I have written a couple of articles recently about how the Guardian runs a ‘secret’ political censorship layer on their Comments sections on International Affairs [1]. Certain comments are ‘shadow banned’, that is silently discarded. The banning is not explained by their own ‘Community Standards’. It is a level of political censorship over and above what they claim to ‘moderate’. I’ve been experimenting a bit and, while it not a definitive finding, my impression has been that comments that are short, evidenced and directly undermining the official narrative, (‘defend sovereign and democratic Ukraine against evil Russia by supplying them with endless weapons’), are very likely to be blocked. Comments which are critical but which are more discursive, which can be handled with counter-arguments within the narrative, are more likely to get past the censor. It seems that pretty much the same thing happens on the domestic front. These are two comments I made on an article about the UK government (very vaguely) talking about doing something about the massive benefits industry. The first was allowed. The second was blocked:
In response to a comment that was itself a reply to another one which essentially said that the Labour Party is now indistinguishable from the Conservative party, my comment was:
Which just confirms what Lenin said all along. Parliamentary democracy is a charade.
But; you cannot say this on the Guardian:
Most people receiving PIP * are not really disabled. You can get disability benefits for being obese, (with a linked psychiatric condition). You can more or less eat your way to a free car. Talk about low-hanging fruit **
* a UK social benefit paid on a non-means tested basis to people who can claim, (you just submit evidence, you do not need to get a full medical assessment), that they need extra support to be “independent”. It can be paid in addition to the main disability benefit for people who cannot work due to disability. You can get it whether you work or not. You can use part of the PIP payment to get the government to lease you a car. An increasing percentage of PIP claims are paid for psychiatric conditions including ‘ADHD’ and depression.
** This was a reply to someone who was calling for taxing the very wealthy and saying that was “low-hanging fruit”.
Footnote:
These are the up to date statistics for PIP. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-april-2024/personal-independence-payment-official-statistics-to-april-2024#PIP-statistics-by-disabling-condition I should admit that only 39% are for ‘psychiatric conditions’ so my claim in the post that “most” are “not really disabled” is not very accurate. (Though I could argue that some the people who have been categorised in the more serious categories may not really be that disabled and there is 4% ‘other’). In any event I doubt it would have made any difference if I had said 40% in my post.
Notes