Bill O'Reilly Needs to Enroll in "Understanding the Internet 101"

As I arrived at the ballroom of the Omni Shorehem hotel in Washington yesterday to give a speech at the Take Back America conference, I was approached by one of Bill O'Reilly's video crews, looking to do an ambush interview about objectionable anonymous comments that appeared on our site (comments that we unequivocally repudiate and take down as soon as we become aware of them; more on this in a moment).

O'Reilly has been banging this tired drum -- calling me no different from Nazis and the KKK -- for weeks now and is giddily promoting yesterday's exchange on his website as "An Explosive Showdown. We confront the Huffington Post over Tony Snow comments." (It will apparently air tonight).

My first response to the Fox hit squad was that they needed a lesson on the rudiments of how the Internet works, especially when it comes to comments.

HuffPost gets around 500,000 comments a month. These comments are anonymous and in no way represent my opinions, or the opinions of HuffPost or our bloggers. We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to abusive or hateful language or comments -- such comments are taken down as quickly as they come to the attention of our moderators.

And we are constantly working to develop new technologies -- and backing them up with more and more 24/7 moderators -- which will allow us to more effectively filter out objectionable comments. But no system is perfect and offensive comments occasionally slip through -- on our site and any place else on the Internet that encourages a free and open exchange of ideas. Including the Fox News site.

Indeed, Crooks and Liars' John Amato has gathered a collection of hateful comments that can still be found on foxnews.com. And Keith Olbermann has pointed out comments posted on Bill O'Reilly's own site that, among other things, threaten the life of Hillary Clinton.

Let me be as clear as possible. We find the kind of toxic comments O'Reilly is pointing out utterly repugnant and take them down. Period. But we refuse to let the vile actions of a miniscule number of anonymous, trouble-making trolls force us to shut down our comments section -- as many sites, including many conservatives sites, have done. We are committed to striking a balance between freedom of expression and freedom from a noxious atmosphere that ultimately discourages expression.

Finally, I find it laughable to be lectured on hate speech by Bill O'Reilly, who has done as much if not more than anyone else in the media to debase the public dialogue. He spews hate as readily as he breathes. It's his lifeblood.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if O'Reilly had one of his staffers put these offensive comments up on HuffPost, just so he could have something to rail against.

Related: Why I Am Grateful that Rush Limbaugh Attacked Me Today

Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff

Comments

[katlade]

The more Bill-O becomes irrelevant and ignored the more outlandish he becomes. His star has already dimmed and he will soon be on some late night local cable news program.

[swkidder]

And like Bill O'Reilly has never said anything to offend anyone?

[LeBelAge]

Bill O'Reilly is a hater. He spews hate daily on his radio and TV program. O'Rielly calling the Huff Po a hate site is not only hypocritical, but laughable. The man has turned into a media clown. Wake me when O'Reilly's War on Christman begins, that's pure comedy gold.

Keep doing a great job Arianna. If O'Reilly is targeting you with this buffonish behavior its because your winning.

[PubeSurfer]

I bet even you can't come up with something as lame as the bimbo's "Internet 101" pout. She whines, "such comments are taken down as quickly as they come to the attention of our moderators." Truth is, they "come to the attention of our moderators" before they're passed out of "pending" mode. This point will be too complicated for her, obviously, but maybe you can get it.

[dsm]

Someone should tell Billo that the nazis weren't really great at accepting dissent.

[cheersdk]

1. I didn't bother to read this article, busy right now, but, did want to say: THAT BILL O'REILLY IS SEEMING FAR MORE CREDIBLE TO ME NOW THAN THE IDIOTIC KEITH OLDMAN OLBERMANN, HE SHOULD GO BACK TO SPORTS BROADCASTING. I have not seen Olbermann do a SPECIAL COMMENTARY ON IMPASTOR-REV. WRONG (WHO IS NOT WRIGHT) asking Obama to stop the divisiveness and nastiness from him and his campaign. OBAMA AND HIS CAMPAIGN DREW FIRST BLOOD before the primary season when IMPASTOR-Wright made his Hillary "rich white people, privileged" hate sermon, yet they make themselves look like victims using the line: "The Clintons....".

2. The nerve to compare the great Bill Clinton to McCarthy for a very innocent remark re: PATRIOTISM? The nerve to make the Reagan Trajectory comment:

This so called Obama "CHANGE" coalition pushing for a new America is NOT THAT NEW! It was revitalized NATIONALLY in 1992 with a great man named: Bill Clinton preaching diversity, equality and inclusiveness and acting on it. Clinton's transformation emanated from Lincoln's courageous stance and MLK's dream, a transformation that returned this country's trajectory back to one of equality, diversity, inclusiveness. A trajectory truly Indonesian (FOREIGN) to Reagan and Nixon and treated like a "fairy tale" by Obama.

3. O'REILLY: You have mellowed down man! You are NO LONGER THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, that would be OLBERMANN AND MATTHEWS, TWO BIASED U KNOW WHAT!

[DecafPlease]

Brava, Ariana. Brava.

[NJYankee]

I don't watch Fox so I wasn't aware of Arianna's predicament. I don't want the meters to include me as a percentage of the viewers who happen to watch FOX. It only adds to the rate they can charge for their advertisements. I will say this however, the recent fiasco where a FOX news anchor abandons the set appears to indicate that they have some reporters who have a conscious and are not totally out of touch with the reality of their broadcasts. Kudos to him.

