Was The Telegraph Right To Close Off Comments On Margaret Thatcher's Death?

[sp1814]

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/a471463/daily-telegraph-closes-margaret-thatcher-comments-due-to-abuse.html

[youngmafbog]

Well I suppose they have to be careful what is posted, just like on here.

And in cases like this a small minority can misuse the media to make themselves seem bigger than they are.

[Kromovaracun]

Nope.

[LazyGun]

Its smacks of censorship, which is rather ironic, given The Telegraphs stance on Leveson and protecting free speech and all that.

There are rules surrounding posts- they could have just moderated the responses and removed those that contravened those rules of decency and what have you.

[sp1814]

I can see where the paper was coming from. Like AB, they would be moderating comments, and can you imagine the flood that has been coming through in the past few days?

[LazyGun]

Pragmatically speaking you are probably right, SP - but the use of comments as a kind of right of reply has become the norm nowadays, and it does seem lazy or even censorious to switch off comments any time a particularly contentious issue comes up

[jno]

probably. A newspaper, or a website, is under no obligation to publish anything at all. In practice they might have preferred to moderate the worst ones and leave the rest; but they only have so many staff (unlike AB, which has volunteer mods) and I can well believe they get overwhelmed with a big and controversial story like this one.