In the old days, before lured by the bright lights of the blogosphere, I used to post on the Guardian's Comment is Free website. The first thing that quickly becomes apparent to CiF users is that, whatever else it is, comment is not free. The threads are moderated by Guardian staff, and anything that infringes their "community standards" gets deleted. You would think this would be confined to personal abuse or bad language; but actually I found it surprising how easy it was to infringe their sense of propriety.
Resorting to ad hominem attacks isn't my style - the last refuge of those losing an argument - but my impression was that the moderators had in mind range of opinions within which it was possible to say what you liked; but woe betide you if you strayed outside. Which I often did.
I was going to write that I have been banned from CiF, but in fact what happened is that my comments were "pre-moderated". That's to say, when someone from the Graun had time to read and approve them, they'd be posted. In theory. Actually once I had been cast out beyond the pale I never once found that they had been put up on the site. But effectively this was a ban anyway, because the charm, if that's the word, of comment sites like CiF is the rapidity with which the argument moves. Delay is fatal. Without immediacy, there's no point in taking part.
What, you may be wondering, does this have to do with Alan Rusbridger's pianos?
Well, although my travails with CiF are of slight significance, it now appears however that the CiF has started "moderating" the Guardian's own staff.
Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's donnish editor, is an enthusiastic amateur pianist. He has written a musical memoir, which according to this week's Private Eye, "waxes lyrical about his two grand pianos, one of which is a 1978 Steinway that cost £25,000 and is housed in a specially built extension in the garden of his (second) country house". Rusbridger also had lengthy extracts from his book run in last Saturday's Guardian and in, of all things, the Daily Mail.
Last Sunday, 20th January, a member of staff from the cash-strapped paper posted the following on CiF:
"Afternoon Alan - I'm a member of Guardian staff, posting anonymously. As you know, it's a tough time for your journalists at the moment . . . We're working harder and harder (because we love the papers), coping with dwindling resources and morale, we're badly mismanaged, and trying to cope with the life-changing threat of compulsory redundancies - all a result of the company's long-term financial illiteracy and lavish excess at the top. So I just want to say thanks for the series of articles - three now, isn't it? - about learning to play your Fazioli piano. They're brilliantly timed, and I know they'll lift spirits. We always wondered how you filled your days, how you spent your fortune. Now we know."
How was this bold contribution to Comment is Free received? The Guardian moderators promptly deleted it.
Now CiF is a private website, and I have no objection to its owners running it in the way that they please. What sticks in my craw is the pretence that they are carrying the torch for freedom of speech and debate. They aren't. Moderation is a weasel word for censorship, and although "Community standards" isn't a phrase in 1984 it might just as well have been.
Losing the moral high ground as well as losing money. C.P. Scott must be turning in his grave.
