I’ve recently written a couple of posts about my accounts being blocked from commenting on the Guardian. Empirically; the comments that seem to cause problems are the ones which present the strongest, most carefully reasoned or evidenced arguments critical of European policy on the Ukraine situation. None of my comments used “inappropriate language”, or abused or threatened anyone. (Meanwhile; there are an unlimited number of abusive comments about Donald Trump – all clearly in violation of the Guardian’s guidelines against “mindless abuse” and “trolling” – which are nonetheless permitted).
Having been kicked off the Guardian for “pro-Russian” comments, (on account of an undisclosed political censorship system over and above their stated guidelines), I relocated to the Daily Mail. They have a columnist, Peter Hitchens, who is well aware of the complete “nonsense” which is European narrative on Ukraine. [1] I commented on one of his pieces, and then, later, on a news report about the EU-Ukraine attempt to turn Ukraine’s defeat into “Porcupine Ukraine”, and thus, somehow, present it as “not a loss”. As always, my comments are objective, argued and without any trace of personal abuse. And, lo and behold, banned again – it seems. That is; I received the following aggressive and attacking text from a “no-reply” address at Mail Online:
Hello,
Your account has been permanently de- activated for going against the Community Guidelines.
You are no longer allowed to post on MailOnline the Daily Mail or other Associated Newspapers Ltd sites using this or any other user profile.
Regards,
Communities
MailOnline
It did occur to me that it could be phishing, though there is no obvious scam benefit. Also; since the email account I was posting from is not published openly, who would know I was posting on Mail Online? And, finally, I’ve written to them at their “subject access” email asking for confirmation – and making a legal subject access request on the matter, so, if it wasn’t them they could deny it. I think it is them.
What could have promoted that? I can think of only two possible comments. In one I talked about Starmer’s “terrifying ignorance” in saying that Putin has “not learned the lessons of history and thinks that ‘glory’ comes from conquest, whereas we – following the campaigns in Normandy and North Africa, have learned this lesson”. (I also wrote here about that). The other was a response to a comment which was actually, “pro-Russia”. I wrote an ironic post along the lines of “Don’t you get it? We will just send some more weapons, and stop importing a few more things, (but not gas, because Germans don’t like being cold), and this will cause the Putin regime to fall to a coup led by the massive liberal opposition or West-leaning oligarchs”. The post is ironic, and mocking the view that the same policy which has failed to lead to a Ukrainian victory for three years – sanctions and weapons packages, will achieve anything different now. I’ve checked the Daily Mail’s “House Rules” – [2] and my comments did not break them. Indeed their rules encourage “the expression of strong opinions”. But, not, it seems, on the Ukraine-Russia war. Where, just as on the Guardian, strong, clear arguments, (irony is a form of argumentation), critical of official Western narratives and explaining or arguing for, Russia’s point of view are subject to, once again, secret political censorship.
One cannot tell how much of this political censorship is simply the media organisations acting off their own initiative – and for what reason? It could be, simply commercial reasons. They don’t want to get a name for publishing “pro-Russian” content, as they think it will harm them commercially. Of course; one can’t help but speculate that there is some kind of clandestine communication between the intelligence services and the editorial and managerial levels of these outlets. either way; it turns out that it is not just Russia which censors commentary on the war.
(Small footnote; I wrote the first comments at least two weeks ago – and in one or two I used Russian language in response to another comment in Russian. One of the House Rules mentions ‘English’ and so, if challenged Associated Newspapers would have a ‘legally defensible case’ – I used Russian. But that didn’t cause any problems at the time and I am 100% sure that was not the reason for the nasty email above).
Notes