Sane and Insane

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board has for years famously fought for free speech, open dialogue, and civil argument from all perspectives, including those with whom it disagrees. Emphasis on “has,” as in the past.

Until recently it had very active “Conversation” tools associated with every article, editorial, column, and even letters to the editors.  This writer, along many others, frequently participated in vigorous discussion and debate.  While vulgarities or threats are appropriately declined publication we are unaware of any abuses of civility that would cause the site moderators to take down thoughtful commentary, even if politically incorrect or out of favor among the “Progressive” Left.

Nonetheless, the Journal undertook a review of its conversation policies without input or discussion with some of its own editors and executive staff.  It chose to limit the number of pieces subject to comment and to eliminate altogether any commentary on letters to the editor.

In response, this writer first contacted an editor/friend at the Journal who informed that he had no knowledge of the reasoning underlying the policy changes or the rationales supporting the new rules. He suggested writing to the moderators for clarity.

We did. The response was uninformative save, advising that we write to Louise Story who appears to have overseen the development of the new policy.  The result is, to say the least, interesting.  We got no response, at least not initially.

But, in reading a comment questioning the origin of the new policy from a commenter/friend on an article that piqued our interest, we informed readers that Louise was in charge of the changes, and that the moderators had informed us to write to her directly.  “Violation of community standards,” they Squealed. Upon asking why, and noting that we were quoting precisely from a moderator’s memo to us we got no response.  So, we took the next step and wrote to Louise asking what standard we had violated.  We received a thank you for writing and an assurance that the new policy would become transparent as it rolled out. To date, it is neither transparent nor clear.

Just today the Journal published an Op/Ed from the free speech advocate, Claremont Institute in which it described how Google had denied it the right to advertise an upcoming 40th Anniversary Gala because Claremont publishes in opposition to many aspects of a political philosophy known as “multiculturalism.”  Google deemed it a violation of its policy against  “racially or ethnically oriented publications, racially or ethnically oriented universities, racial or ethnic dating” . . . In other words any serious discussion about race or ethnicity violates Google’s sensitivities.  In response, the very first, and most liked comment from Journal subscriber, Robert Grow is:

Not sure the comment sections of WSJ are much different. Comments that are fully compliant with the stated guidelines are often killed by the monitors. Who are the monitors, what are their motives? If we only get to read approved comments are they worth reading?

In response, we informed Mr. Grow, as a reply to his comment that, “We wrote a comment that stated in full, a moderator’s memo to us in context and it was denied publication.” For merely agreeing with Mr. Grow that the new policy is arbitrary, we immediately received from the Journal moderators a note, “Our moderation team has reviewed your response and determined it does not comply with our community rules.” Apparently we melted a snowflake.

This says a great deal about the Wall Street Journal, and its not good . . . A very sad capitulation to the fascist Left that quashes speech for fear of ideas and words . . .