Death Wishes, Right and Left

The controversy over what appears in the "Comments" sections of blogs seems to be hotting up. I first noticed it in Australia, when a Leftist outfit (Australia's main public broadcaster) attacked a mainstream newspaper over some anti-Islamic comments appearing in the Comments on one of the newspaper's blogs. The newspaper got its own back next day by pointing out some antisemitic comments on the site of the Leftist outfit. Since then, a discreet silence has reigned.

We see here, however, that there has now been a back-and-forth between Bill O'Reilly and Daily Kos. Kos and allies seem to be invoking the law over the matter. One hopes that the wisdom of the Australian approach prevails soon or it could mean that blog owners have to "own" comments made on their blogs. That would mean that bloggers as busy as I am -- who have no time to read all the comments appearing on their blogs -- would simply have to shut off their comments facility.

There does seem to be considerable acceptance of the view that blog owners must delete objectionable comments on pain of being seen to approve of the comments concerned. I certainly do not agree with that. As long as personal abuse is not directed at me I leave comments standing. They are the responsibility of the commenter only, in my view.

The comments objected to so far seem to be death wishes directed against George Bush, Muslims and others. I would think that expressing such wishes is protected by the First Amendment. When commenters actively call for someone to be killed, however, that would be a different matter.