DISQUS is Censoring Posts

They don't moderate posts but websites do. For example, yahoo is notorious for this and same with huffington post. However I think now huffington uses their own hybrid system now but if you post anything that might offend the lefties, you'll get the shaft. On Yahoo, thousands of comments can get erased if they hate how people reacted to the post. Of course, this is excluding the anti-Chris Chase posts but Yahoo is a liberal propaganda machine. However they don't do this all the time but only at times when they want to pump out maximum propaganda. This is well known over there and you'll find out pretty well if you're active for months at least.

CNN doesn't come to a surprise either, I mean they are left-wing as well. I don't know about foxnews since I don't care for them but I'm sure they love it when lefties comment because they get flamed to hell (assuming).

If you want to make a point, it's best to keep it in forums like these. Those websites will moderate however they damn well please and they will repost their own article with disabled comments if they want and there's nothing you can do about it except complain more on their forums. I know Yahoo went from liberal to anti-liberal in the past year as far as the comments go however not all articles have the same user base so it can go either way at times.

What I do believe is that DISQUS (however you pronounce that) probably shares all of your posts with the NSA and if you've linked your yahoo, hotmail, or facebook account to it then it certainly does. No worries though, I operate two websites that allow people to voice their opinion, ATS does the same, and there are many other websites that does just that. Sure, we may not be making billions and saving tons of money on server fees and taxes for selling ourselves to the government but I think it's worthwhile if it means to keep freedom and liberty for anyone.

Again, I thank ATS for being the way they are and I fully support websites that require registration without facebook / DISQUS integration.

Moderated and free speech is a double standard.

Originally posted by Krazysh0t
reply to post by teachtaire

 

You care to post any sources for this information or are we just supposed to take your word for it? I mean I can just as easily say that the moderators at CNN are removing the posts.

I propose that those that are interested, try an experiment. Why don't some of you select a nice related article that you can post a lot of Obama dirt on and see what happens? You can even write an investigative report here at ATS.

Myself I have no need to do this for CNN since I had tons of polite, informative posts deleted from there. (You all know how much I like Obama. ) Meanwhile nasty troll crap from Obama supporters was being left behind. What I had deleted was always little known but truthful stuff about Obama's scandals. The kinds of posts that would actually wake up the uninformed public. I rarely post anything at CNN anymore because of this. All that time and effort to make a good point and whoosh, gone... I guess this is what they wanted to accomplish, discouraging me and others from posting similar content.

They are DEFINITELY pro Obama there in their moderating at CNN. And I often wondered if the CIA had infiltrated this menial task. Think about it, could you think of a more perfect way to sway public opinion then to have CIA staff moderating posts at MSM news sites?

Their program may have a back door to who knows who ,but like Richard Groves has shown ,its a form of control that we should be aware of . I first discovered it in the Climate debate and how the moderation may not have been the web-site itself but some other entity . Really hard to say unless you find the rabbit hole that takes you there ...peace

You know, I have a very interesting and recent observation here... When I used Facebook for CNN posts in the past, those posts always disappeared. But maybe the Discus ones are the ones that actually tend to not get deleted? Discus leaves a trail of what is done to your post. A Facebook post is deleted and no one is the wiser, no history of the action, nada..

reply to post by elouina


Apparently you missed the point of my post. I never claimed that his wasn't happening. I was questioning if it was DISQUS doing it. CNN has every right to employ forum moderators to delete posts they deem offensive (offensive being subjective here). It is their website after all.

Hi guys, take a look at this pic from today. Hilarious.

img.abovetopsecret.com...



^right click, open in new tab.


There is always the chance that people are deleting their own posts in order to discredit CNN, but I doubt they're that clever.


*new version of ATS and the images STILL DON'T WORK FOR ME -_-*

reply to post by teachtaire


It does happen. I've had plenty of my posts trashed before they get onto the page i'm commenting on... it has often got me frustrated as I had spent a few minutes typing out what I thought was a good reply to an Article!!

