Vice recently published an article on December 20th, 2016 explaining that they have done away with the comment sections on their articles. Writer Jonathan Smith penned the piece explaining why they’ve decided to completely remove the comment sections on Vice’s articles.

Smith writes…

“[…] website comments sections are rarely at their best. Without moderators or fancy algorithms, they are prone to anarchy. Too often they devolve into racist, misogynistic maelstroms where the loudest, most offensive, and stupidest opinions get pushed to the top and the more reasoned responses drowned out in the noise.

 

“[…] we had to ban countless commenters over the years for threatening our writers and subjects, doxxing private citizens, and engaging in hate speech against pretty much every group imaginable.”

The article proceeds to contradict itself, stating that majority of the comments weren’t bad, but apparently the few bad apples tainted the barrel and so everyone is being punished. Smith goes on to write…

“We know that the vast majority of you are hot, brilliant non-bigots who challenge us to be better every day. That doesn’t change just because we’re losing the ugly stuff at the bottom of our articles.”

It’s an oxymoron to say that the majority of the commenters are “brilliant” but that due to the “ugly stuff” left by users they deem unsavory, they have to kill off the entire comment section. It’s a little like saying that since we get spam bots posting spam every once in a while, we need to kill off our comment section on this site to get rid of spam for good.

As far as logic is concerned the article doesn’t seem to pick a point and stick with it. Nevertheless, they mention that they will be monitoring their Facebook and Twitter feeds moving forward.

This fits in line with other sites who have also begun closing their comment sections, such as the opinion and editorial section on The Guardian, the comment sections on The Verge, and NPR, who also shut the comment sections down on their articles back in August of 2016.

(Thanks for the news tip Hawk Hopper)