Ron E.

MSN News is an aggregator of news feeds from many varied publishers. The site also allows readers to post comments... well, sort of. MSN has "guidelines" that they supposedly enforce in order to weed out offensive or threatening content. The guidelines are so broad and general that almost any post can be suppressed. What MSN really does is match each post to a list of key words looking for words that may be objectionable. If one or more are found, the post is subject to review. The poster is not allowed to protest and is not provided with a summary of what the censors found objectionable. If the post is found to be objectionable as a result of the review, it is deleted. The poster is able to request another review in that case. What's worse, MSN routinely disables readers' ability to post comments on hot button topics. Again, no explanation is given, the comments icon simply disappears from the article. MSN has to stop treating readers like children. They have to accept that discussions are going to sometimes be heated and absent posts containing threats, racially/gender offensive insults or petty name calling they should just butt out.