Anyway, onwards and upwards.

reply to post by teachtaire


It is not a new event.. that happens extremely often. I think there are some mods that are more eager to delete posts than others.

I also frequent the comments section on CNN, over the past few days I have watched many posts that where perfectly fine, but questioned what the article was saying just vanish. A lot would say comment deleted, but some were just gone. I don't know who was deleting them, but the trend for removal was towards anti US involvement in Syria. The higher rated the comment the more likely it would be removed.

reply to post by teachtaire


I seen that exact article, and there was no reason that a moderator should have removed those comments. Maybe it's possible discuss has some kind of exploit? I've noticed when some comments are moderated they are just gone, but if I was to delete my own comment it would say this comment has been deleted.

It wouldn't surprise me, that in the interest of automating things there's simply a system at work that says if a post gets X reports it's removed. Paid shills can catch onto this and start reporting everything that doesn't agree with their message if they figure out there's a report threshold. If moderation truly is increasing, this is very likely the reason.

Originally posted by unphased

Originally posted by juspassinthru

Originally posted by unphased
DISQUS is an interactive plugin

I wonder who owns and controls discus. I would not surprise me in the least if this company was owned or controlled by the "company".

Entire employee directory available at Disqus site. CEO is Daniel Ha.

After seeing the staff list, I doubt even more now that any of their (very few) employees are moderators.

An employee list means nothing. We know that three-letter-agencies have placed their employees into state governments. Rest assured it goes deeper. I believe our society would be shocked at the government's infiltration into commerce and our ordinary lives.

Discus handles identities and opinions. What could possibly be a greater piece of low-hanging fruit for a government that does not recognize any limitations on it's power?

Glenn Beck had a poll on the blaze couple weeks back or so asking if people should be required to use real picture, and name while posting... Beck seems to be for more control in a round about way.
Meaning if you post something that someone does not like they can find who you are.
God knows some crazy neighbor might retaliate against you for not having the same views as him.

reply to post by teachtaire


your image is meaningless without reference to the content the original posts [ deleted ] posts , and further who deleted them .

any idiot can post crap that wilfully violoates the T&C of a site in the certain knowledge that it will be deleted - thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy of " cencorship "

ie consider this statement [ flung at random into a thread ] :

" if we kill all the < insert unacceptable synonym for African American > the world will be a better place "

you would expect it to be deleted - but is that really cencorship ?

so - unless you have a previous screen shot showing what the deleted posts said - and who deleted them - the screenshot means nothing [ other than evidence that posts can be deleted ]

reply to post by Aazadan


I think you're right and it comes down to the same thing. I take forever making my sites and when I get done, I may have all the cosmetic sense of a garden gnome, but it all works flawlessly and reliably, without fail. All custom, every time. This is why the extra work is worth it, IMO.

Heck... ATS here could have some eye popping features to stagger the members, I have NO doubt about that. I've seen the features and played with some on the admin side for evaluation on my own products. ATS (or any site using something like Disqus) would just have to be willing to cede it's control over data and user material. I'm so glad a few sites remain who refuse to do it, beyond the ads that are simply a necessary evil if people want sites without access charges.

If only more would 'Just say No' to "free services" offered on websites. Nothing is ever free. You'd think BIG sites would care a bit more about unrelated organizations moderating their material for them.

Jordan River
Moderated and free speech is a double standard.

Interesting statement. I have noticed that posts in here are moderated and sometimes taken down entirely, thus making it impossible for anybody to check if the reason they were taken down really makes sense. This being ATS, I feel we should change that.

Maybe ATS should introduce the concept of "masking". Initially each posts gets say 50 demasking points. If people find the post offensive, they flag it as such and it decreases the 50 points by one. Any post that drops below 0 will be automasked: a message appears that says "Post is seen as offensive by at least 50 members". Moderators judge posts that are offensive and either promote them (because they think the post is not offensive) or 'mask' them permanently, specifying a reason.

