Bishop Hill The Guardian apologises
Feb 13, 2015 Greens Matt Ridley Media The Guardian has apologised for its behaviour over the Bluecloud affair, in which a Greenpeace activist and sometime Guardian writer named Gary Evans discussed beheading Matt Ridley.
The web and particularly the threads are a robust environment but I think we should have taken the beheading comment down as soon as it was reported, even though I agree with the moderators that it was an attempt at a joke rather than anything else. I think the “Bluecloud” comment falls squarely within rule 3 of the Community guidelines: “We understand that people often feel strongly about issues debated on the site, but we will consider removing any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening.”
When beheadings have been such a tragic part of the news agenda for so many months the choice of a severed head as the accompanying photograph was an error. It seems unlikely to me that the offending comments would have been made had the picture not been what it was. For that reason and the length of time it took to remove the comments, I think Lord Ridley deserves an apology, which I am happy to give on behalf of the Guardian.
Reader Comments (65)
We've only ourselves to blame if BlueCloud's comment stayed up so long. It's easy to get comments removed by clicking the “report” button, as I discovered long ago when one of their pet trolls posted eleven comments accusing someone (Monckton?) of lying. I reported ten comments which were promptly removed, while the eleventh one remained. Moderators are probably unpaid interns. They don't check anything.
Another Graun troll GPWayne (a founder member of SkepticalScience and, like BlueCloud, a “contributor” thanks to one article (a brown-nosing interview with John Cook) once expressed the desire to roger me across a table in a comment. Despite my pleas, the moderators removed the comment, though they left up another where the same GPW made disparaging remarks about the size of my penis.
The best ever sceptic commenter at CiF was MoveAnyMountain, who one year was voted best commenter by the Graun's readership. The Guardian congratulated him through clenched teeth and duly rewarded him his prize – an article, which he duly wrote – on the perils of free speech.
Soon after the Guardian banned him. If Britain had a single journal interested in free speech the story of MoveAnyMountain would be up there with Aereopagetica and Swift's Modest Proposal.
Does it? Is there?
I'm trying with little success to efface a double posting
The Grauniad spelling and grammar has reached new heights - "I therefore apologise unreservedly on behalf of the Guardian" has apparently been formatted as - "I think Lord Ridley deserves an apology, which I am happy to give on behalf of the Guardian."
He then doesn't give the apology!
Mr Chambers, Sir,
Inaccurate (presumably?!!) aspersions as to your, ahem, honourable member aside GPW will all to often simply give a complete non-sequitur response to comments made. Then, when caught in this loop he just disengages. He did with me once when he took umbrage at some innocent observation I made (before my complete exile from the august journal) and I found myself experiencing an overwhelming pity for the species.
As always time will tell with this matter and his current lack of insight will be a powerful protective factor for him as he moves smoothly on to the next cause after this global warming/AGW/CAGW and Bar crashes and burns into the dustbin of history....Assuming "we" are right of course as I believe "we" are. If the facts change however then so will my mind.
I have long since developed the skill to just say "ah well" to these people because they usually will NEVER see simply because they just can't.
It's not a moral judgement I make. It's just the way of things.
That said though, if anyone does ever begin to question their own schema they should be welcomed over. Always. The "I told you so" is poor form...To say the least. Even if it's felt deep down.
A question that comes to mind is "can a sinner become a saint"? Knowing the human condition as I do the answer has to be "yes".
For the record Geoff I'm sure GPW was wrong in his comment.
Or at least unforgivably indiscreet!
Jonesey
Here I was thinking it was a reference to car exhaust. Carbon Monoxide poisoning would explain a lot. Perhaps even their fear that CO would pick up another deadly oxygen and become really dangerous. Poorly burning mj also produces CO, perhaps more than most modern cars.
Paraphrasing Chesterton (apropos of something else) like most public apologies it is very stiff and not very convincing.
I don't think it was a joke at all. It really is the way many of the regular posters on the Guardian feel, and exactly what they would like to do.
