Comments on CBC's Omar Khadr Stories Should Be Pre-Moderated

The CBC has almost always allowed open comments on their online news site, cbc.ca.

In most cases, this makes sense. Open comments sometimes bring out depressing elements of society content to hide behind anonymity, but as Canada's leading journalistic institution CBC has a mandate to allow open and free discussion on its comments page.

The site occasionally closes comments, usually in stories about court cases, particularly when young offenders are involved. This decision makes a lot of ethical sense, but it also covers a media institution's liabilities.

It's curious, then, that in the case of Omar Khadr, the CBC has, for the most part, continued to allow open commenting. This is a mistake. The comment circus takes away from CBC's reasonably solid journalism on the story, obscuring the facts and research with vitriol and hate.

Khadr is a divisive figure, and I won't use this space to provide an opinion on his situation. There are reasons to allow commentary on what amounts to a potentially pivotal decision in Canadian policy. Canadians do need a place to express their views.

The views expressed on cbc.ca too often draw close to libel. The CBC should not endorse this kind of vitriolic and inaccurate commentary. By endorsing and publishing the comments, CBC could open itself to liability and accusations of ethical malpractice.

Wouldn't a charge of treason be more appropriate than murder?

Why is this family allowed to stay in Canada?
--Posted by ifthen on "Khadr lawyer says government 'vilifying' his client" at 1:26 p.m. Sept. 30, 2012.

This post is probably not strictly libellous, but it's still not helpful or accurate. Accusations of treason are dangerously close to libel for my tastes. If it meets CBC's community standards then CBC should probably review its standards. The story is about Khadr. His family have, for the most part, not been charged. Suggesting they should be deported is offensive, and CBC should find it unethical.

Libel is the act of writing anything that demeans another person publically. There are grey areas here, but generally alleging unproven criminal activity is a big no-no. Calling someone a terrorist or a war criminal is a very dangerous line to cross, even if there is a verdict from a military court. Canada has rather strict libel laws--even calling someone a crook can be libellous. Most journalistic sites are very careful about this sort of thing, both to cover themselves and to promote healthy, coherent debate.

Commentary articles should make an argument based on factual information. Those articles are published as articles by cbc.ca, while reader comments are formatted differently. So there is less endorsement of reader comments. Presumably CBC's media lawyers have carefully determined that they are reasonably safe.

That doesn't make the practice ethical. Comments containing inaccurate or unverified information can easily confuse readers. Especially in a world with increasingly fewer gatekeepers, anything printed could be true. In my mind, a simple disclaimer isn't enough to absolve CBC of its ethical responsibility to ensure what is on its site is truth. If a comment is obviously false, or provides a fact that can't be verified, it should be rebutted with research or deleted.

I have seen some comments removed by CBC moderators. There are still some that contravene CBC's own posting rules to post in good taste and refrain from personal attacks.

2. Be respectful and courteous, as if you were having a face-to-face discussion.
...
8. Any of Your Content that is offensive and likely to expose an individual or a group of individuals to hatred or contempt on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age or mental or physical disability is prohibited.
--CBC Submissions Policy, cbc.ca, July 2012.

The comments create a toxic online environment that scares off reasonable posters, meaning the commentary no longer even shows a reasonable guage of average public opinion. It's bad form in online commentary circles to allow ceaseless, unmoderated trolling and ill-thought out posts, especially on a sensitive issue. The allowance of vile comments on one controversial story tacitly allows it on all. Thus I've seen racist, sexist and all kinds of other garbage on cbc.ca.

Yes.................and we're all "really happy" to have him back in Canada! Coud all those who supported his return please at this time make public your names in order that he may have a plece to go while he is being "reintegrated." Especially, those who took me to task for not supporting him and his return in comments made here on this site.
--Posted by liberal one on "Khadr lawyer says government 'vilifying' his client" at 2:43 p.m., Sept. 30, 2012.

This comment isn't likely libellous but it's stupid and obvious trolling targeting other posters on the site with the bludgeon of one anonymous person's repeatedly-stated opinion.

I was lucky enough to have an excellent blog post shared with me and it was extremely useful in setting up a comment policy when I worked for the Gazette. CBC might do well to give it a read.

When people are saying ruinously cruel things about each other, and you're the person who made it possible, it's 100% your fault. If you aren't willing to be a grown-up about that, then that's okay, but you're not ready to have a web business. Businesses that run cruise ships have to buy life preservers. Companies that sell alcohol have to keep it away from kids. And people who make communities on the web have to moderate them.
--"If You're Website's Full of Assholes, It's Your Fault," by Anil Dash on dashes.com, July 20, 2011.

Give that full article a deserved read. And look, the comments section is sane, well-moderated and contributes to a meaningful (and humourous) debate.


CBC has always had a problem with this. With Khadr, it's not only unethical and potentially dangerous, it also creates a very poor image of Canadian community standards. We value free speech, but CBC is a forum. With the privilege of posting comes responsibility to moderate the conversation. A poster with an extreme point of view who wishes to espouse it again and again, condemning or praising where grounds do not exist to do so, should post on his or her own blog or website, or on a relevant news site. CBC's general mandate means it must keep its content appropriate to the level of decorum expected of a public space--the Internet is considered, in most cases, public. That means names, or barring that, a small amount of control.

Britain's The Guardian newspaper provides an interesting contrast. It also has a general mandate and some comments on its stories get a little out of hand. These are moderated quickly and consistently to limit unnecessary and unhelpful, unintelligible outrage. It also allows fewer comments on hard news or contentious stories--most of the contentious threads are on the syndicated blogs or opinion articles, where radically diverging opinions are more welcome. Even on less sensitive stories, otherwise libellous statements are quickly deleted.

CBC owes the public the same. It owes its readers a similar level of moderation, even if that costs some money to implement. It costs less than getting sued. Once the standard is set the workload goes down and the trolls go back to their dark holes, allowing the debate that comments allow to flourish.

Then everyone is happy and Canada looks way better to everyone else in the world surfing the Internet.

Needless to say, irrelevant comments about Khadr's situation will be deleted here. I pre-moderate comments on this site to ensure civility, as we agreed to do at the Gazette, and which is done at newspapers like The Chronicle Herald, as well.