Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X

This. It's not just The Guardian, though. It's pretty much all moss media. They got too used to an era where they could talk and the public couldn't talk back (or they could but only through letters to the editor which they could conveniently filter to just the voices they wanted to hear).

To be fair, Social Media is just like the "Letters to the Editor" section, except the social media company is the publisher and is the one doing the filtering.

Right, but that's kind of my point: someone else gets to do the filtering and they can't stand it.

we get lots of direct and unsolicited feedback actually, much more than paper days. a fair amount of it is threats though.

"They got too used to an era where they could talk and the public couldn't talk back"

Maybe--a lot of folks made the same point in the mid 2010s when news outlets began shutting down comment sections on their sites. They usually said it was the "toxic" atmosphere. But I imagine they really didn't like when the top comment was pointing out some obvious error (of fact, logic, grammar etc) in their article. I actually remember pointing out an error of fact on the gaurdian itself back--some review had made some ridiculous point because they were confusing the Aramaic and Amharic languages--and seeing the article later updated and my comment removed.

ArsTechnica always handled this well. They promote corrections in comments so they’re extra visible.

Comments are user generated content that you host. They require a certain level of moderation just to avoid spam and illegal or deeply unpleasant comments.

Most mainstream newspapers and magazines publish letters to the editor and guest editorials or opinion pieces from those who disagree with the publication's reporting or editorial opinions.

What they filter out is the utter crap that invariably comes to completely dominate any unfiltered comment section that is open to the general public and takes effectively anonymous submissions via the internet.

IME the comments almost universally had no value, and were very often toxic. I wouldn't want that on my website - why? What value do they add for anyone?

Nobody allows that on their website now - that was before many lessons were learned. HN doesn't allow anything like it (and never has, afaik).

> What value do they add for anyone?

Counterpoints are useful to help negate echo chambers where we end up clicking on the articles which validate our world view.

In addition the most upvoted comments (at least on the Financial Times website) are sometimes more informed and nuanced than the articles themselves. The article often gets the debate rolling - come for the articles, stay for the comments (so to speak).

> Counterpoints

In the comments section of news websites, it wasn't counterpoints. It was just aggression, lies, toxicity, etc.

The Financial Times is pretty rarefied air. Everyone must be subscribed, so no anonymity (I would guesss). How much does a subscription cost? $300+ per year?

i think about $600 a year and the comments are much higher quality.

They aren't as good as here though.

> What value do they add for anyone?

What about the example at the head of this comment chain?

I think news sites did lose something without feedback. I can accept a chess pool with a single good comment to make up for it. So it does provide value for me and I disagree with the "lessons learned". Also, the legal risks of showing user content should be scraped for anything that is not explicitly illegal.

We have information bubbles now that are way worse than the occasional comment in bad taste.

You get some worthwhile commentary even on trashy sites (eg. Daily Mail, X) You just have to filter a bit.

I'm find it kind of annoying when you can't comment on an article with obvious things wrong.

Most give you an option to contact the author. I've corresponded with a few - most of what they get is death threats, etc.

> I can accept a chess pool with a single good comment to make up for it.

Have fun with that.

> the occasional comment in bad taste.

That's a lot different than most social media.

> Have fun with that.

I do, that is the argument.

It would also leave me better informed since the example clearly shows that the statements could benefit from a wider context. And this wouldn't be the only case.

If comments don't provide value for you, you can ignore them. No reason to remove them for everybody else too.

I stopped reading the Guardian a few years ago. It once had really good content. That changed significantly in my opinion.

> It would also leave me better informed

You do you, but my argument is that it leaves you worse informed:

1) There is a lot of false information, which will mislead you inevitably (you're not that smart; nobody is)

2) There is a lot of noise for the signal, a lot of waste. You are worse informed because you could have spent the time learning from higher quality information.