David Farrar has finally stepped in and done something about the ongoing and increasingly nasty abuse at Kiwiblog that has been directed at Jacinda Ardern, her partner and her baby.

Longknives:

By signing that ‘Migration Pact’ fraud Ardern has signed the Death Warrant of so many New Zealand women and children.

It will take a few years for Kiwis to wake up and actually realise what this vile woman has done but one thing is for sure- History will not remember her kindly.

No, that isn’t the comment that Farrar moderated. It was the reply to it from realityczech:

I hope the first victim is her wretched spoor of the cursed union. I’m sick of ordinary people paying the price of decisions made by an elite who are removed from the consequences. I want her disgusting brat to suffer hideously so she can know the pain she inflicted on millions of others.

Upticks 5, downticks 23

[DPF: You need to see a psychiatrist. That is also Strike 7 and a three month suspension]

Strike 7 means that ‘realityczech’ has been moderated before (they seem to have commented as Kea too) – their record:

• RealityCzech – 1st strike 1/4/17, 2nd and 3rd strike – 3/2/18, 4th strike – 7/3/18, 5th strike – 19/5/18, 6th strike – 15/9/18, 7th strike – 02/01/19,

That’s just addressing the tip of a vitriolic iceberg, which continues on the moderated thread (some comments will have been posted before the ban).

Someone confronted the comment. Awww C-mon:

Fuck that’s more than a little OTT.

You need to chill the hell out and stop being a fucking cunt.

19 upticks, 3 downticks.

And as per normal an attack back from realityczech:

Here come the sleazy virtue signallers.

Tell ya what have it your way – Who’s kid do you volunteer, yours ?

3 upticks, 18 downticks.

It continued went on between the two.

There were also some abuse supporting comments from Longknives:

To be fair to realityczech- This Labour/Green Government are quite happy for my kids to become ‘Collateral Damage’…
So why should I give a fuck about Ardern’s kid?

15 upticks, 10 downticks.

And:

You do realise that Labour /Greens intend on closing ALL prisons and releasing ALL crims back into society? (Every rapist, murderer and child predator..)
And that Ardern’s puppet Andrew Little said he was prepared to accept ‘Collateral Damage’ when they do this??
Throw in the Migration Pact (Open fucking Borders!) and it is clear that Ardern and her lunatic Government are quite happy to play games and endanger my/your kid’s lives…

19 upticks, 4 downticks.

And:

I certainly don’t wish any harm on Ardern and Gayford’s kid.
I feel sorry for it though- As I’m sure one day it will realise it’s whole existence has been some kind of twisted publicity stunt to further it’s Mum’s career…

You will never convince me that Ardern and co wouldn’t celebrate the demise of one of my kids though- I honestly think they are that morally bankrupt and utterly ruthless in their ambition…(Look at how she cashed in on the death of that poor tourist girl..)

10 upticks, 3 downticks.

While Farrar is not directly responsible for comments from individuals at Kiwiblog, he is responsible for the overall tone prevalent on his blog, and he is responsible to ongoing hit to his own reputation because he allows high levels of vitriol, attack and personal abuse.

For as long as I’ve been aware of Kiwiblog (about ten years) it has been bad for virtually unrestrained abuse and attacks. I think it has been a major detriment to the site, and has continued to harm Farrar’s political reputation. While David Farrar paused to consider his blogging future when linked closely to Cameron Slater in Nicky Hager’s ‘Dirty Politics’, he carried on, and so did the toxic discussion forums.

It’s difficult to moderate any online forum (I know from my own wxperience), especially when managed by one person, and with the number of comments posted at Kiwiblog – often many hundreds per day.

Farrar has always largely kept a distance from Kiwiblog’s comments, favouring free speech. This is a laudable but ultimately lax approach – I and many others have found that you can’t rely on online commenters to act like responsible adults and to not abuse others and to not abuse forums where they are effectively guests.

Sadly shitting in other people’s online nests is very common – some people get way with as much nastiness as they can, and then push boundaries more. I guess some people just have nasty streaks. perhaps they get some sort of power thrill from attacking others. In some cases try to deliberately trash the reputation of blogs (as happened here in a major way in 2015).

One ban is not going to fix Farrar’s problem. He is either going to have to try and clean up his mess – that wouldn’t be easy, online abusers seem to get a sense of entitlement to use forums to abuse, and can get worse if any attempt is made to restrict them. I used to confront abuse at Kiwiblog and with virtually no moderation it usually only escalated the abuse.

Kiwiblog has some very good comments and very interesting commenters participate there. But all the good is badly tainted by the rampant and largely unrestrained abuse.

This affects Farrar’s reputation. He must know this and seems to just accept it. I have seen no indication that he cares about it.

But it also impacts on the National Party by association. Farrar has been closely associated with National for a long time. From his disclosure statement:

Since I joined Young Nationals in 1986, I have been affiliated to, and a member of, the National Party.

As a volunteer, I established National’s initial Internet presence in 1996 and have held various roles in the party up until 2005, including Deputy Regional Chair. I have three times been a temporary contractor to National HQ, helping out with the campaign in 1999, and also between staff appointments – in 2004 and 2007 for a total of ten months. I still help National HQ from time to time on data and IT issues.

I worked in Parliament for almost eight years from July 1996 to March 2004. I initially worked as a media advisor to Ministerial Services when Jim Bolger was Prime Minister. I then had the rare privilege of working in the Prime Minister’s Office for Jenny Shipley, and in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition for Jenny Shipley, Bill English and Don Brash.

I am a Director  of DPF Group Ltd and Curia Market Research Ltd.

Clients who have used Curia publicly are the New Zealand National Party, The Parliamentary Office of the National Party Leader…

This is well known.

National don’t have any responsibility for Kiwiblog, which is Farrar’s personal blog. There is no indication to me that National have any connection with the ongoing abuses and attacks on Ardern and her family. But they are tainted by association. I would be extremely surprised if the party or their Parliamentary offices have any direct connection to personal and political attacks at Kiwiblog.

But Farrar continues to leave them open to accusations due to his hands off aiding and abetting of nasty political attacks.

And the abusive environment also deters people from participating, as demonstrated by this comment at Kiwiblog earlier yesterday from SGA:

It seems to me that lots of the posters on KB have moved to the left.

I can’t say I have noticed that, Viking2. For myself, I enjoyed Kiwiblog a lot more before the last election. Nowadays, I seem to scroll over increasing amounts of content-free bitterness and name calling to find anything worth reading. But maybe that’s just me

Upticks 21, downticks 5.

realityczech, a prolific commenter, responded to that:

You don’t notice it, because you don’t like freedom of speech.

Us liberals do notice it and you are far from being a liberal.

Upticks 3, downticks 16.

The ticks for and against those comments indicate that most don’t like the nasty and abusive tone that a small minority persist with, largely unrestrained by Farrar. In effect Farrar is favouring a few over the preferences of many. That’s what unfettered free speech tends to do.

Farrar can choose to run his blog however he likes. He is an astute political operator – but he seems to have a blind spot to the damage the abusive forums at Kiwiblog have on his reputation and on National.