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Karl Bode over at Techdirt brings us news that NPR will no longer be allowing comments on its website in order to promote relationships and conversation:
For several years now we've documented the rise in websites that shutter their comment sections, effectively muzzling their own on-site communities. Usually this is because websites are too lazy and cheap to moderate or cultivate real conversation, or they're not particularly keen on having readers point out their inevitable errors in such a conspicuous location. But you can't just come out and admit this -- so what we get is all manner of disingenuous prattle from website editors about how the comments section is being closed because they just really value conversation, or are simply trying to build better relationships.
NPR appears to be the latest in this trend du jour, with Managing Editor of digital news Scott Montgomery penning a new missive over at the website saying the comments are closing as of August 23:
"After much experimentation and discussion, we've concluded that the comment sections on NPR.org stories are not providing a useful experience for the vast majority of our users. In order to prioritize and strengthen other ways of building community and engagement with our audience, we will discontinue story-page comments on NPR.org on August 23."
Again, nothing says we "love and are engaged with" our community quite like preventing them from being able to speak to you on site (this muzzle represents my love for you, darling). The logic is, as Montgomery proceeds to proclaim, that social media is just so wonderful, on-site dialogue is no longer important:
"Social media is now one of our most powerful sources for audience interaction. Our desks and programs run more than 30 Facebook pages and more than 50 Twitter accounts. We maintain vibrant presences on Snapchat, Instagram and Tumblr. Our main Facebook page reaches more than 5 million people and recently has been the springboard for hundreds of hours of live video interaction and audience-first projects such as our 18,000-member "Your Money and Your Life" group."
And while those are all excellent additional avenues of interaction and traffic generation, it's still not quite the same as building brand loyalty through cultivating community and conversation on site. By outsourcing all conversation to Facebook, you're not really engaging in your readers, you're herding them to a homogonized[sic], noisy pasture where they're no longer your problem. In short, we want you to comment -- we just want you to comment privately or someplace else so our errors aren't quite so painfully highlighted and we no longer have to try to engage you publicly. All for the sake of building deeper relationships, of course.
Say it with me now: control the narrative at all costs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @12:51AM
> Say it with me now: control the narrative at all costs.
You've got that backwards. This decision is about saving money. No comment section means no man-hours spent weeding out the shitpostings.
If your paranoid conspiracy theory were right, they'd spend the money on the people to do the weeding and even more money to censor the posts that dispute "the narrative" in order to create the appearance of consensus.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday August 19 2016, @02:34AM
Saving money is just a side effect that comes with controlling the narrative. Look at the DNC email leak, our the MSM companies were running stories by the DNC and punishing any personalities who pissed off the DNC. By getting rid of comments on the news sites, these elites are allowed to totally control the shape of a story, and that's where the real money is -- by manipulating the news they make it easier to get their candidates elected. It is in essence, the buying of our government by the elites from people who once were reporters, and now are just presstitutes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @02:49AM
> If your paranoid conspiracy theory were right
you sir are an ass
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @02:55AM
Nonsense, plus you're years late if you think that "paranoid conspiracy theories" pejorative carries any weight. This has been happening on all sites that are pushing the Left narrative. NPR, CNN, Reuters etc., are all now doing it.
It's enough to control the message, it would be way too obvious if you started cutting non shit posts according to agenda because people immediately and directly know it is happening as soon as they try to post. It's more about getting rid of both public feedback and delegitimizing scrutiny when 90% of the posts are always going against any biased narrative you're trying to push. Your claim that it's about "saving money" and presenting some unworkable alternative in support is nonsense.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:53AM
> This has been happening on all sites that are pushing the Left narrative. NPR, CNN, Reuters etc., are all now doing it.
It is rare for the discussions that take place underneath online articles to resemble Socratic quests for truth. Instead, warring antagonists stake out opposing positions and complex political debates are reduced to a stream of insults and vitriol. If giving up on cleaning the cesspool makes you a leftie, apparently most people with a mental age of at least 18 are lefties.
> if you started cutting non shit posts according to agenda because people immediately and directly know it is happening as soon as they try to post.
No one's going to notice when the occasional flower floating in a sea of turds goes missing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @09:14PM
I challenge you to point to anything that Lamestream Media (anything with corporate sponsors) has EVER put out that advocates collective ownership of the means of production or worker-owned cooperatives or the nationalization of private companies.
On the contrary, a significant portion of the (Neoliberal) Donkeys and their shills are about privatizing publicly-held assets.
Left == Everyone affected by a decision should get an equal voice in that decision.
Left == anti-Capitalist (Concentrated wealth is counterproductive to a stable society).
The Donkey Party is NOT that.
At best, they are Liberal Democrats AKA Social Democrats[1] (still on the Right-hand side of Center; still OK with the exploitation of the Working Class by the Ownership Class).
[1] In some places they would be called Christian Democrats (even though Jesus was a Socialist and would have chastised their politics).
If the Donkeys and their cheerleaders in Lamestream Media were actually "Left", at a minimum, they would be pushing for the notion that has been working admirably for 3 decades to form worker-owned cooperatives from unemployed people in northern Italy. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Friday August 19 2016, @06:09AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @07:38AM
Who would have imagined - a billion idiots able to "contribute" to a website with *no barrier to entry* - what could possibly go wrong?
Hmm, community colleges have been trying this for a while now, of course they end up with amazing failure rates. That is not a bad thing, necessarily. Easy enough cook the books if you can control admittance, and hand out "Gentleman's Cs" just to the "Legacy" students. (Glaring past teacher eye on George W., you bastard! You could have amounted to something if you had just put forth the minimum effort! And now look, one of my students is a Class A War Criminal, Crimes against Humanity, and the Dixie Chicks.)
But it is different in a community college, because there are adults in charge. They are called "teachers", and if some Fledgling Buzzard gets all disruptive about how the need for the class to move on is interfering with his god-given right to explain how all censorship is wrong, according to the principles of Livertarianism, Ayn Rand, and Sovereign Citizen Mojo, well, teach just calls security. Problem solved, or at least relocated to the SoylentNews, where not only is there no barrier to entry, there are no teachers, and no security. No adults in charge. No way to force the crazy to face their crazy, no way to make the ignorant admit their lack of knowledge. And most tragic, no way to keep the Young Buzz from flying too high, singeing his wings to nothing, and falling back to earth. We will try to catch you, Buzz! But terminal velocity being what it is, and you having put on some weight of late, well, some times discretion is the better part of valor.