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CBS AND THE RACISTS. Katherine Seelye writes about CBS's decision to block all commenting about Barack Obama:
CBSNews.com has been getting so many vitriolic comments about Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, that it has taken the unusual step of blocking all reader comments on its stories about Mr. Obama.The comments to Ms. Seelye's post reflect opinions ranging from those that see the blocking of comments as the end of all free speech to those that think racist and violent speech should never be allowed anywhere. But if there is any consensus at all, it seems to be that CBS isn't required to provide a platform for hate speech. Interestingly, many commenters also believe that hate speech should be allowed as the "free market" of intellectual debate would make it wither away over time, given that it consists of bad ideas. While we await for those developments (which might be a long time in coming unless CBS starts moderating all comments), the CBS decision means that stories about Mr. Obama don't allow comments whereas stories about other presidential candidates do.
--J. Goodrich
