My rant on trolling comments and other nonsense I won't allow on the Turner Report

In an ideal world, I would be able to allow everyone to have their say in the comment section on the Turner Report and on my Facebook page and the Inside Joplin Facebook page.

As you are well aware, this is not an ideal world.

Long ago, reluctantly, I had to start using comment moderation on the Turner Report due to people, nearly always anonymous, who used profanity, who made libelous allegations about me and others and occasionally, veered into racist and antisemitic territory.

Unfortunately, by enabling comment moderation, sometimes it takes hours before comments show on the blog. I am notified by email when a comment is posted, but the emails are mixed in with emails from dozens of funeral homes, news websites, releases from schools and governmental agencies and more than anything else- junk mail.

Also, many times, I have to go through multiple postings of the same comment because people became frustrated when their comment did not appear immediately.

There also came a time when I stopped posting comments from people who strayed from opinionated comments into trolling, usually stringing together insults designed to infuriate the other side, whether it be those on the left or the right end of the political spectrum.

I have rejected comments from liberals and conservatives.

Things have grown worse over the past few months due to the people who insist on displaying their vast knowledge of masks and vaccines and the ones who repeat false claims that they have heard from media outlets that have long since sacrificed any credibility- if they ever had any.

COVID-19 should never have become political.

 
Even when it comes to politics, I have decided not to permit commenters to spread some of the nonsense I have allowed to slip through a time or two.

I have one commenter who insists every time he or she comments on one of the Missouri Independent articles I use that the Independent is financed by George Soros.

It is not.

I receive comments that Joe Biden is senile.

He is not.

Every time our president stumbles over a word when he is speaking, something all of us do, a number of talking heads on media that long since abandoned a pretense at relaying facts begin shouting "senility."

Good Lord! He speaks in complete sentences. I had almost forgotten what it was like to hear that from a president.

And, of course, we have the COVID-19 comments.

Do not try to slip through posts insisting that more people have been harmed by the vaccine than by COVID.

 
That is not true. Neither are a lot of the "facts" being spread by the people who perpetuate that myth.

If you have an opinion about whether people should wear masks or be quarantined or whether there should be vaccine mandates, feel free to give your opinion on the Turner Report and just that.

 
But if you want to use, as one person whose comment did not get posted did a few moments ago, a reference to the masks people are wearing being "face diapers," you not only lack originality, but you also seem to lack a moral compass.

I no longer intend to allow people to use gross insults to people who care enough to protect others, as well as themselves.

 
If you want to leave that kind of comment, please take it to KZRG's Facebook page where it will be welcomed with open arms and liked by dozens of people who will be impressed with your wit.

If you want to read that brand of commentary and COVID misinformation, you will have to go somewhere else. It is not going to be permitted in the Turner Report comment section.

I realize most of you who are reading these words would never consider leaving comments of that sort.

All it takes, unfortunately, is a few people to poison the well and thousands more to poison the discourse in our nation.

(This was originally posted on my personal Facebook page.)