A SHOT RANG OUT

On Aug. 26, The Huffington Post announced it would end anonymity on the site for new signups. This was the end result of extensive polling and two-way dialogues with the HP commenting community over the course of the year, and in true democratic fashion, the majority of the HP community agreed this would be a step in a positive direction for the blog and a welcome change.

Nah, I’m just kidding. Those dictatorial mofos did not even attempt to ask a single one of their members for feedback on this. Oh, and they love putting up polls. They didn’t even query member “Forpeace”. Whom they actually cited in one of those early announcements, as a model member that we should all try to aspire to be like. She was one of the first to leave, after expressing her displeasure over the oppressive and humiliating new policy. That was one of the first signs that this was not a well-baked idea.

The result? From Sept. to Dec., this member was on there most days. Covering a wide range of articles and sections, as per usual. I saw no noticeable change in the comment conversations, other than one peculiar difference. During this period, it was the first time I’d spotted professional spammers. Worse, they were new signups. That means they had no trouble circumventing HP’s new verification requirements.

PHASE 2: BURN THE BRIDGES

Then on Dec. 10, the boom fell. The Huffington Post actually rescinded their promise to allow older established members an exemption from their Facebook authentication policy. I believe the official reason given for that was “Fuck you. Next question”. Well, they actually never gave a reason. Later, they came up with some weasel words that sounded like this: ‘We realized we had to require all members to verify via Facebook, in order to require that everyone use their real names’. Except they don’t require that everyone use their real name. Built into the system is a rule exempting anyone in fear of harm or harassment if their real names are exposed.

So if they could make exceptions for some, they could very well have made exceptions for established members as well. As for making exceptions for those in fear of harm if exposed, this was actually more lying bullshit. Turns out, you practically need to be blessed by the pope, to get exempted from their real-names policy. Most members reported they were rejected; and not even given the courtesy of being told they were rejected.

So now all members, like it or not, had to go and get cellphones with text-plans, and open a Facebook account, to remain members of the commenting community. And while their Chief Executive Officer of Lying, Tim McDonald, said that all members were notified of this on login that day… that was simply not true. (But then, he’s just doing his job, isn’t he). As I can attest, the notification only came as a pop-up, that may have occurred long after you logged in. But only came up when you tried to post a comment. It gave you only two options:

CRUSH OF THE WAVE, THE VICTIMS FIRST LOST.

And with that one pop-up, one of the world’s largest online commenting communities, millions of members strong, got torn apart like a Japanese tsunami. Destroyed by its own host, The Huffington Post. For me, it was like… I didn’t realize how many neighbors I had, until I started seeing their washed up bodies piling up. Many of us started feeling the change, registered in the body count. Seeing our fan & friend numbers dwindle by the tens, then the dozens, then the hundreds…

Most of the people that were lost to the oppressive new changes, were in fact not the vicious trolls and rotten spammers HP told us they were doing this for. No, they were the very people that made the community. They included:

SEND IN THE KILL-BOTS

The changes HP effected on Dec. 10 had two components to them; external public changes, and internal private changes. ie. changes to the moderation policy. Massive changes. Here now is the skeleton of their ‘clever’ top-secret plan laid out bare:

Arianna Huffington announces to an audience in Boston, that she saw a few rape and death threats while ‘in London’. Turns out, she was only talking about reading some politically motivated threats from UK members on the Twitter that she once saw. They were concerning some controversy that brewed up around a particular figure. What did this have to do with her news rag? Absolutely zip scratch all. In 7 years of commenting on HP, I did not see any vicious trolls she talks about. And I never avoided controversial topics. Regardless, that appears to be enough to stand as her justification for obliterating everyone’s privacy on her news blog. Even though HP already had an “IGNORE” button (MUTE) that allows you to instantly block a troll. Plus a “FLAG” button to get him booted.

The HP community directors announce the site is now going to require “verification” and will post people’s real name on all their comments. Even ancient ones. They argue this will weed out the ne’er-do-wells and attract the “sophisticated grown-ups”. Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Both trolls and commercial spammers are reported running free, and there are no end of insolent comments exchanged between members. Most members opted to use only their first name. Well its certainly not seeing their first name that’s preventing them from being argumentative. So much for that all-out stupid “gut-check” theory community director Jimmy Soni explained would change the way people comment.

It didn’t change shit. However, what did change was that those insolent comments people were posting never made it through. Members reported 60 to 90% of their comments we’re not being accepted. The reasons for which could not be found in HP’s community guidelines. Indeed, the comments that got rejected went beyond anyone’s guidelines this side of red China. As I and most others reported, there was no rhyme or reason for the incredibly intense battle the moderators were waging against the commenters.

On the “Turning The Page” thread, that announced the new policy, I averaged one direct post a day. That’s the number: 1, if you didn’t get that. And I was posting all day. Trying hard be as inoffensive as possible (which is not easy for me, but still. I learned to fake it pretty good). It just did not matter. I soon realized it did not matter what my comment said. There was never a time when they allowed two of my comments to follow, in a direct post.

