This article is cross-posted at:
Comparing HuffPost comment threads to those on other major political blogsites
Keep in mind that every comment that appears on this thread is there because HuffPost reviewed, approved and made the decision to publish it. And as it says at the top of each HuffPost comment thread, only those comments that it approves will appear:
As you review the comments, keep these questions in the back of your mind:
- Do they comply with HuffPost's (supposed) Comment Policies and Terms of Service ("CP-TOS") --- or are they egregious violations of them?
- Do these threads indicate that what Ms. Huffington has repeatedly said about HuffPost is true? That it has "zero tolerance" for comments that violate its CP-TOS, and that it vigilantly monitors its news threads 24-7 to prevent such comments from appearing? But despite these efforts, "a handful of" violating comments may "occasionally slip through"? (see Section 3 here, and all, here)
EXAMPLE 1: Nov. 1, 2009: HuffPost permits top thread re the death of Pat Tillman to be hijacked by radical leftists for their own nonsense and personal dramas
As shown below, HuffPost's top splash headline of this day focused on the death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. The article thread is here.
If ever there was a justification for HuffPost to actually apply its Comment Policy and Terms of Service, out of respect for Tillman, his family and friends, and his fellow soldiers, this would have been it.
Instead, as you can see in the following PDF, HuffPost instead allowed this thread to be "hijacked" by some of the most notorious, long-term, protected violators of its policies to post... links to their favorite music. One comment (total) was actually on the topic of Tillman:
Tillman thread - p5 - 1 comment on topic -
In the next PDF, HuffPost allowed its violators to discuss, among other things, a new personal drama: one of their "friends," "LadyNaga," was considering leaving the site. This user is another one of the most pathological violators of HuffPost's CP-TOS, yet it has protected and enabled her for eleven months, during which time it's permitted her to post 40,000 comments. HuffPost also permitted users to engage in endless ad hominem and vulgar attacks, etc. Together, these comments consume an estimated 80% of the PDF shown below, and a significant portion of the overall thread:
Tillman thread - p5 - 1 comment on topic -
To further punctuate how long HuffPost decided to allow the personal drama over "LadyNaga's" all-important decision, here are the first three pages of her comment archive taken at the time --- her most recent comments, and other users' replies, on the Tillman thread:
LadyNaga crap all over Tillman thread -
All of these comments --- every last one --- HuffPost reviewed, approved and made the decision to publish, on this, of all threads.
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Comparing HuffPost comment threads to those on other major political blogsites
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