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.
They’re probably getting a lot of comments from leftist trolls.
The Dark Winter has begun.
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.
So the left has won. American Thinker has conceded to the left’s pressure to curtail free speech. Will their writing begin to reflect that?
Speaking of AT, time to brush up on dial-up, modem-to-modem.
With the Capitol setup, they have all they need to shut down any conservative type of communication. After inauguration, it won’t take long before the internet, conservative news and radio will be purged. Unless, of course, they strictly follow the new guidelines.
I’ve been banned from commenting at American Thinker for several years. I don’t know why, as they did not respond to my asking. It was after Bush I died, and the press that had never had a good word for him was now praising him. Maybe it’s a case of “the only good Republican is a dead Republican,” I said. I made several other comments that week, though, and maybe it was my comment about the curvature of space that got me banned.
They were overrun by Qtards and commies.
Insane zealots all.
What and othe sites need to do is work with someone they know from the comments section, set up a DISQUS enabled comment platform and just put the URL to the completely independent comment site up on the AT site as a referral.
That’s how I ended up being the main moderator at www.scottadamsfans.com
For a while, when DISQUS still had free channels, I was the owner of NPR comment section , because I moved fastest when theys shut down their own comments. It was hillarious to watch libtards struggle with conservative moderation.
Not sure that many people would do this, and those who do comment may not have the skills to write an essay that meets American Thinker's submission guidelines.
-PJ