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posted by martyb on Friday August 19 2016, @12:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-can-talk,-but-not-here dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday August 19 2016, @12:53AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Friday August 19 2016, @12:53AM (#389816)

    This seems to be the new trend, all Progressive websites disable comments so nothing interferes with the Narrative. They push all discussion to Facebook and Twitter who are themselves investing heavily in ensuring anything that varies from the Narrative can be filtered out. It will all be one cocooned safe space for unique and precious snowflakes that would lose their 'effing minds at the slightest hint of a thought that wasn't exactly what everyone is 'supposed' to think. Which means that since nobody will ever say anything there won't be much point to it other than posting selfies... and after a few hundred those too will get kinda boring.

    The Right side of the Web will soon be the only place for conversation. Fascinating.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @01:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @01:06AM (#389822)

    Thank god for Stormfront.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @01:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @01:19AM (#389825)

      And Ironmarch. jmorris can't stand a site that won't allow idiocy to pass for reasoned debate. Snowflakes got him again, I see. Mediocre!!

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:14AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:14AM (#389915)

        How is the parent comment "informative"? "Another probably-racist site's name and ad hominem towards another user. Boy howdy, sign me up for that informative info!"

        Maybe some less insane mods will see this and help me mod this crap back down to 0 where it belongs (tho it's actually outclassed by most -1 posts I've read).

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday August 19 2016, @01:13AM

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday August 19 2016, @01:13AM (#389823)

    My forays into right-wing website comment threads have not yielded "conversations".
    However, they've been a great thing for keyboards, desks and aspirin manufacturers. They also comforted me in my mission to keep booze and opiates out of my house.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:00AM (#389867)

      Well at least they're not censored. I hope you can see that difference and know that the side demanding censorship is absolutely and inherently wrong on this point. Everybody who favors censorship and who ends up bashing their heads in when exposed to free expression are at least still free to do so.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:32AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:32AM (#389883)

        Take a look to reddit and r/news to see what sort of narrative CTR wants to push. It pretty much went overnight from 'Hilary is capitalist Satan, vote Bernie our socialist god!' to 'Hilary is the best in the world and Trump is a do nothing dangerous evil, Vote Hilary!'.

        It is kinda sad. Half of reddit is fine with it. The other half is disgusted. Pretty much only r/television is the only one with a sorta balanced view, for now. That will be quickly corrected and they will fall in line.

        Most of these sorts of sites are *heavily* modded. Take for example our alma mater Slashdot. A week or so ago a slightly pro Trump thing popped up there. Pretty much anyone posting something slightly positive about trump was sent to -1 and pro hillary was +5. This was within 10-20 mins of the story going up. It was clear the agenda was set and SD was going to follow it even if they didnt want to.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:00AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:00AM (#389904)

          > Take a look to reddit and r/news to see what sort of narrative CTR wants to push.

          The fact that you expect people to know wtf 'CTR' is says everything about inwardly focused you are.

          > Take for example our alma mater Slashdot. A week or so ago a slightly pro Trump thing popped up there.

          I'd like to. But you conveinetly didn't even bother to name the story, much less provide a link to it. How fortunate for your narrative that it can't be checked. Your goal is not to persuade your audience, just to masturbate in front of us. Useless posts like that will not be missed.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 19 2016, @04:07PM

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday August 19 2016, @04:07PM (#390130) Journal

        Well at least they're not censored.
         
        A right-wing site like Fox News would never censor comments [epictimes.com] their own polls [dailykos.com] freaking Picasso, [hyperallergic.com] their actual news coverage, [breitbart.com] interviews, [richardsilverstein.com] or anything like that!

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday August 19 2016, @04:26PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Friday August 19 2016, @04:26PM (#390135)

        > Everybody who favors censorship and who ends up bashing their heads in when exposed to free expression are at least still free to do so.

        That's a mild illustration of what I was talking about: your sentence doesn't make sense. Read it again.

        Most of my attempts at reading right-wing comment threads fail on basic logical reasoning or basic reality checks. There are some very smart people, who can have a sound logical argument for the extreme-right, but they just don't seem to post in places I've visited, leaving the place to the less eloquent part of the crowd.

        I don't want censorship, neither do all but a few on both the right and the extreme right (let's not pretend there's much of a left in the US, by international standards only Sanders qualifies). What I'd like, and what those websites want to avoid distracting from the their actual articles, is less trolling, sloganeering, and shouting, and more logic arguing.
        Which is why I'm here and not elsewhere.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by melikamp on Friday August 19 2016, @01:54AM

    by melikamp (1886) on Friday August 19 2016, @01:54AM (#389838) Journal
    Come on J, I don't know what you mean by progressive or whether you are being sarcastic (I'd bet 3 against 2), but NPR is just another pulp masquerading as a serious news source. I am not saying NPR does not have good people working for it (even NY Times has journalists among the ranks), but NPR's disdain for journalistic integrity is so total, they won't even admit they run commercial ads. They are just another shill for the ultra-rich guy. Fuck them.
    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday August 19 2016, @02:37AM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Friday August 19 2016, @02:37AM (#389857) Journal

      I quit listening about a year or two into Obama's first term when the fawning and swooning reports went on long past the time NPR should have pointed out his administration was looking ever more like GWB's third term.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @03:18AM (#389875)

        Mine was when Rand Paul was making his opening bid for the Senate, which then turned into Democracy Now! discussing how he was actually named after a Ayn Rand and discussing in sinister tones the implications of someone with the taint of objectivism/libertarianisn (narf) could destroy the very republic!

        I've grown use to that type of idiocy on the web, but from a supposed news source; it's propaganda with the aire of legitimacy.

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 19 2016, @03:10PM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday August 19 2016, @03:10PM (#390109) Journal

        NPR was my main news source for 20 years. They lost me when they parroted GWB administration talking points for invading Iraq.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 19 2016, @03:34AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday August 19 2016, @03:34AM (#389885) Journal

    Good thing the "right" wing never, ever, ever does anything like that. Or is it that they don't need to since their audience is too fucking dumb to know when something's fishy?

    Ugh. Hillary is acting like a Republican. We don't HAVE a Democrat running; we have a Republican and a megalomaniac. Fuck it, the Democrat party is now called the Republican party, and the GOP is now called the Theocratic party, because that's what they fuckin' are. I cannot believe how completely textbook GOP Clinton is acting...

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @04:28PM (#390137)

      ...the GOP is now called the Theocratic party, because that's what they fuckin' are.

      Proving that you have no idea what you are talking about. In what way is Trump at all promoting a Theocracy? He has huge flaws, but if you haven't heard, the religious wing of the Republican party is at best tepid with him.

      The closest argument I can think of his anti-Muslim rhetoric, but that would only make him as religious as people like Mao Zedong. I don't exactly see China as a thriving theocracy right now.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 19 2016, @04:39PM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday August 19 2016, @04:39PM (#390143) Journal

        It is not and never was about Drumpf, moron. Do you know what will happen if he gets elected?

        Same thing that happened with Dubya: he'll sit around wondering which crayon tastes best, while the Dominionists who run the half GOP and the greedheads who run the other half will continue their destructive work. Repeat after me: the President is not the Party.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 19 2016, @03:42AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday August 19 2016, @03:42AM (#389891) Journal

    Dammit, J-Mo, do you have any idea how expensive the fuses in my irony meter are?! I'm running out.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...