The Guardian Bans Readers From Commenting On Their Articles About 'Race, Immigration And Islam'

We are living in an age of rage. People are angry with government, with media, with religion, with migration, with Europe, with big business. That frustration comes burning through in comments posted below stories on our website, a facility offered in the spirit of open journalism that has seen an extraordinary growth in numbers, sometimes running as high as 65,000 posts a day. That’s a huge number – and it’s producing its own frustrations, not least among those who feel they have an inalienable right to comment.

[...]Certain subjects – race, immigration and Islam in particular – attract an unacceptable level of toxic commentary, believes Mary Hamilton, our executive editor, audience. “The overwhelming majority of these comments tend towards racism, abuse of vulnerable subjects, author abuse and trolling, and the resulting conversations below the line bring very little value but cause consternation and concern among both our readers and our journalists,” she said last week.

As a result, it had been decided that comments would not be opened on pieces on those three topics unless the moderators knew they had the capacity to support the conversation and that they believed a positive debate was possible.

The policy would be worldwide, applying to our UK, US and Australia offices, as the issues were global. And, where they were open, it was likely that threads would close sooner than the typical three-day window. “We want to host conversations where there is a constructive debate, where our audience can help us broaden our journalism with their expertise, their knowledge, their considered thoughts and opinions, and where they can use our site as a platform to make connections with the world and with those around them,” added Hamilton.

This was not a retreat from commenting as a whole, she said; it was an acknowledgement, however, that some conversations had become toxic at an international level – “a change in mainstream public opinion and language that we do not wish to see reflected or supported on the site”.

It’s a move that I’m sure will be welcomed, not only by journalists but by the many thousands of readers who already contribute constructively to positive debates, offering personal experience, considered opinion and, of course, constructive criticism of our journalism.