The comment section on WRAL articles is the most heavily censored forum I’ve ever seen on the Internet. They actually hire censors, they call “moderators”, to read comments in real time and decide which are worthy of posting and which are not. The guidelines for their decision making are vague at best and often seem biased.
No public opinion forum should be “moderated”. It’s almost a violation of free speech. It could be argued that it is undeniably a first amendment violation except for the fact that users agree to be “moderated”, or censored, at the WRAL staff’s discretion when signing up for a GOLO account. That’s right, people sign up to have their freedom of speech suppressed.
I’ve decided that I don’t like using a forum where someone is paid to decide if my opinion, or how I chose to express it, is worthy of being posted in their pretentious little forum. “Moderation” = censorship. There’s no way to argue that it is not and there are very few arguments available to justify it. It would serve WRAL and GOLO well to save money on the staff, put in an automated profanity filter, and let people state their opinion in their own words without some low paid Net Nanny deciding which comments meet their unspecified criteria.
I agree. Seems that there is a particular demographic with a certain political affiliation that dominates the WRAL GOLO forums and they will often not bother to post your responses and opinions if it goes against the status quo. Yet the inflammatory comments left by the status quo members seems to get through.
I could see keeping some language from appearing in the forum. But, thats really about it. These guys seem to censor any opinion they do not agree with.