BBC WS WHYS initiates discussion of the apartheid trope, moderation fails

The August 18th edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘World Have Your Say’ included an item about “the Israeli columnist who’s decided it’s time to call Israel an ‘apartheid’ society”. We will be discussing that programme in a future article but in this one we will take a look at the related post on the ‘World Have Your Say’ Facebook account on the same day.

As a reminder – the BBC uses social media and discussion boards as part of its interpretation of the public purpose remit titled ‘Global Outlook’, according to which it will “[e]nable individuals to participate in the global debate on significant international issues”.

“BBC Trust: “The BBC should inform conversation and debate, providing forums where its international audiences can debate issues they find important.””

The WHYS Facebook post the following question:”Apartheid”: right or wrong word?

WHYS FB main

Obviously anticipating the type of offensive comments not infrequently seen when Israel-related topics appear on such BBC discussion boards (see examples in the related articles below), the first comment on that post was posted by WHYS itself:

WHYS FB warning

Below are examples of some of the comments the WHYS moderators apparently did not consider “abusive or inappropriate” seeing as they were left standing on the thread.

WHYS FB c1

WHYS FB c10

WHYS FB c11

WHYS FB c12

‘Powerful’ and ‘influential’ Jews:

WHYS FB c13

WHYS FB c14

WHYS FB c15

‘Ethnic cleansing’:

WHYS FB c16

Promoting the elimination of Israel:

WHYS FB c17

Nazi analogy:

WHYS FB c18

WHYS FB c19

WHYS FB c20

‘Jews are pigs’:

WHYS FB c3

WHYS FB C4

WHYS FB c5

Special demands of the BBC’s Jewish journalists:

WHYS FB c6

Nazi analogy:

WHYS FB c7

Nazi analogy:

WHYS FB c9

Once again we see that defamatory falsehoods, racial abuse and antisemitic tropes pass BBC ‘moderation’ with no problem at all. Perhaps the BBC would like to explain to its funding public how that can be considered as contributing to its mission of ‘informing conversation and debate’. 

Related Articles:

BBC WS WHYS Facebook moderation fails again

Nazi analogies and ‘apartheid’ defamation on BBC World ‘Have Your Say’ Facebook account

BBC’s WHYS promotes Gaza interviewee with a penchant for antisemitic imagery

Antisemitism on BBC WS ‘World Have Your Say’ Facebook page

Antisemitic comments (again) on BBC WHYS Facebook post… about show on antisemitism

 

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