Reaction to My Posts on the Vicious Comments About Tony Snow at the L.A. Times Web Site This Weekend
There has been some reaction to my posts yesterday about the vicious comments at the L.A. Times web site about Tony Snow’s death. (If you haven’t read my posts on this filth, start here and here. But steel yourself before you do. It’s really awful.)
Charles Johnson and Glenn Reynolds linked one my posts on the topic, as did Kevin Roderick, who quotes the L.A. Times Terms of Service, which theoretically prohibit any “user content” that:
* contains vulgar, profane, abusive, racist or hateful language or expressions, epithets or slurs, text, photographs or illustrations in poor taste, inflammatory attacks of a personal, racial or religious nature.
* is defamatory, threatening, disparaging, grossly inflammatory, false, misleading, fraudulent, inaccurate, unfair, contains gross exaggeration or unsubstantiated claims, violates the privacy rights of any third party, is unreasonably harmful or offensive to any individual or community.
[skip]
* “flames” any individual or entity (e.g., sends repeated messages related to another user and/or makes derogatory or offensive comments about another individual), or repeats prior posting of the same message under multiple threads or subjects.
(My emphasis.) Much of that certainly seems to apply.
If you’re an L.A. Times blogger, what are you to do?
The answer should be obvious: attack the messenger.
Yup, that’s right. After defending himself in a comment at my site (discussed in this post), L.A. Times blogger Andrew Malcolm re-emerged in my comments section — this time to attack yours truly, by labeling me a hypocrite:
We’ve not closed comments on any of our thousands of items because we want the fullest possible discussion, even if some participants are harsh, rude and disrespectful of the dead. We should protect American society from the realization there are many hate-filled souls out there? Their behavior speaks volumes about themselves and is, silently, judged by the vast majority of civil readers.
Speaking of which, I notice with a large smile from the comment above here, No. 16, which I will copy below, that you have some of the same kind of folks over here speaking harshly and wishing ill to the people who are speaking harshly and wishing ill. Great reading and deliciously hypocritical. [Malcolm goes on to quote the ugly comment that someone had left on my site.]
(My emphasis.)
The accusation of hypocrisy is nonsense. It ignores the fact that I didn’t approve that comment, had it deleted the second I saw it, and banned the commenter.
Unlike comments at the L.A. Times web site, comments at this web site do not go through an approval process before they are published. When someone hits submit, the comment appears. As a mostly solo blogger with two children, I can’t read all the comments here. When an inappropriate comment appears, I often learn about it from my other readers, who alert me via e-mail.
When I saw Mr. Malcolm’s comment — which I read on my Treo while at a Hollywood Bowl concert — I e-mailed someone with administration privileges and asked them to delete the comment. I also banned the commenter, who had never commented on this site before.
What’s more, from the first time I posted about Tony Snow, I insisted that people behave themselves — as I do when blogging about the illnesses of those on the left as well.
So no, Mr. Malcolm, there’s no hypocrisy here. But there was a smile on my face, as I realized I had a chance to give you a real-life example of how a blogger should deal with an ugly comment like that.
Listen, handling comment sections is difficult, and I sympathize with anyone who has to do it. It’s always a judgment call, and a learning process. You try to balance free speech with good taste, and different people draw the line differently. Indeed, the blogger might draw the line differently one day to the next. I’m sure someone could always dig through my comments section and find some instance in the past where I’ve arguably handled a particular situation differently from the way I would handle it today.
Also, different people view this differently. My most valued commenter, DRJ, believes newspapers should not delete these sorts of comments. I disagree with her — why enable anonymous jerks? — but I take note when she takes a position opposite to mine.
But even she believes there are other ways to handle this issue — like closing comments on obituaries, or announcing a clear rule up front that only tributes will be allowed, or at the very least voicing one’s disapproval of the comments.
