We moderns devour news as if it were a staple food. Gone are the days when one sat down for coffee in the morning with a daily newspaper. There are still newspapers of every flavor, but news is now the product of digital media. And the news cycle grows shorter all the time. During the American Civil War it might take weeks for reports of battles to be reported in the papers. The telegraph and telephone made the news flow a bit faster, but until digital formats news was always at least a day old, if not more. Now many events are instantaneous. Mobile videos of police brutality go viral in minutes. And the sheer number of news and social media sites could easily fill up surfing all 24 hours of the day.

In the old days newspapers were selective in publishing letters to the editor. Really nasty retorts and profanity rarely made it into print. But most sites today leave space for comments from anyone. The results are pathetic. Rational discussion of issues raised is almost non-existent. Curses and lunatic projections are common. I was reading an Al Jazeera article entitled “How is ISIL expanding?” Al Jazeera disclaims all liability for anything posted as comments and well they should.

Below are some of the comments posted (apart from the spam that have nothing to do with the article). The mentality of some of the individuals matches their inability to write in English. Prejudice über alles in cyberspace:

Start cooking the popcorn as sunni and Shia showdown  looms on the horizon. ……All muslime countries  need to be destabilised and turned  into flea infested wastelands. CIA, MOSSAD  and RAW collaboration achieving excellent results. 

MAY ALLAH ( SWT ) GRANT♢☆ FAHED ☆SULIEMAN ,♢☆THE HIGHEST LEVEL IN PARADISE , A GREAT WARRIOR , THAT HAS MADE EVERY TRUE MUSLIM PROUD AND AVENGED HIS MUSLIM BROTHERS , WHO HAVE BEEN KILLED BY THE SHIA KUFFAAR !
ALLAHUAKBAR !
ALLAHUAKBAR !
ALLAHUAKBAR !
DEATH TO THE SHIA KUFFAAR AND THEIR CRUSADER MASTERS !

@Anonymous , go and get your g’ay a’ss f ucked in the United g’ay states of America , it’s been legalised, you can s’uck c’ock openly , you filthy perverted f aggots .
Ha ha Haha ha ha ha
ha Haha ha ha
ha Haha
ha ha ha Haha ha ha ha Haha !

Monkey Obama , ain’t done nothing for the Black people but he has answered the faggots prayers .
ha ha ha Haha !
ha ha ha Haha ha !
ha ha Haha !

Av0rt0n Mehdiy…..i am not USA….but ur opinion show how much retarded u are…look like u survivor experiment beetwhen goat and camel…..i guess goat horn grow inside….your mind sick….

There is an odd saying that people have a right to their opinions. Perhaps? But should people make a habit of being rude and crude and hateful when it advocates harm? They may have a legal right to foam out at the mouth, but the lack of civility and sheer ire of many of the comments posted constitute a serious challenge to social life. I suspect that many of the people who post comments are retarded to begin with or so full of hate that they enjoy trolling sites. They are probably not representative of the majority, but they are still out there and some are rather dangerous. I usually do not read the comments on a major news site, since they are so pathetic. But if you want a sense of what a real hell would look like, look no further than these commentaries.