Crisis At News International Commits The Times To Censorship

As Corporal Jone’s would have said “They don’t like it up-em.”

[UPDATE see a development to this story at the end of this post, the Times really are in crisis mode - it will be interesting to see if this time they publish my comment, or just keep digging]

A newspaper should not be about the suppression of news and views. Ever. Yet that is precisely what News International owned The Times has done. What is worse, they censored the legitimate, non-profane, reasonable feedback of a paying (non-activist) customer; Me. Twice.

What I wrote is only provocatively worded because they had already effectively banned wholly legitimate comment. Read what I wrote and you will get the gist.

This is the text of the second, comment I submitted last night, (after they failed to publish the first) against The Times article "Hacked to death: News of the World is shut down". Interestingly, it was actually published for about a couple of minutes, before being taken down, thus confirming it was actually actively censored:

“OK I submitted a comment half an hour ago saying pretty much the following:

‘Could this simply be a cynical move to deflect criticism from senior executives? What of the reports I’ve read to the effect sunonsunday.co.uk was registered two days ago ?’

Strangely is hasn’t been published, but other later comments have been. Times: THIS IS THE AGE OF THE INTERNET. This time I have a screenshot of my submission and will tweet and comment on the other newspaper sites with evidence of your suppression of bad news. Go on, censor this non-profance, non-insulting comment, I dare you. Or alternatively, show [*] you are made of less bankrupt stuff and publish it.”

*typo corrected

So let’s put this in context. This is a newspaper, which claims to be at the quality end of the market, trying to bury a paying customer’s feedback questioning the motivations for the actions taken by senior management in the owning group during a time of crisis. The hypocrisy of a newspaper taking this action is simply staggering. It is wrong on every level, and confirms News International are an inauthentic organisation, at least in their moderation of user comments. But let's face it, that inauthenticity has now been shown to have spread through several departments of the organisation. So which nodes has the cancer spread through (and from) ? Having censored my first comment, which I’m sure was uncomfortable reading for them, but not at all provocative, they then censor the second, which was admittedly more provocative but for good reason.

Sorry News International, I may be small fry, but this is the age of the Internet. The balance of power is shifting. I do have a voice. It’s not as though I’m a left-wing activists seeking to see the back of you. And now I'm annoyed.

Here is the documentary evidence of the post:



Unfortunately I didn't get a shot of the fact it had been published. Perhpas naively thinking they had let it through and it would remain published.

UPDATE: The Times really are in crisis mode. I have returned to the story to see if they have published my post (they may do once there are more comments so it is buried by the volume) and found this comment by a Times staff member. You can see I have replied to it. It will be interesting to see if this time my comment is published.