Just doing nothing, and letting the slimeballs run rampant, is not my idea of a responsible way to handle this. I would never tolerate an onslaught of hate such as I saw in the L.A. Times comments this weekend without doing something. Seeing 20+ comments of pure nastiness — with people hoping Tony Snow had suffered, and wishing he had suffered more — is not something I would silently tolerate. That’s why, when Mr. Malcolm came on to my blog and called the comments at his site “vile and despicable,” I wondered: why doesn’t he label them as such on his own site?
Well, I see that he’s now starting to do so. He has left a couple of parenthetical comments on other people’s comments at his blog. One suggests disapproval:
Think it’s important especially for civil Americans to realize the depth of anger, incivility and downright despicable taste out there. And we appreciate the many here who have also spoken out against these distasteful comments, although as usual those people seem to be overlooked.
Too little too late, in my view — but better than nothing. Maybe he’s starting to see that the “hypocrite” had a point after all . . .
UPDATE: Malcolm comments and says that he was accusing the commenter of hypocrisy, and not me. It’s hard for me to understand why he got a “large smile” if he wasn’t trying to claim that this blog is equally guilty of greenlighting ugly comments. But I’ll take him at his word.
Maybe he’s starting to see that the “hypocrite” had a point after all
As well as some other serious bloggers.
Why do I think that coming here and leaving unkind, unsubstantiated comments is probably unwise for the LA Times?
OT – what was at the bowl tonight?
Apogee (366e8b) — 7/14/2008 @ 1:16 amCarmen.
P.S. Congrats to nk, whose use of the term “loonwaffles” amused Roderick.
Patterico (cb443b) — 7/14/2008 @ 1:48 amOh, please. The last comment I left did not label YOU a hypocrite. That’s nonsense. It had nothing to do with you. How could you be a hypocrite? You’re posting all kinds of comments too. The hypocrite is the person I quoted in my comment who’d left a comment here denouncing terrible lefties using harsh attacks on poor Tony Snow by himself/herself using harsh attacks and wishing cancer on them. If that isn’t hypocrisy, then nothing is. Once again for clarity, no beef with Patterico.
Andrew Malcolm (cad14b) — 7/14/2008 @ 3:51 amThanks again.
Andrew Malcolm, Top of the Ticket
Not a pleasant experience for LA Times blog editor Malcolm, but I notice with a large smile that your “dick” comment was calibrated to provoke a deliciously hypocritical response. And it did.
Perhaps he learned something in the course of this discussion (meta-discussion) of comments, here and there. Per your discussion last week with Marc Cooper, perhaps editors there can shorten their OODA cycle enough to make a difference. It hasn’t been an institutional strong point till now*, but this could be a start.
* understatement
AMac (3433b6) — 7/14/2008 @ 3:51 amMr. Malcolm, our comments (#3 and #4) crossed. Thanks for engaging here.
If the sorts of vile harm-wishing comments Patterico condemns at Top of the Ticket passed moderation with respect to content and vocabulary, why not Patterico’s “dick” comment? There’s no hypocrisy if such salty slang is always filtered at the Times’ website. But it isn’t.
This seems to leave us perched at the political divide: slamming righties good, slamming lefties bad.
Neutralize Patterico’s charge by proclaiming your institution’s bias–of course lefty sensibilites must be protected!
Or live up to your stated aspirations.
AMac (3433b6) — 7/14/2008 @ 4:00 amMalcolm: “denouncing terrible lefties using harsh attacks on poor Tony Snow …”
Poor lefties, who can’t even crow over the painful death of people who disagree with them without being criticized for it. Oh, the McCarthyism of Manners.
Glen Wishard (02562c) — 7/14/2008 @ 5:08 amNaw, Malcolm, you’re the hypocrite. You and your team green-lighted the nasty comments and now, having been called on it, are trying to distance yourself from them.
Rob Crawford (6c262f) — 7/14/2008 @ 5:49 amThanks, Patterico, but the credit for “loonwaffle” belongs to daleyrocks who used it first here in reference to the Petranos. Congratulations, daleyrocks.
nk (8eafa0) — 7/14/2008 @ 5:59 amBTW: OT, but I am very happy with my updated IE7. I did not have to scroll through 951 comments. I just typed “loonwaffle” in its search form and “click” it went to daleyrocks’s comment.
nk (8eafa0) — 7/14/2008 @ 6:03 amOh, please. The comment was clearly out of line, but there was nothing hypocritical, let alone “delicious” about it. Wishing suffering on jerks who wish suffering on non-jerks who merely disagree with them is about as “hypocritical” as advocating (1) death sentences for first-degree murderers, (2) prison sentences for kidnappers, or (3) fines for petty thieves.
