CBC ends all comments on Aboriginal stories

I think all progressive people know this. But it's useful to see our views about the ubiquitous racism against FN peoples demonstrably shown to be true. Because it get tiring whacking liberals over the head to make the same point over and over again.

Unionist wrote:

The CBC editorial says even more than that. It basically says between the lines that the racism comes in so many fine shades that their moderating system had trouble telling what was racist and what wasn't.

It basically shows what a broken colonial racist society we are when it comes to recognizing and dealing with the rights of Indigeous peoples.

To be honest, I think CBC has done the right thing. Since the election, their discussion boards, and those at some other political discussion sites - i.e. NP - have been infected by swarms of ignorant, racist sounding, trolls in the stereotypical US mode. Maybe they're just unemployed PMO trolls, or maybe it's the weather, but they've made discussion very unpleasant.

I'm not so sure if something else couldn't be done aside from cutting off commentary on stories that may affect First Nation communities.  The same shit show commentary applies to just about any story involving non-caucasian subjects, and stupid, hateful comments are usually allowed to roll.  There's like a cadre of persistent haters out there who go from story to story who can and should be identified, have injunctions placed upon them, barred from social media etc.  If trolls cross the line into hate speech know they're going to be actively sought after and identified, then maybe the sites will see less of that kind of people, and real dialogue by those affected the most by the information and articles might be possible.  Maybe associations, groups and public individuals might be revealed as being behind it in part, who knows?  Public spaces should be for everyone.  Let the haters pay extra to hang out in the corporate media comment sections.

But that could apply to any given story on CBC.  If that was the metric, ultimately everyone who wanted to have real dialogue in a public forum would get closed down by the nasties.  The technology exists to identify people in other circumstances, why not infringements of the hate propaganda laws?  That should put a chill on things like that.

NDPP wrote:

This is a rather fishy story. The CBC moderates comments before they are posted. They can and do disable comments not to their liking. Curiously, much of the redneck spew seems to escape. Something else is going on here.

That's likely true.  Maybe someone or some group threatened a lawsuit and a complaint under the charter, and CBC's solution to the concerns is to shut everything down.  It doesn't make all that much sense when it's still pretty much open season on Muslims, on Black Lives Matters articles, immigration, etc.  Haven't posted there in years myself, but it seemed then that all kinds of hate speech was going on around me on certain articles, and my comparatively reasonable anti-fascist retorts kept getting flushed all the time.  I find there's nothing that can or should be said in plenty of CBC stories once trolls get involved, but more and more I find that these are the regular participants, and between them and their provocations most reasonable people will have already fled.

Shutting down comments is a dubious way to deal with hateful, racist speech, it's not like it will make it actually go away, and it will remove the opportunity to educate those who're just ignorant, not malicious.  But it's probably better for the people featured in those stories, so they don't have to see even more crap on top of all the crap in their daily lives.  I generally don't read comments at all when there is a story about trans people, because the unmitigated bile those bring out makes me feel homicidal.

Hiring actual mediators as a moderators might be an interesting experiment for a forum dealing with contentious issues. 

IME moderation can even be left to competent volunteers if it's done right, but I find that most media comment sections don't have a solid enough community core to keep the trolls from running wild.  Administering a forum that is meant to be a net asset rather than a free-for-all is actually work, and can't just be treated as a casual adjunct that gets tossed into the lap of some nameless, faceless intern who isn't even a member of the community.  Unless the CBC can provide a more solid kind of forum, maybe it would be best to close all commenting and leave it to other sites.

I really rather the media concentrate on providing actual news and analysis.  I don't think a public broadcaster should be under any kind of obligation to provide "a democratic space for free discussion".

That's an interesting concept anyway, democratic and free discussion.  A main problem seems to be that for some people "free" means "I can say anything I want without consequences", and "democratic" means they can say it as loudly and as often as they damn well please, and bring their friends to steamroller over anyone who disagrees.  Before one can share discussion space with people who think they should have the right to say every racist, sexist, transphobic thing that crosses their minds, those people need to first learn the concept of respect for others.  And is that really the job of the CBC?

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The same shit show commentary applies to just about any story involving non-caucasian subjects, and stupid, hateful comments are usually allowed to roll.

Perhaps it's just confirmation bias on my part, but it's seemed to me for a long time that most news sites that generally have a comment space after each article, seem suddenly not to if that story seems like it might be contentious.

"Five Year Old Dies After Brave Fight With Leukemia" -- there will be a comments section.

"Five Year Old Dies In Sweltering Car While Parent Drinks In Bar" -- no comments section.

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People should go to coffee shops, pubs, union halls, house parties and community centres if they want to comment on anything.  And if someone makes a vile offensive comment in such a setting, they will face the wrath (and possibly fists) immediately of those around them.

What if the various online news sites -- like babble -- could just find a way by which someone who disagrees with someone else's words could just punch them in the face?

Would that be a reasonable compromise?  Surely there must be some way to introduce physical violence to the discourse?

Again, the moderation process is there to remove such comments. Perhaps CBC wishes to remove comments entirely or go to Disqus like Rabble. Because the Canadian media is so awful and manifestly produces confusion and stupidity, as can be seen on issues such as Syria, Russia, Ukraine, Libya or Canadian colonialism, the comments sections are often the only place where slivers of truth can be found. I do not accept that the existing moderation process cannot handle or exclude the worst of the racist comments. As noted upthread, in some 'contentious' stories, CBC now even omits the option to comment.

Now you've got me curious.  Was it something silly, like:

"This never really happened!"

"The 'dead' were all actors!"

"The government is behind this, clearly!!"

?