Masked posts are not to be shown by default, merely that they were made, by who and why they were regarded as offensive and by who(m). If the moderators have read the post, the reason they banned it is listed too, similar to what ATS does today.

You are ALWAYS given an option to see such posts - at your own risk and you'd have to tick a box that says that you understand that the post is not to be seen as part of the web sites content and merely is made avaialable to allow you to check the work of the moderators.

Hence, you can have the best of both worlds.

How abou that? Or should I start a new thread on this (and if so, where..?)..

Originally posted by alpha888
Glenn Beck had a poll on the blaze couple weeks back or so asking if people should be required to use real picture, and name while posting... Beck seems to be for more control in a round about way.
Meaning if you post something that someone does not like they can find who you are.
God knows some crazy neighbor might retaliate against you for not having the same views as him.

It's much easier to create a digital personality than a real one. Any shill will be managing multiple digital identities. Real name and picture are not security mechanisms, they are however quite risky for the individual given just how extensive the governments online data mining is.

Originally posted by wrabbit2000
I think you're right and it comes down to the same thing. I take forever making my sites and when I get done, I may have all the cosmetic sense of a garden gnome, but it all works flawlessly and reliably, without fail. All custom, every time. This is why the extra work is worth it, IMO.

Heck... ATS here could have some eye popping features to stagger the members, I have NO doubt about that. I've seen the features and played with some on the admin side for evaluation on my own products. ATS (or any site using something like Disqus) would just have to be willing to cede it's control over data and user material. I'm so glad a few sites remain who refuse to do it, beyond the ads that are simply a necessary evil if people want sites without access charges.

Some features are nice, and I put them in websites I create but I intentionally leave them out of my own personal websites like gaming forums that I run. I've tried to create forums based on a few principals that have worked well:

1. Freedom of Speech. Only absolutely outrageous things that will get people in trouble get moderated like posting porn in a random thread. Spammers get filtered out as well. The assumption is that every legitimate poster is valid, some might just be saying incorrect things. Those more knowledgeable can and usually do shut them up and win the debates though.

2. Anonymity. I don't collect any identifying information, and don't include any features that require it (like facebook plugins or whatever). I did this long before we knew of programs like PRISM. I'm sure my host is sending lots of fun information like hashed passwords and ip logs to the government but there's no way to stop that. I don't attach names to people, but posters can still become verified just through time and user voted post quality. I actually really like the tripcode system but recognize that usernames are a more friendly method on forums.

3. All user supported. I don't believe in obnoxious ad's, especially in a world of adblock. Instead I run off of donation drives which offer users benefits (often things like special username markups, bigger avatars, etc for a limited period of time). My theory is that if people like the website, members with more disposable income will be willing to support it. This works for small to medium sized websites but I don't believe it's viable for the large ones with high hosting costs.

4. Light moderation. This goes back to the first point. I don't believe in moderating away a persons ignorance or willingness to be offensive. I do care that people can view the website without worrying about what content comes up. It takes a light but steady hand. Usually good moderators make themselves known through being good posters.

Any corporate website can't do this however. They have branding teams that constantly worry about comments on their articles inappropriately representing their brand. I find this self defeating because it simply leads to the general inanity of comments that are all too common on large sites as everything breaks into dumbed down mass market messages. Which creates an environment that shills can thrive in as it's devoid of critical thinking.

It's because people make up "Guest" accounts on Disqus and "Flag" your post three times which means an automatic deletion. It happens all the time and it's a bad feature. I had a whole thread of my comments flagged by an irate doctor and I had no saved them. Just safe your posts and keep reposting them and finally the "Guest" will get tired

Not surprising.

CNN had deleted my post on about the Bosnian war they hated what they probably saw and just had deleted everything, even the delete message.

CNN is getting desperate thus deleting comments from users whom are speaking out agaisnt the rebels and the possible air strike in Syria they even deleted comments by ex vets.