Huffington Post Comment Moderation Sucks
I read the Huffington Post pretty regularly. By and large, I think the posts are great - my most recent fav is a post by David Byrne on the relationship between cities and their populations, how we shape the cities we live in and visa versa - BUT my recent experience with their comments moderation and customer service has me on the verge of apoplexy.
Here's what happened:
The Original Post
I responded to an informative blog by Christina Ricci raising awareness about sexual violence. In the blog she writes:
Victims of sexual violence are more likely to suffer from grave mental health issues than non-victims; in fact they are:
- 3 times more likely to suffer from depression.
- 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.
- 6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.
- 26 times more likely to abuse drugs.
These serious effects have the potential to rob survivors of their ability to live a full life in the aftermath of the attack or sexual abuse.
She supports these claims with a link to a WHO study, The World Report on Injury Prevention and Disability.
My Reply
The bit that got to me was where Ms. Ricci says, "These serious effects [. . .]". The fact of the matter is, the WHO report makes absolutely NO CLAIM that such statistics are CAUSED by sexual violence. The report merely points out CORRELATIONS in the data. It's a bit of a nerdy point perhaps, but I feel it's important to get these things right because too often these sorts of errors can lead to misconceptions of the issue and, potentially, bad policy decisions.
The Response
Knowing the issue to be sensitive, I tried to make it plain that I thought the issue was an important one and that my points were merely directed at correcting an error in the blog. The response I got from PennyWhite was EXACTLY the sort of thing that undermines intelligent discussion of issues like sexual violence. Her response was:
True: correlation is not causation. What a good little social science student you are (how's that for snarky?)
But let's try to be human about this. Sexual abuse destroys lives. It causes(or should I say - is correlated) with often irreparable harm. People who've experienced sexual abuse suffer from a range of devastating after-effects. Is it really helpful to split hairs about semantics such as what's correlation and what's cause? When it comes to social "science" there is only correlation. So what?
So, I'm a "good little social science student" and I'm apparently not being "human" about the subject. She implies that I don't fully respect the seriousness of the issue and goes on to ask: "Is it really helpful to split hairs about semantics such as what's correlation and what's cause? [. . .] So what?"
The Blocked Rebuttal
Rather than try to flag PennyWhite's reply as abusive (which I think it is), I thought I'd reply to her questions. I tried twice. The first time, I was a bit strong in my reply and the second time I tried very hard to make sure my reply was within the guidelines for posting. The second attempt was as follows:
"Let's try to be human about this."
Yes, let's. I merely made a suggestion that Ms. Ricci ought not misrepresent the work in a WHO study. If one wants to cite the data and conclusions in a study to support a position, I believe one has an obligation not to alter the data and conclusions. I in no way suggested sexual abuse doesn't destroy lives or that it doesn't cause irreparable harm (in fact, I made a point of saying as much).
"Is it really helpful to split hairs about semantics such as what's correlation and what's cause? . . . So what?"
So . . . if we want to have a conversation about sexual violence that's more substantive than, "It's bad", "It's devastating", "It causes irreparable harm", etc. and look seriously into addressing its effects in our society, we need to pay attention to things like "risk factors" (an entire section of the WHO report is devoted to it); so we can better apply our efforts. Confusing correlation and cause actually obscures the fact that many people with mental health issues, like those identified by Ms. Ricci, are ALREADY at greater risk of being victims of sexual violence (two of the five statistics cited by Ms. Ricci as EFFECTS of sexual abuse - abuse of alcohol and abuse of drugs - are specifically identified in the WHO report as factors that elevate risk).
Neither reply has made its way to the original post's comment section.
The Huffington Post Comment Moderation Sucks
Now, The Huffington Post moderators apparently had no truck with PennyWhite's reply. But when I try to answer her questions on their forum, my posts are evaporated into the ether. Moreover, I've tried contacting them twice to get some kind of explanation for the apparent moderation decisions; even asking simply if there is a way of finding out the status of a comment (perhaps the comments haven't been deleted by moderators at all, but rather are stuck in some moderation queue somewhere).
So far, nearly a week later, I've received ABSOLUTELY NO REPLY from the Huffington Post; nada, zip, . . . not even a, "thanks for your email".
So, I'm taking it to my own blog . . . viva la Internet!
