People who enjoy writing comments promoting conspiracy theories on terrorist acts such as the bombings in London have been sent a pointed message — by the Daily Kos blog, an unabashedly Democratic blog that’s among the most popular on the Internet.
It is: cool it. Your comments are not welcome here. Kos writes:
Today I did something I’ve never done before (not even during the Fraudster mess), and wish I’d never had to do.
I made a mass banning of people perpetuating a series of bizarre, off-the-wall, unsupported and frankly embarassing conspiracy theories.
I have a high tolerance level for material I deem appropriate for this site, but one thing I REFUSE to allow is bullshit conspiracy theories. You know the ones — Bush and Blair conspired to bomb London in order to take the heat off their respective political problems. I can’t imagine what….world these people live in, but it sure ain’t the Reality Based Community.
So I banned these people, and those that have been recommending diaries like it. And I will continue to do so until the purge is complete, and make no mistake — this is a purge.
This is a reality-based community. Those who wish to live outside it should find a new home. This isn’t it.
In an update, he says he reinstated some of the accounts as people emailed him saying they had no warning. He writes:
It’s telling that I have NEVER done something like this before. Because this has been an extreme situation. This isn’t about disagreeing with what people are saying. If that was the case, everyone would’ve been banned by now. The myth of the “echo chamber” is just that. A myth.
The bigger issue is: yes, the Internet is the Wild West of ideas — but there are LIMITS.
There IS a line. In a way we’ve been lax on this site, but came close to deleting a few comments. We kept them up, though, because other readers (our readership is quite diverse and thoughtful) made absolute mincemeat of those people who do not deserve a room on Mars with Alan Keyes but should instead find housing in another galaxy (hopefully far far far far away).
Bloggers CAN cross the line…and they can face consquences (losing readers). Commentators CAN cross the line and they can face consquences (being deleted or totally banned which we can also do with a click on Powerblogs). And news personalities like this can also cross the line (but they don’t usually face any conquences because they get better ratings when they do).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.