Excess moderation - have your say
Monday, June 4, 2012 at 19:30 As you know the Mail Online repeated the Guardian story that "pro-tobacco activists" are "harassing and abusing anti-smoking campaigners".
Unlike the Guardian, the Mail report allows moderated comments, which are now beginning to filter through.
On Saturday I encouraged members of Forest's Facebook group to comment but I suggested they do so in a calm and rational way. "Our side doesn't have to resort to cheap abuse. Leave that to our opponents. Show them, and uncommitted readers, that we are better than that."
I then posted a comment of my own:
Threats and abusive language are not acceptable but this is not a one-way street. Smokers are told, without good evidence, that they are killing those around them; public money is used to fund campaigns with slogans like "If you smoke you stink"; sometimes they are denied jobs with employers who advertise for "non-smokers only"; fanatical anti-smoking zealots regularly send messages such as "I hope you die of cancer"; Duncan Bannatyne tweets, "Smoking in a car carrying children is child abuse. Fact." This is just the tip of the iceberg of abuse that smokers face in 2012. I don't condone it but is it any wonder that smokers sometimes respond with invective of their own? Intolerance breeds intolerance. The media needs to wake up and expose the tobacco control industry for what it is and what it represents.
Click here to add your own comment.
Update: "We are no longer accepting comments on this article." Not impressed.
Reader Comments (5)
I note the only comment that disagrees we are more sinned against than sinning is one that is abusive and mentions "junkies" and "fix.".
Yours is a very good comment Simon. Mine hasn't appeared yet either. Perhaps because it had my blog link in it.
I wonder how many comments will appear in support of the Tobacco Control Industry when the astroturfers are all back at their desks after the public bank holiday.
They seem to have closed comments now. Worth noting only one was anti-choice - and the rest all got high recomendations. I wonder when main stream media begin to realise that the anti.smoking rhetoric is beginning to turn people off.
I must be missing something. There are 24 comments, but I can't find Simon's. I've looked by oldest and newest and best rated and worse rated, but can't find Simon's comment.
What names are either side of his comment. How many points has it got.
I must get a different version of The Daily Mail Online.
They obviously don't like my posts. Twice I've tried to post. Twice nothing. I was just posting about Stephen Williams blog post "The Silent Salesman". The Guardian article stated that he received Homophobic comments on that blog post. I followed that blog post and commented, but I can't recall any homophobic comments.
http://stephenwilliamsmp.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/tobacco-plain-packs-a-protection-against-the-silent-salesman/
There is something wrong with the editorial policy at the Mail.
Don't get me started on the Guardian. My blood pressure is high enough as it is.
You cannot argue against a religion such as tobacco control