Comments
Obvious Bias
I have been reading the Huffington Post a lot lately, and I finally started an account so that I could interact on the comment threads. From my personal experience I am almost always moderated if I present any kind of centrist or non-partisan view of any kind. They obviously allow a lot of crazed, self-important and superficial posts of both Liberal and Conservative bias. But any time I've tried to present a logical middle ground, and say that people may be missing the point when they want to blame everything on their opposing party or make generalizations that are crass and irrational, my comments always disappear even though I am never half as rude or irrational as many of their regular users are. There is no way that the moderation software alone could recognise my posts as unacceptable because I never use foul language, nasty names or personal attacks of any kind. To me this represents either a bias on behalf of the human moderators towards their own conceptions of how people should behave along the party lines, or it is a conscious effort to maintain the division and polarization of the Huffington Post community and ensure that people are not thinking as critically about the political process as they should be.
I just noticed I forgot to
I just noticed I forgot to complete a point. Please add this to my point #3:
But the most polite and clean on-topic comments will not see the light of day. It's inexplicable and bizarre. About sports for crying out loud, and not even anything controversial.
First off, I'm an
First off, I'm an independent, but if you forced me to label myself as Left or Right, I'd have to be called Left. I say that to establish I generally agree with the Huffington Post point of view. Here are some of the things I've concluded about their moderation:
(1) "Right Wing" comments generally are labeled "Pending" and will be released only after several screens of comments have scrolled by. Meaning, to anyone looking at the posts a day later, they think your comment appeared in order. In reality, your comment may have been held in "Pending" for an hour, and was buried five comment screens deep when finally released. This has the effect of making readers think all the commenters are in agreement with the "Left Wing" point-of-view.
(2) I can appreciate that right wing trolls (and left wing, but right wing do seem to be worse) on the Internet are a problem, but whenever I, generally a supporter of Democrats, stray from the party line, my comments go into the "Pending" bin with all the other dissenting views.
(3) Some degree of censorship of right wing viewpoints does not surprise me; after all it is a left-wing website. However, the censoring really gets weird in articles having nothing to do with politics, say, in sports or even entertainment. The most vile and vulgar comments will be posted (HP commenters are using tricks to get around the automated moderation by using spellings such as B/a//d W-o/r-d.)
(4) Much of the frustrating moderation seems go come from moderators who develop a grudge. I noticed that non-political comments (sports or entertainment) of mine which were deleted or stuck in "Pending" in the mornings would encounter no such problem in the afternoon. In the afternoon, they would be in Pending for only 30 seconds or a minute before showing up in the comments section, whereas in the morning they'd sit in Pending for an hour, or even be deleted completely. I concluded that the morning moderator had taken offense with my comments on some article or other and decided to "teach me a lesson" or otherwise make my life miserable.
(5) I've found that if you write an e-mail to the specified addresses, they will usually respond and agree that the moderator was in the wrong. They will restored your comment. Of course, by that time, the article is long gone and no one will ever see your comment.
(6) I'm sure many of you know the feeling when you spend 20 minutes writing a comment, then another five to check for spelling and grammar errors, then watch your comment sit in Pending for 30 minutes until it is so deep in the comments screens it will never be read.
(7) I'm not sure HP really wants meaningful comments. In fact, I'm convinced they don't. They'd rather have a constant stream of one-sentence comments that up the message count and generate screen refreshes. They can quote bigger numbers to advertisers for comments and screen views.
(8) A rule of thumb: if a comment attacking you in the most vile way possible is posted, you can be sure your polite rebuttal will never see the light of day. The unanswered (and untrue) insult will linger in cyberspace for all eternity.
Anyway, thanks for allowing me to rant. And thanks for this website. At least I know others are just as frustrated as I am. It's kind of funny. Like I said, I'm an independent, but I've been voting straight Democratic tickets the past few elections. However, the rude and unfair treatment I get at HP appears to be pushing me away from the Democrats -- my subconscious way of "teaching the moderators a lesson," I suppose.
I think maybe this rant will be cathartic and I'll be able to walk away from HP for good. I've let them spoil too many perfectly good mornings by refusing to release comments I spent twenty minutes composing.
Once again: Thanks. You can't imagine how good I feel knowing HP will not be able to delete this.
F**k HuffPo -- they're the Fox News of the left
Seriously, I'm done. It's so obvious that 90% of the comments are filtered. It's become a joke. They're every bit as bad as any right-wing blog you can name, just in the opposite direction. When you censor your readers' innocuous comments, you lose readers. If I want a one-sided opinion spoon-fed to me, I don't need to go there for it. HuffPo is a complete and utter fraud! The level of moderation makes everything on the site suspect to me. I don't want propaganda and censorship and if I did, I'd just go the Fox News or any of the other right-wing propaganda trash outlets. HuffPo, you just lost another reader.
HuffPo Moderators
...I'm right with you, pal. It is a monstrous outrage and if I wasn't at a party right now I'd fly right off the handle with you, but alas...
