Below the line? It’s so often below the basic standard of intelligence

I did an unusual thing last week and read some below-the-line comments. I must say, they were pretty much as they have ever been: a mixture of thought, worthless banality, passive-aggressive inconsequential fluff, and toxic bigotry.

One thing had changed from the early days, back when they quickly reached the lowest common denominator and then went lower. They were often vulgar, sometimes libellous, pornographic and regularly aggressive. For a while they were moderated by a real person: a terrible, depressing job to have to sit reading and deleting grotesque stuff. Then companies started handling it automatically. Certain words and pictures had to be banned and if they were included, the comment would be automatically blocked.

But people get around these rules by deliberately misspelling the banned words. Not just swear words but others which are often present in meltdown debates, like racism (variously spelled as ‘rahsism’ or some variant). Thus it makes no real difference.

In questioning this, I don’t want to sound like a petulant teenager whose mam has prevented them from saying rude things, and I understand the need to stop websites descending further into the sewer. And I do realise that some people unfortunately cannot be trusted to be civil. And others make claims to truths which are factually wrong. But restricting use of certain language makes little sense, perhaps especially in football, whose architecture of expression is largely a lexicon of filth.

When fans are shouting “the referee’s a w*nker” and the commentator apologises – “sorry if you heard some bad language”- who is that meant for and what is the effect of the apology? During the St.Mirren v Celtic game on Saturday, Ian Crocker kept apologising, six or more times, as people screamed “you f*cking prick!!” and “f*cking hell, what’re you doing!?” He did so with ever-decreasing sincerity, tired of the pretence; it seemed a bit pathetic to have to keep mentioning it.

If you’re offended by the word ‘wa**er’ then you’re best avoiding football because, like it or not, the game doesn’t show any signs of sanitising itself, and good luck trying to make it. Does the apology make anyone feel better? I don’t believe it does.

It’s the same with f***ing asterisks. Have you ever met anyone who has said they love the fact they exist to prevent them reading the full word, even though it’s clear what it is? Is it for people who want the power of the word in their head but not in front of their eyes? I don’t believe that person exists.

It infantilises us all. It doesn’t actually inhibit me as a writer because the effect of the deployed word is unchanged, which illustrates how pointless it is. Similarly if BTL commenters can just change the spelling of problem words, then that circumvents the issue. Are there people who object to c*nt but not cnut? Surely not.

Is this the only way we can control people and make them behave reasonably? I mean, you can say some terrible things without using any ‘objectionable’ words and it doesn’t seem to offend most automated systems. Some of the posts on here under the story of Ian Wright’s outburst were more stupid, thoughtless and offensive than a sensible comment with a swear word. Yet the sweary one wouldn’t make it and the thoughtless would and did.

There are people who just think it’s all censorship on a level with being told off by their parents for swearing, and I’m not naive enough to let such people have free reign, simply because their vomit would pollute the water for everyone. There have to be standards but I’m not sure those standards are high enough if it just stops people using the F word.

Is it really actually controlling anyone? As a writer I can judicially use a swear with an asterisk if I want and on top of that, the usual laws of libel constrain what I can say. But it doesn’t affect me in any meaningful way. I suppose it just stops the idiots posting meaningless streams of invective but frankly it allows meaningless streams of non-swearing invective, which still lower the tone. The standard of thought and debate isn’t policed to keep things intelligent.

I’m all for preserving exclusivity of certain curse words because they add power to sentences when judiciously deployed but I know some use them several times per minute. When I was in Inverclyde hospital, one man on the ward, from Greenock, used the f word so much that every third f*cking word was f*cking swearing, and seemingly f*cking unaware saying f*cking all the f*cking time got very f*cking wearing, not because f*cking offends because f*cking hell it f*cking sounded so f*cking stupid. So stopping such behaviour is definitely a good idea. But do you really want such dumb people polluting your website with their toxic idiocy, regardless of language?

I don’t really know what the solution is, unless it became possible to block people from ever posting on your website after, say, three objectionable posts which transgress stated rules, in the same way you ban someone from a club. But it’s easy enough to hide your blocked IP. I suppose I’m just objecting to people, especially those who mistake posting bile on the Daily Mail website for a human right.

All of this is as successful and has as much point as the war on drugs, which was lost a long, long time ago. A different strategy, albeit unpalatable to politicians and the hard of thinking, is needed.

It isn’t fair or financially viable to employ someone to sit and approve/disapprove hundreds of comments, so maybe automated judgement of them is actually the best, if flawed, system, in lieu of a more radical solution that we can deploy while it’s thought necessary for websites to encourage comments in order to boost traffic and thus advertising revenue.

I’m probably being too idealistic to expect witty, reasoned comments or debate all the time but what a dreadful, probably unsustainable situation we have created for ourselves. Has it made life even 1% better? No it f*cking hasn’t.