As for the censuring:

Name calling just turns me off. Using foul language to get a point across doesn't bother me. I had a post censured because I used the word chosen. So its not as simple as one would think. I presume someone of the chosen flagged the post and it was retired.

I have read, learned and changed my views on some aspects due to the insightful posts here. Reading people refer to others as idiots, pigs, etc. may be fun to write and read but it doesn't change anyone's opinion or state of mind. It may say tons about the author. I may chuckle but I prefer a more challenging thought process.

[roald]

Agree, especially with the last paragraph. Being more associated with NYC than I, you seem to have a higher tolerance for colorful choices in personal descriptions. Personally, there are some that I will not read, beyond deciding that I cannot trust anything the author writes. I will allow that it is therapeutic and may keep the writers out of bell towers.

[JimReed]

I doubt Bill O is concerned about any hateful comments on huffingtonpost. He probably likes them the most. His only reason for complaining about hateful comments would be to see if he can eliminate some of the non-hateful comments that he might be concerned about.

Friends don't let friends buy Rush.

[daddysboy]

Arianna, there is no need to defend against anything that comes from the news corporation. The owner and CEO has freely admitted that he believes that what the people want to hear is the same thing as news (I am paraphrasing). They might as well have prime-time interviews with Bat Boy. Incidentally, I personally have had a few comments I have made moderated right out of existence and overall I am grateful as I tend to be very passionate and I would hate to think I'd gone too far and become nasty. Thanks for everything you do and for keeping such a wonderful internet resource alive and well.

[alienlovesong]

I'm so tired of the Limbaughs and Hannitys and O'Reillys and the ignorance that Fox News and News Corp encourages. Thank God for The Huffington Post!

[HeavyDoug]

O'reilly is what he is. But Arianna you blew it, bigtime! Next time stop, turn around and talk into the camera! You had nothing to worry about but you looked so frightened and weak he relished playing that footage on his show. You are a public figure-I hope you never look this off- your- game again. Fool me once...

[Arguman]

While the guy who Arianna says "Threaten the life of Hillary Clinton" is an apparent whackjob and lonely man, nowhere on that thread does he imply he would kill Hillary. It sounds more like he would lock himself up in a cabin, Ted Kaczynski-style, and hole up there until her presidency is over. Or stage a revolt. Which would be quashed quickly, no matter what party is in power. I think that's stretching things a bit to say her life has been threatened.

[RonaldMcDonald]

Arianna,


I, RonaldMcDonald, do thank you very much for the time and effort that you have put forth into developing a site which I have enjoyed for years.

The ability to get the perspectives on the news from the MSM with all of the contorted twists that truth now goes through (showing us that we're not even getting anything remotely resembling truth from the MSM) and the bloggers who have contributed to this site have made it invaluable.


...However, the other thing which made this place unique was the ability to have open, running, real-time dialogue with people all across the planet of varying political beliefs.


Yes. It *did* get raw and unnecessarily abrasive at times... and *yes*, Bill O'Reilly has made statements before about your site that were beyond ludicrous, but then what does O'Reilly have to say that is ever actually correct?


He has declared his own culture war on the Huffington Post... the result? Queues which take forever to post and dialogue which no longer exists.


I used to come here *daily* (not always as a contributer) because I did enjoy the back and forth open dialogue between people.


The petty insults could get way out there (not that I didn't engage in that myself,) but the constant back and forth and steady stream of invectives could be quite tiresome... I would think that there would be ways to get around such people of pettiness.

To me, it seems as if O'Reilly has won this round... And it's a *major* victory: because we can no longer go to the MSM for the news, thus we come here, and while we may fight and disagree like some alcoholic inbred family in the Ozarks (my apologies to any Ozark inbred alcoholics that may be reading this,) we HAD freedom of expression and ideas... The *very* thing that the MSM and this corporate controlled government *do not* want us to have.


It looks like I'll be my computer's newsreader more often to get my RSS feeds and to stay informed.

In the meantime, please, reconsider your policy... At this rate: the Huffingpost will be nothing more than a distant memory, and we'll have lost something that at one time made the difference.

......and isn't THAT what they *really* want?

To shut us up and make us go away?

LET FREEDOM RING!

Let it deafen them... let's NOT be silenced by a loud mouthed half-witted sexual predator!!!




Respectfully,


RMcD


aka:

AuntieChrist

MichaelCorleone

Conservati­vesRCoward­s

OddBodkins

DocHolliday

JesusHussienChrist

[Jason357]

****In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if O'Reilly had one of his staffers put these offensive comments up on HuffPost, just so he could have something to rail against.***
That's the first thing that came to my mind when I first started reading this. That's probably exactly what he did.

[Orikinla]

The Huffington Post without comments will be like running the White House without the US Congress.

I have read comments I have found more beneficial than the short posts of many bloggers.
In fact, the Editorial Board of the Huffington Post should blog the best comments on the posts and reports published on the website.

Without the active participation of the readers in the popular discussions, the Huffington Post will lose the quality time of unique visitors.
The longer visitors stay on a website, the more the mileage and patronage.

Comments are good indicators of the progress of a news media.

The voice of the people is the voice of democracy.

Vox populi, vox Dei!