…do you leave the comment in place and unanswered? Or what else can you do?<\/p>\n
Put another way, what would you do if a commenter started claiming that Jews committed the ritual murder of children, or presented some of the classic hideous stereotypes of African-Americans? You certainly can\u2019t argue against these despicable positions point by point. So do you just leave the comments out there?<\/p>\n
My own position is that, at some point, some comments go beyond the realm of controversy and become outright hate speech. At that point, I will simply delete them, and mark the commenter so that s\/he can no longer post on the site. Call it censorship if you wish.<\/p>\n
When I have done this in past years, commenters have protested that my actions are \u201ccowardly\u201d\u009d: this from people who never give their real names in posts, and hide behind the mask of anonymity. No, I am not going to debate people who believe that the Jews caused 9\/11, or that Muslims are a human sacrifice cult. Nor am I going to leave their nonsense in place on any website with which I am associated.<\/p>\n