Posted on 01/14/2021 5:32:44 AM PST by Renkluaf
It is news to almost nobody who reads American Thinker that a political witch hunt is underway. Parties in and out of government are looking for excuses to suppress and destroy voices that oppose the left.
Because AT lacks the ability to monitor comments in real time, and because our position that comments are a forum, not something that we publish, is being called into question, we can no longer publish comments.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Shutting down reader comments is pretty much the death of an online news outlet or political blog, in my opinion. Even if 90% of the comments are posted by nitwits, the remaining posts are often more informative than the original article.
Sad but understood
And here I thought that command line statements to Hayes compatible modems were being disabled.
So AT is letting the mob win. Sad.
I will take American Thinker anyway, any day....
Taking measures to protect themselves is justified during the socialist takeover
Everyone be careful
“And here I thought that command line statements to Hayes compatible modems were being disabled.”
Good gosh are we old! You for saying it, me for understanding!
Would you prefer AT to go the way of Parlor
Inevitable. There is no remedy.
They’re probably getting a lot of comments from leftist trolls.
Thanks MAGAMATTKAG; good post, Renkluaf.
They fear being deplatformed based on their comment section.
The Dark Winter has begun.
A lot of sites are now dismantling comments or allowing them (even to be read) only by subscription.
I guess free speech on the NET is now to be restricted; it is no longer a public square (unless you can afford your own servers)
A website in read only sends it back to the days of print media. They could/should allow comments but make them all pending for approval and approve them later or they could block certain words and phrases. It’s probably already done with certain words like the F word.
Just laziness and/or fear to turn them off.
Check out the technologies the site is using; https://builtwith.com/?https%3a%2f%2fwww.americanthinker.com
Loaded with all the wrong names. Google several times, amazon several times, yahoo, mailchimp.
The following may be cut off from conservative website access:
cdn.jsdelivr.net
code.jquery.com
discourse-cdn.com
disqus.com (Zeta Global)
google-analytics
The first two, in that list, would substantially alter the appearance/work of some websites.
The real problem is psyops agents and screwballs can go to these platforms and begin saying stupid things.
I believe that free speech should be protected even mostly for these types, but then what happens if someone posts CP or other illegal material?
Its a no win since these platforms are too big, they can get away with being selective in policing speech, yet conservatives will be blamed for the most idiotic and screwy things posted by the most crazy people.
The serious problem really, is that Conservatives just don’t have the infrastructure to simply say, “yeah but free speech.” There is no recognized freedom of speech in private business, and what’s happening is private business censoring of free speech.
We need a new bill of rights for the internet age. That won’t be happening, of course.
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