Commenting Rules

We love that readers take the time to leave comments under articles. We want the discussion to be as intelligent, lively and stimulating as possible. We’re also deeply devoted to the principle of free speech – we have campaigned against censorship since our founding. There’s nothing more frustrating than leaving a comment and being worried that it will be mysteriously “disappeared” by the powers that be.

So we’ve taken the decision to be radically transparent: we are now publishing our commenting policies for everyone to see. We’ve trained our moderation tool to favour publication wherever possible, but it can’t be a complete free-for-all because the same thing otherwise happens to every publication: a small number of thuggish voices take over and scare everybody else off. That hinders our mission for free thought and intelligent debate.

Questioning, arguing, vehemently disagreeing, joking, all the good stuff is emphatically allowed. Only a few things are not:

1. Attacks on Author

Robustly disagreeing with an author’s arguments is of course allowed; personal attacks on the authors appearance, sexuality, race, or private life are not allowed. One reason for this is that it puts writers off writing for us, which threatens the existence of our whole platform!

2. Abusive language

You can be robustly critical of the ideas and arguments of the authors and fellow commenters on this platform — that’s what we’re all about. Nor are we going to be snowflakes about language, but there are limits. Outright slurs and abusive language just put everyone else off, so we don’t allow them. There is no list of “banned words” — just keep it civil.

3. Glorification of violence or harm

We are a free speech platform, but like the real world we operate within the law. Invoking or calling for violence against a specific person or group is, obviously, not allowed.

4. Inter-user harassment

Robust and vigorous debate is one thing. You can be as harsh as you like about a fellow commenter’s ideas and the substance of their argument. What we will not tolerate however is outright abuse, relentless targeting, personal attacks on their identity or implications that they are corrupt or lawbreaking. We can’t afford the legal bills!

5. Sexual harassment and objectification

We encourage vigorous debate, but bringing the conversation down to sexual slurs or attacking someone’s gender or private life lowers the whole discussion, so we don’t allow it.

6. Privacy and doxxing

We won’t allow revealing people’s identity, address or personal information. Gets us in trouble and is threatening — so please don’t!

7. Racism

We encourage robust discussion on all topics and don’t wish to be especially sensitive to questions of race. However, racial slurs or saying that certain races are inferior just put everyone else off taking part and therefore are not allowed.

8. Spam

Comments should be relevant to the article and discussion — if they are linking to irrelevant articles or trying to sell products, we block them!