Karma is not a hypocrite.
Xrlq (b71926) — 7/14/2008 @ 6:24 amMr. Malcolm,
I’ll accept you at your word. But surely you can see why — given the “large smile” comment — I took your comment as implying that this blog was equally guilty of greenlighting filthy comments. I’m still confused as to what put the “large smile” on your face if it wasn’t that. But I’m willing to accept your word that you weren’t accusing me of hypocrisy, and I’ll ask readers to do the same.
Patterico (cb443b) — 7/14/2008 @ 6:28 amThanks nk. You are a gentleman. I’m sure I stole it from somebody else.
daleyrocks (d9ec17) — 7/14/2008 @ 7:18 amI will add, though, that other commenters reacted the same way to your comment as I did. In other words, I don’t think it was unreasonable for me to perceive it as an attack — even if it wasn’t intended that way, which I reiterate is an explanation that I accept.
Patterico (cb443b) — 7/14/2008 @ 7:19 amThat was obviously to Malcolm.
Patterico (cb443b) — 7/14/2008 @ 7:41 amHow difficult is it for an actual editor of what is allegedly an English language media concern to post clear and concise thought patterns?
Dmac (416471) — 7/14/2008 @ 7:46 amYou know the more I think about all this the more I’ve come to believe it has to do with a whole lot more than Tony Snow. The ‘net has allowed all manner of voices to speak freely — and often extremely rudely (to put it mildly.) While many commentators here insist this is all a “left”
those of us on that “left” regard it otherwise — pointing to the egregious antics of Michelle Malkin to pick but one example.
The simple fact of the matter is we live in a world of highly heated rhetoric and it’s not going to cool off anytime soon.
David Ehrenstein (85002c) — 7/14/2008 @ 8:03 amAbout as difficult as understanding the concept of hypocrisy, apparently. “C’mon, Patterico, what made you think I was falsely accusing you of hypocrisy, when everyone knows I was really falsely accusing some other guy of hypocrisy.”
Xrlq (b71926) — 7/14/2008 @ 8:44 amMethinks Mr. Malcolm is a fan of the Alice in Wonderland meme of talking – specifically, the Mad Hatter.
Dmac (416471) — 7/14/2008 @ 9:06 amIt’s disingenuous for Mr. Malcolm to claim that everyone should have known what he meant with his ‘large smile’ comment. If he thought Terry Mansson was the hypocrite, he should have made that point clearly.
DRJ (ec597e) — 7/14/2008 @ 12:18 pmIn any event, Malcolm and I have shaken hands (figuratively) and agreed to forget about it.
Patterico (7784fb) — 7/14/2008 @ 1:27 pmI’m having trouble letting the Andrew Malcolm kerfuffle go and that’s ironic since I’m the one who doesn’t care if newspapers allow extreme comments, as long as they aren’t profane or threatening. But I am having trouble and here’s why:
As I understood it, Patterico’s original point was that, as long as the LA Times blog wants to moderate comments, it should exclude extremely rude and distasteful comments like those about Tony Snow. Subsequently, Andrew Malcolm pointed out a similarly rude and distasteful comment at Patterico’s website and Patrick responded by deleting it and banning the commenter.
Even if we agree the point of Malcolm’s comment was that there are bad comments everywhere, Malcolm successfully refocused the debate from what internet moderators should do to what internet commenters do. It’s not unlike the way Marc Cooper tried to refocus the DustUp debate from what the LA Times should do to the way ‘bitter, angry and delusional’ Patterico commenters respond.
Of course, maybe that was the point.
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Keniuttelve (529f2d) — 8/24/2008 @ 4:13 pm