I don’t know what’s up with the comments at Fox News’ website. I rarely visit the site and I had never looked at the comments in any of their articles until the Trayvon Martin case became national news. I have to be honest, though. Their comments aren’t just racist. It’s like a competition to see who can make the most racist comment possible. I have occasionally skimmed white supremacist forums. I don’t like to do it because I worry that I’ll wind up under surveillance. But the few times I’ve checked those forums, they’ve been a lot more substantive and thoughtful about their racism than anything you see at Fox.
What do I mean by that? They actually have conversations about things and debate issues. They engage with each other and respond to what other people are saying. They may be interpreting everything in a really racist or anti-Semitic way, but they’re strategizing about how to do things. Maybe they’re focused on enacting stricter immigration laws or winning over new recruits or getting some of their folks elected. But it’s a forum. It’s a forum that isn’t 100% pointless.
And don’t get me wrong. I know that the comments sections of newspapers are notorious for their stupidity and hatred. But none of them that I’ve seen even begin to compare to what I’ve seen at Fox News in the last two weeks.
As I see it, there are two problems here. The first is that Fox News is clearly attracting a virulently racist online audience. The second is that they are not doing enough to monitor their threads. Fox News wants to sell advertising. That’s their business model. If they don’t clean up this mess, we just might make sure transcripts of these Trayvon Martin threads are emailed to every corporate board with a teevee advertising budget in the country, every newspaper, every congressman, and to the dreaded crew at MSNBC.
If they don’t clean it up, it must mean that they want to be one of the most racist forums in the country.
Is it really any worse than places like Yahoo’s comment threads? I think unmoderated comment sections attract the crazies regardless of where they’re positioned on the ideological scale.
why don’t you check a yahoo article on Trayvon and report back to us?
Did you ever see the comment sections at Drudgico before they required a Facebook account to comment? I think it’s un-moderated comments, mostly. Though that doesn’t totally explain it. Just look at what happened at ThinkProgress when Yglesias was still there. Comments pretty much dried up when TP required a FB account to comment. What does Faux Noise use for comments?
It may be more accurate to call those commenters Xenophobic – I believe they’re equal-opportunity when it comes to denigrating Teh Other.
you’re not a foreigner, Oscar.
Fox’s comment threads have been a remarkably virulent sewer for a while now. Just about any national or international story involving non-white people has this sort of free-for-all. The Trayvon comments are the most despicably racist since, well, the Bales massacre in Afghanistan earlier this month, in which large numbers of Fox commenters cheered the killings for explicitly racist reasons.
Also, note that the Toulouse killings did not unleash that kind of vitriol against Jews. It’s a racism explicitly rooted in the white evangelical Republican worldview. In other words, Fox’s wheelhouse.
Why would they stop now?
Fox is intulectual pornography, appeaing to the deepest animal centers of the brain. Sure people find itfun initially, but they slowly are coruppted and their worldview warped.
Don’t insult pornography.
It’s very calculated propaganda. The comment threads are a means of demonstrating that certain views are widespread and thus legitimized. And it draws clicks. Lots of clicks.
The legitimization of evil – murder, torture, racism, spouse abuse, sexism, deliberate ignorance, theft – that is what Fox is about. Because it supports the Republican agenda of suckering in a white male audience and their co-dependent spouses. At the same time whitewashing it as appealing to “values voters”. Roger Ailes knows exactly what he’s doing.
I think you nailed it. It is one big den of validation for those who have secretly harbored these kinds of thoughts for a long, long time, but have always feared verbalizing them in public; except when there is a high confidence level that they are among trusted tribal members.
I think you’re right, and yet that still doesn’t explain why Fox, aka the GOP Ministry of Truth, sees it in its interests to foster this safe haven for racism and paranoia.
I think the GOP knows they are in big trouble. They know that ever since Nixon adopted the Southern Strategy, racism and paranoia have been their ace in the hole. Of course until recently it has been somewhat discreet. The election of Barack Obama and then results of the 2010 election encouraged them to go for the whole enchilada. That was a mistake. The more open they get with the racism and right-wing paranoia, the more people they turn off. This leaves them with an ever more virulent strain of racism/paranoia to support. But they have to, it’s all they have left. The departure of Glenn Beck and the recent attacks on Rush Limbaugh are clear messages.
Look at Limbaugh. He’s the most popular radio talk show host in America. However, he’s also the LEAST popular news show host for MOST Americans — including those who identify themselves as Republicans.
http://hotspyer.com/2012/03/03/harris-poll-crowns-rush-limbaugh-americas-least-favorite-political-pu
ndit/
Like television, an internet forum is there for all to see, but unlike television it is not on the public airwaves and it cannot be identified with any particular advertisers. The Fox forum doesn’t look good, but they pay little price for not monitoring it. Meanwhile it functions a laboratory where the mad scientist (Fox) can nurture his “pretties”.
I’m not sure what you’re complaining about. Fox is providing space for its listeners to reveal their characters. The reality of the Foxnews audience is out there, so what’s the point of trying to sanitize their true nature on the forums? So far it apparently hasn’t hurt their business model. I have no interest in them “cleaning up” their dungheap. I want everyone to see what lives there. If Fox is going to suffer for its inherent bestiality, it should be on account of reality, not the tender gag reflexes of liberals. Since when do you feel the need to advise Fox on its best business interest? Since when do you start veering perilously closely toward approving the underlying rationale for censorship?
That said, your thought about making sure the institutions that flout their righteousness get a good whiff of the stink is right on. I’d even go a little further and put the corporate logos of sponsors smack in the middle of the page of Fox forum vileness. Make it directly the advertisers’ problem just as much as Fox’s.