An Experiment

Tim has been talking about the Daily Mail’s comment moderation policy recently. It seems that any comment which fails to endorse the Mail’s editorial policy is very unlikely to be published on their site.

So here’s an experiment.

On their web site today (I assume it’s in the paper too, but I haven’t looked), they are running a story with the headline “My, hasn’t she grown! Dakota Fanning passes the awkward phase with flying colours“. You’ll probably remember Dakota Fanning from things like Taken and Charlotte’s Web. Well, Dakota was a young girl when she starred in those productions and, as young girls have a habit of doing, she has grown into a teenager. And that’s what the Daily Mail story is all about. Dakota Fanning now is 14. One quote will suffice to demonstrate the tone that the paper has taken:

At the premiere for her controversial new film Hounddog, the 14-year-old unveiled a mature new look showing she’s well on her way to being all grown up.

The story is illustrated with pictures of her looking “all grown up”.

The Daily Mail is, as I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, one of the UK newspapers which is most likely to run stories about the growing dangers of paedophilia in our society. Of course I don’t condone paedophilia in any form. But I do find it somewhat ironic that a paper like the Mail finds it acceptable to print a story like this which exists purely to draw attention to the physical changes that a teenage girl is going through.

So, eventually, here’s the experiment.

I’ve just submitted the comment below to the Mail site. Let’s see if it gets published.

It’s hard to believe that a story this is being run in a newspaper that frequently runs stories on the horrors of paedophilia. Do you not see a potential issue here?

I’m betting that it won’t ever see the light of day. But I’d love to be proved wrong on this.