It also seemed like they simply would not allow me to direct post more often than x number of hours. In addition to the single isolated post, I might have been able to get one or two replies to someone else’s post, in a day. So that’s where I usually tried to fire my target. Get something in quick before anyone else responds, so that my response would still be seen without people having to enter the dreaded “conversation carousel”. Community director Tim McDonald stated in an interview we had “wide latitude” to criticize HP. That turned out to be a lie too, because after a few days, moderation clamped down on the criticism in Tim’s thread. We all felt the effects of that unspoken change.

Now their plan became clear: The change in anonymity status was not resulting in any major change of ad hominem and other verboten comments. So they implemented a major change in moderation directives. Anything that might upset commenters or upset HP staff, especially moderators, gets zapped. That includes anything deemed “negativity”, and anything that strays too far from the majority opinion. Now only shiny happy people that mostly think along the same lines are what the world will be exposed to at HP.

So much for the “lively and dynamic” conversations they promised would happen as a result of this change.

“THE INTERNET IS GROWING UP”: WHAT THAT REALLY MEANS:

No, the internet is not “growing up”. That’s a marketing campaign slogan Arianna and Co. used to justify their exploitation of members. On the whole, society is becoming more corrupt, mean, violent and cynical. These are the types of children and adults our societies are now creating. The internet is excaerbating the problem by removing social barriers. Hence the problem people are having with YouTube comments.

The internet didn’t start out this way, when society wasn’t as corrupted in the ways it is today. Back when the internet was mostly made of geeks, academics and military personnel, feuds weren’t really a problem. What the internet (and society) is becoming is more commercial. I was there before the virtual shopping carts, before all the annoying ads. So I saw and very much resent the commercialization of the internet. Now commerce is taking over the www, and thinks that it owns the place. Before sites on the world wide web were free, non-commercial and educational. Now companies owning commercial websites condition you to think you should be grateful they exist and willing to pay to visit their site. Or at the very least, sit back and let yourself be exploited for their commercial gain.

So “the internet is growing up” really means commercial interests are taking over the internet, cracking down on copyright infringers, becoming less tolerant of factors that harm their financial plans, and deciding that the internet had too many freedoms. Thus they are cracking down on free speech, which is what the promise of the internet was, in the very beginning. A place for the average person to share their voice. Whether or not it was something you wanted to hear. Now, netizens are simply seen by these interests as eyeballs with pocketbooks.

THE FIRST CASUALTY OF WAR IS TRUTH

It was hard enough to put up being lied to over the “grandfathering” of member accounts, and giving whatever privacy and security you may have left today over to a notorious exploitative organization like Facebook. But it became quickly evident to the battered remnants of the HP membership, that we were lied to about the reasons for destroying our community. It had nothing to do with “trolls”, vicious or otherwise. It had everything to do with ad metrics.

When they told us with this change they were after a “sophisticated” audience now, it had nothing to do with trolls or “civils”. It had to do with what they told advertisers on advertising sites: “If it’s just blue-collar people they’re selling their stuff to, [advertisers] shouldn’t come here.”- Jimmy Maymann, CEO. That explains why they did not give a damn to hear your sob story about how you can’t afford a cell phone. If you can’t afford a cell phone, you certainly have no business being a member of the new Huffington Post Country Club. And if you don’t have a Facebook account, then you’re not who they want. They want Facebookers with large social networks to spread their advertising to.

“Oh, are you disabled? Is the new “conversation carousel” commenting format hurting your widdle disabled wrists, on account of all the new clicks and popups? Oh, cry-cry, you poor little disabled. Get the hell out of our club, Cripples! The Huffington Post is now an exclusive community. So all you riff-raff can go hang out with your friends at Chuck n’ Cheese. Here, we’re targeting rich stupid sheeple with full motor capabilities, plump bank accounts and plugged into today’s social networks. ”

Oh, and those “conversation carousels”? Yeah, guess what. They lied to us about that too. They told us it would make the threads look cleaner and more organized. Everyone hated that change too, but HP ignored them. Well if you hate it now, wait ’til you see the future changes. It was designed so that it could hold more advertising than what would normally be on the page. And that advertising is said to target readers more directly; captive audience and all that.

More changes in store for 2014; they are planning on hiring additions to their large crew of “native advertising marketing agents“. In other words known as “sponsored content”. These are the insidious in-house authored articles that are starting to creep up around HP, that are simply thinly disguised ads. The articles might mention some cure-all solution to dandruff, then present you with a list of brand-named products who’s companies they have business arrangements with.

Welcome to The New Huffington Post. You’re in AOL’s world now, sucker.

Related articles

• Why I Will Never Post A Comment On Huffington Post Again (stoweboyd.com)
• HuffPost Sees Mass Exodus as More Users Reject New Comment System (theepochtimes.com)
• The Problem With The Huffington Post – New Commenting System, Media Bias (immeasurablemind.wordpress.com)
• Huffington Post Goes NSA on Its Members (planetpov.com)
• Huffington Post Comments: HuffPost Exec Dismisses Widespread Criticism of New System (theepochtimes.com)
• Bye bye, bile? Websites try to nix nasty comments (thenewstribune.com)
• Tim Mcdonald: Turning the Page on Anonymity: The Future of HuffPost Comments (huffingtonpost.com)
• Community Evolution Manifestos (mycmgr.com)
• Booted from Huffington Post Comments Section (ireport.cnn.com)