Politician takes on online commenters

TrooperBari · May 10, 2011

Warning: this could be NSFW if you speak Polish.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/05/smears_and_slurs_poland

That person is none other than the foreign minister, Radek Sikorski. In an interview last week in Gazeta Wyborcza he complained about the way in which Polish newspapers allow anti-semitic and other grotesquely insulting comments on their websites, of a kind that they would never publish in print. He argued:

"As the head of Polish diplomacy, it is my duty to safeguard my country’s image abroad. The racism, aggression and hate spouted in Polish internet chatrooms is beyond belief. People can read these comments anywhere in the world and form their opinion of Poland."

Mr Sikorski and his wife, the American Pulitzer-winning author Anne Applebaum, have been the butt of particularly venomous comments. One recent one read:

"Do fiuta bez napletka hasbarowca, jak ci nasz kościołek przeszkadza to won do OSRAELA, mały icku, czy wiesz, że twoja babcia to rzydówka ubecka z domu Rojer, dwulicowe ścierwo, które dąży do rozkładu polski ...do gazu fraglesa". ty ch... sik-orski pejsaty kondonie"

Which is simply too unpleasant to translate (maybe a reader with a strong stomach can try to render it in an appropriately illiterate and ranting tone). Another rather milder one merely accuses Mr Sikorski of being the "husband of an orthodox Jew, an enemy of Poland controlled by his father-in-law, bent on the “the destruction and destabilisation of Poland” and a "hidden, ruthless traitor". In December the minister forwarded these (and another one saying that Poles should finish off the Jews, the way Hitler started) to Poland's attorney-general, as a criminal complaint.
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The papers whose Web sites included the comments have taken them down and "apologized unreservedly." Good on them for doing the decent thing, but can you see a US politician going so far as to sue a paper and/or Web site for its online comments? Or do media outlets only open themselves up to lawsuits if they take ownership of the comments by moderating the discussion?

Boom_70 · May 10, 2011

So it is ok for Moderators to start political threads?

TrooperBari · May 10, 2011

Boom_70 said:

So it is ok for Moderators to start political threads?
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I know Polish politics is a hot-button issue around these parts, but I thought it was worth the risk.

Stay classy, Boom.

TheSportsPredictor · May 10, 2011

Stay?

mrbigles01 · May 10, 2011

I honestly wish more people did this. I've never seen a comment section that added anything to the story. They are cesspools of uninformed, ignorant nonsense.

I can't for the life of me understand why any serious news organization allows that kind of crap to exist on their site, even when its not anti-Semitic.

rpmmutant · May 10, 2011

mrbigles01 said:

I honestly wish more people did this. I've never seen a comment section that added anything to the story. They are cesspools of uninformed, ignorant nonsense.

I can't for the life of me understand why any serious news organization allows that kind of crap to exist on their site, even when its not anti-Semitic.
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Traffic. It's all about the clicks (which still haven't translated into Benjamins).

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Politician takes on online commenters

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Politician takes on online commenters

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