The argument that you read very frequently in their comments goes something like this:
-- We know that continued emissions will give rise to catastrophic warming.
-- This is so clear and obvious that no informed good faith scepticism about it is possible.
-- Therefore everyone voicing a different point of view is either suffering from deliberate false consciousness or is in the pay of lobbyists or is otherwise venal. For instance, they cannot bear the idea of stopping driving, flying, cooking on stoves or heating their houses, and so they wilfully belief falsehoods which will allow them to continue doing these wicked things.
-- However owing to the influence propaganda has on the weak intellects of the voting masses, scepticism misleads them and makes the required action difficult.
-- We thus need to stop this misleading and therefore we have to stop the sceptics publishing, and we also, when the catastrophe has come and we are all scrabbling around in the dirt and chaos of the end of civilisation, need to hold Nuremberg type trials to hold those truly responsible accountable.
-- And we need to make clear to these sceptics that what they are doing now by voicing their opinions is a crime against humanity and that it will be punished as such. In the mean time, we need to deny them access to the media and demonstrate against any events in which they appear to speak.
I think BlueCloud and the others actually mean what they say, and that the Guardian editorial ethos is in broad agreement with them. They really do think that the suppression of dissent from the climate agenda is perfectly permissible, they really do think that to voice scepticism is crying 'fire' in a crowded theatre, and they are approaching the far extremes of the animal rights movement where almost any intimidation of individuals is thought not simply acceptable but praiseworthy.
When challenged on this stuff, the invariable reaction will be to say that the threats were understandable in view of the strong feelings about the issue, and no more than a joke in bad taste anyway. No. Talking about killing people is not a joke. The Guardian should know better. But anyone who has read their environment pages for any length of time will know that it doesn't.
Could Shub get the Bish's colleague, St. Denys to weigh in on the finer points of editorial decapitation ?
Barry, Dana N's zombie head was 'awesome' comments were made on Twitter
List of excuses for beheading jokes at the Guardian
geoffchambers yes I well remember MoveAnyMountain who was clearly to good for his own good , from a CIF point of view . Its odd to think that the days of Monbat bullying and throwing insults around was actually the 'golden era' for CIF environmental when it was actually possible to have more than just a circle jerk of self congratulations from the 'denier haters' which we see now.
Still think the best part is CIF habit of 'disappearing ' post about how they 'disappear ' post , that is wipe them from history has they never been posted , which to this day they deny they do . They never seem to learn that the web never forgets , and it certainly will not forget Monbats call for airline executives to be killed, his call for no one to fly made shortly before he went on North American book selling tour , his stating that he will no longer fly made shortly before flying to Canada for an anti-tar sands meeting that was shorter they his flight time to get , nor their all out support for the 10:10 splatter fest video , has much has the Guardian will like it to.
I thought it was against the law to incite violence?
It's easy to get banned from Comment is Free if You Agree, just speak the truth. Eg state that the hypothesis of dangerous anthropogenic global warming is not proven, I can assure you it won't be long before you are banned.
If you're going to acknowledge an error of judgement, at least be honest. Doing anything else is duplicitous.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/a-climate-of-hate-and-a-license-to-kill/
Pointman
I wouldn't have screamed so loud to have the comment taken down.
Fewer people will get to see how pitiful it was.
The best way to fight the people you disagree with is to give them the widest platform and debate. Not silence them.
Unless you think they have a point...
The gist of this apology seems to be "it was only a joke, but not a very funny one when people are actually being beheaded". So if ISIS wasn't doing it's bloody thing it would be ok to joke about beheading warmists, but as they are, well, it's a bit of a touchy subject? That seems to me to be what they're saying.
I'm a Manchester boy and grew up with the Manchester Guardian in the 50s and 60s when it was a sober, intelligent and socially aware newspaper. We were proud of our newspaper. The move to London changed it out of all recognition and it is now something to be ashamed of when it publishes stuff like this. Like a lot of things in life, it isn't all bad, the campaign to get businesses to pay tax is very important, much more important than climate variation. They could sack all the climate variation guys.