hooks intended to bait those comments) is disgusting…this is NOT freedom of expression its madness and needs to be censored.
I sometimes comment on the Mail comments board, although less and less as I find that the moderation process is very odd, for instance, I would write a sensible comment about a certain story, giving evidence to back up my claims and refuting the nonsense of other comments, and it wouldn’t get posted, whereas some absolute nutter would rant about ‘Mr Brown and the Stasi cultural marxist climate loonies’ on something unrelated to Brown, climate change or the percieved Stasi-esque qualities of Nu-lie-bore’ (perhaps Crufts or the return of Sooty) and have their comment allowed.
Lunacy.