Disablist abuse for Guardian blogger

By Cathy Reay

A columnist for the Guardian has said she’s upset by a failure of the moderation of their website after she received disablist abuse on one of her blogs.

It took Guardian website moderators approximately an hour and a half to locate and delete comments posted on regular columnist Marjorie Ellis Thompson’s Comment Is Free blog post on 4 October.

The former chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) posted her regular Sunday column to be greeted by a backlash of cutting abuse from readers under five different pseudonyms. The comments degraded Ms Thompson’s physical appearance and disability. One said: “let’s push her wheelchair over and fuck her up the arse”.

Speaking to Disability Now, Ms Thompson said: “I was just sitting there reading the comments as they came and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was so hurtful to me.”

Ms Thompson hoped to take the case to court but because of the Data Protection Act the Guardian is legally bound not to reveal the identities of posters to the site.

A Guardian spokeswoman said: “There are very few instances of abuse on the Comment is Free (CIF) site but unfortunately a number of comments did appear on the site on 4 October in relation to an article by Marjorie Ellis Thompson.

“The comments were added during a temporary break in moderation, as soon as we were aware of them they were removed and the culprits banned.

“We treat every instance of abuse extremely seriously and have discussed this with Marjorie, we are delighted that she is continuing to write for CIF.”

· Marjorie Ellis Thompson’s blog can be viewed here http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/04/conservative-conference-cameron-referendu