Swearing
Swearing is also not allowed on Huffingtonpost, unless one does it in Russian or Hebrew...
Not to be too conspiracy
Not to be too conspiracy minded, but my Climategate comments are also apparently being blocked. Apparently my comments to Screwups in Climate Science were not green enough for Huff Post moderators. Emailed huff post.
HP Moderation & Censorship
It seems that since I generally have opposing opinions to the majority on Huffington, they are allowed to insult me ad nauseum but my replies are never allowed the light of day.
It has to be one of the most biased sites, worse than uncensored sites where the only relief is the abuse button & the receipt of form letters that don't address the complaint.
It it weren't so full of apologists, appeasers, self-loathers & Israel haters I'd go elsewhere. But I stay, simply to provide a balance and some irritation. They certainly need it.
huff post moderation
I too have been flagged twice and my profile deleted. Why? Because I have a strong opposition to most of their posts and actually have a mind of my own. I never ever used derogatory words, never bad mouthed a post, never once told someone to F off like alot of their posts do as you can see the unbelieveable biased towards any opposition. No wonder Ariana is one of the most hated liberals in America.
Opposition
Dale,
I'm not sure that it's the oppositional nature of your posts that's the problem; and calling Ariana "one of the most hated liberals in America" would definitely count as an ad hominem attack in my book.
As discussed already, it appears that at least some of the moderation is being done by a bit of software and not by real human beings; which may account for at least some of the unfortunate decisions.
On the other hand, I've had additional attempts blocked that I don't think were deserved. So, perhaps there is something to the idea that there's a bias. Regardless, the site's moderation is inconsistent and at the very least prone to the appearance of bias. That undermines the credibility and value of HuffPost as a media channel. Pity.
Thanks for the comment.
Mischa
I'm going through a
I'm going through a moderation nightmare right now. I'm so pissed off at those moderators that I created a fake account, and am flagging every single comment I see just to piss them off.
social club
It also seems like a members only social club more often these days. Conversation between members that would be better on a different kind of blog - not political commentary.
Huffpost Moderation
Its happens to me all the time. Namely today when I commented on a headline which read "Biggests Douche Bags of 2009" just to state what hypocrites they are for blocking me using that word to describe Glenn Beck in the past yet have no problem writing a huge headline with that word. Its unbelievable and happens all the time. Is there any way to voice our opinion to someone who will look into it because this is getting too far.
Moderation problems on Huffington
I've recently had a problem on HuffPost moderation as well; most recently in a story regarding the Pope.
It's AMAZING how restrictive they let you get in terms of meaningful principled criticisms of this person. I try to to be very careful to abide by the moderation standards they list--but clearly they have additional subjective standards they may use as well at their whim. This really seems unfair and prohibitive.
The last tactic I've discovered is that they will "stall" the moderation on comments and just leave them in "pending" indefinitely when you're trying to get something out there, until they figure it's been so long that you will go away. This way, you are tied in limbo on the comment board because you don't know if your comment will ever go through or not, so you don't know if you can build on something you've said before, or if you need to try to make your point in a different way.
It's a real pain in the butt, and the randomness of it is really irritating. It's surprising how much meaningful and contributory progressive sentiment gets edited out of this progressive outlet in this way. Of course, we're left to guess what's going on. They need to find a way to fix this.
Huffpo moderation does suck...
I've often felt there's either a team of self-important college freshman, or shifts of monkeys who do the moderation there. Apparently its a piece of software. I know its difficult, but that route totally devalues any kind of constructive conversation there. Place is overrun with juvenile, virtual high-fivers who think themselves edgy because they voted for a black man.
I think Arriana's columns are awesome, a lot of the right column makes me feel icky. Its gotten too big for its own good.
Huffington Post Invests in Slice of Semantics
It's a bot
Thanks Benito!
That explains a LOT. So HuffPost have basically put their editorial trust in some moderation bot (modbot)?
Personally, I find that very disturbing.
Thanks again for the informative reply.
Mischa
Huffpost Moderation
There is no rhyme nor reason to the way in which comments are moderated on Huffpost. I've merely said "I agree" to an existing post and had it moderated. You will sometimes see multiple posts by someone uttering racist rants, including the frequent use of the N-word, with well worded responses going to moderation.
There also seem to be some topics that draw automatic moderation of a majority of posts. George W. Bush being one. Today, there is a story on GWB with 38 posts and 100+ waiting for approval. Another story shows 0 posts with 138 waitng.
One has to wonder if Arianna ever looks at her own blog and, if so, does the problem even register with her?
I have vowed several times to just abandon Huffpost all together, just to go back later in the hope that maybe they have moderated their moderation process. It hasn't happen yet.
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