Dear reader, we're closing comments (IOL)

smallearth said:
People voicing their frustrations is not the same as people spewing hatred. If these people are unable to voice their frustrations in a manner which does not violate the dignity and respect of other race groups then they do not deserve to be heard.
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Shutting people up will not make the problem go away.
 
garp said:
Yip, and there are a lot of other online spaces (which I think the gov has never fully understood), but they do not have mass following that a site carrying SA specific news would have. r/southafrica/ seems to be getting busier but is not really where your average SA internet user is going to wind up.
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I can see it in a dystopian future...

You have been banned from [-]/r/pyongyang[/-] /r/southafrica
 
2 points:

A news website is not a forum so applying forum logic to it is pointless.
The Facebook pages still post all the articles and allow comments, this move will actually widen the audience.

All this does is take the News24 and IOL name out of the picture and leaves Facebook with the headache of moderating it.
 
garp said:
Shutting people up will not make the problem go away.
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If an investigation were done into a random sampling of those who resort to posting online hatred habitually, I would not be suprised if the results revealed a pattern of family dysfunction.

I think people need to take responsibility for themselves and their relationships with the society they live in.
 
ScottulusMaximus said:
2 points:

A news website is not a forum so applying forum logic to it is pointless.
The Facebook pages still post all the articles and allow comments, this move will actually widen the audience.

All this does is take the News24 and IOL name out of the picture and leaves Facebook with the headache of moderating it.
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You missed the Sunette Bridges' case, did you?

The onus will be SQUARELY on the media houses to moderate the comments on their FB pages.
 
Internet comments are nearly always a cesspool, no matter the site. News sites are just a larger pit to fill with muck. The global trend for any self respecting organisation is to remove comments.

The local flavoured conspiracy theories are good for a laugh though. As if IOL and News24's comment sections were the last bastion of truth and reason that the government is trying to suppress.
 
The Advisory Panel included media attorneys Jacques Louw and Dario Milo, Public Advocate at the Press Council, Latiefa Mobara, political analyst Eusebius McKaiser, Independent Group Content Officer, Karima Brown and its Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Anthony Robinson.
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Looks like there was one MxOxford comment too many :D
 
It's not about how good or awful the quality of the News24 and IOL comment sections were. It's about the chilling effect that shutting down such comment sections have.
 
The_Assimilator said:
It's not about how good or awful the quality of the News24 and IOL comment sections were. It's about the chilling effect that shutting down such comment sections have.
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Not really. Many websites around the world have been following the same path. Most famously recently was Popular Science and The Verge. And the world is a better place for it
 
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