Comparing news threads: Example 3 --- Tax cut thread

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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.

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? Or that despite these efforts, "a handful of" violating comments may "occasionally slip through"? (see Section 3 here, and all, here)

EXAMPLE 3: Jan. 5, 2009: HuffPost permits top thread re proposed tax cuts to be hijacked by various users to engage in a vulgar, adolescent food fight

Imagine if you'd heard about HuffPost, and decided to visit, at oh, say, around 7:45 PST. Seeing this story as the top splash headline you might expect that the "comments" section would indicate that HuffPost was facilitating a discussion among users of oh, say, tax cuts, tax policy, the historic impact of taxation on various segments of our population, etc. Right? Well, you'd be very, very wrong.

Because rather than confining users' comments to being "on-topic," as HuffPost claims it does, you would have walked right into a 7th-grade food fight between "DeenaB" and other users, over... we're not quite sure what. Some of HuffPost's "protected" caste of radical leftists, however, seemed to be ordering "Deena" to leave HuffPost (as if that's their decision). Keep in mind that all of this vulgarity, hatred, and ad homimen attacks, all of these comments --- every last one --- HuffPost reviewed, approved and made the decision to publish:

05Jan09 tt1050p 30pending - foodfight -

All of these comments --- every last one --- HuffPost reviewed, approved and made the decision to publish.


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Comparing HuffPost comment threads to those on other major political blogsites


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