Search icon

News

31st Jan 2016

The Guardian website will no longer allow comments under articles about race, immigration and Islam

Alan Loughnane

An unprecedented step from the media giant.

In a massive step, The Guardian will no longer allow comments underneath articles about race, immigration and Islam as they believe that some conversations on their site had become “toxic at an International level”.

Some sites have simply chosen to heavily monitor comments on their sites or else eliminate the comments section altogether but this a different move by The Guardian.

Associate editor of The Guardian Observer Robert McCrum said: “Of course, we want a dialogue with our readers, but if only it could be conducted in a tone of voice that’s reasonable.”

“I’ve found that once things get out of hand in a thread it is virtually impossible to dial it down.”

Executive editor of The Guardian Mary Hamilton believes that the three topics garner and intolerable level of abuse, trolls and nameless faces leaving unacceptable comments.

“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.

It will be interesting to see if any other major news organisations follow their lead in this regard.

LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Conor Sketches | Tiger Woods loves Ger Loughnane and cosplaying as Charles LeClerc