Post.com’s Comments Rear Its Ugly Head Again

There have been some nasty reader comments on articles about Sean Taylor’s death, prompting these comments by Posties on the Post’s internal message system, obtained by FishbowlDC:

• why do we continue to embarrass ourselves w reader comments on things like the sean taylor stories? one typical exchange on wilbon’s article: To all the white people po … ”

• We are ABSOLUTELY embarrassing ourselves. And our readers know it. Here is a portion of an email I received this week: I am all for freedom of speech, but someone needs to moderate your comments section more carefully for hate speech. There are a number of people who post extremely hateful and rude comments, especially to other commentors. I do not enjoy being called names or receiving veiled threats just because my opinion differs from theirs. That is a common problem on the internet, but I do expect more from a publication like the Washington Post. Please do better to remove hateful and hurtful comments as soon as they are posted.
  Thank you.

• sorry — didn’t at all realize we had let that stuff on line; thought Neely meant it was email feedback R

• the comments to the stories on the District’s tax scandal have also been very hateful. i had to stop reading them.

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