Sir, – Having recently had the dubious privilege of scrolling down the comments stream of a report in TheJournal.ie of an incident I’d been involved in, I found myself sickened by abusive comments about a good friend of mine.
The “gaping internet-shaped hole in the fractured landscape of Irish journalism regulation” referred to by Harry Browne (Letters, April 29th) suddenly felt more like a strange vortex that can suck a person’s good name and dignity into the sewer of an unmoderated comment stream.
The comments policy reads: “While we do not and cannot review every comment ...” This is less a statment of fact than the articulation of a time- and money-saving policy.
What I am saying is that these internet comment streams should be moderated in real time in the same way as Joe Duffy moderates Liveline; in TheJournal.ie's case, this would mean comments being reviewed before being published. The current legislative dispensation in respect of unmoderated comment streams is scarcely worthy of the term regulation at all, never mind light regulation and sadly, we all know where that got us. Yours, etc,
JIM BERKELEY,
Bayview Avenue,
North Strand,
Dublin 3