Democracy, Freedom of Speech and Bulgarian Internet Forums

I am not entirely certain the following can be deemed a true editorial, but a similar article has been on my mind for two years now, ever since I began writing for Novinite.com and first looked at our forum.

Over one thing or another, mostly the endless political events, or should I say scandals, in Bulgaria, the plan to write something about the forum, its rules, and its users, kept being postponed and delayed like a high-profile Bulgarian court case. But lately things inside novinite’s forum seem to be out of control even more than usual, so I decided to go ahead with some observations and remarks.

Meanwhile, just recently, I stumbled upon an article on the topic authored by the editor-in-chief of e-vestnik, Ivan Bakalov. I quickly realized two things – one - it seems that everyone, who has an online forum in Bulgaria, encounters similar issues, and two – Bakalov summarized it, at least to me, so well that I decided, with his kind permission, to translate and publish his comments.

For sure, not everything in the e-vestnik article is relevant and pertains to our readers, but I am not Bakalov’s censor or editor, so I kept the original writing in its entirety. Those, who follow our forum, would certainly be able to see the differences, along with every common problem e-vestnik and novinite face on a daily basis. Obviously, the combination of anonymity and the all-time Bulgarian postulate that rules are to not be observed but broken, or, in the best case scenario, they only concern others, turns internet forums in our part of the world into a breeding ground for negativity and insults.

Of course, one thing Bakalov did not touch upon, over the uniqueness of our media outlet, is the disparagement and the ridicule, we, the non-native speakers/ editors, get over our English language skills. (To be fair – as we tried to improve and make changes in the team, these have greatly diminished.) I have always said, and think I can speak for my colleagues - we very much appreciate constructive criticism, polite suggestions, and respectful indication of mistakes – language usage and factual ones. They get corrected immediately and we are thankful for the input. Sure, as professionals, we should not have those pesky blunders and typos; we do seek to avoid them; sometimes we are more successful than others, and it gets harder when we are trying to get the story out as quickly as possible. Everyone, who has set a goal to not just learn, but perfect a foreign language, knows it is not always that easy. To reiterate – we are very much appreciative and obliged to those who show tolerance and respect.

I must further note with regret that we are not as diligent as our colleagues from e-vestnik about monitoring the forum. We are a small team too, and our top priority is to provide relevant news about Bulgaria as quickly and accurately as possible. Caught in the effort to do our jobs the best we can, we often forget to follow the forum, and by the time a user begins complaining, or we notice something wrong – it is already too late. We became pretty good in cleaning the spam, because it is much easier to spot, but to locate an obscenity or insult in a long string of comments is another story. We are, however, trying to improve and find a solution, and do hope you, dear readers and forum users, will notice a difference soon.

So, with much appreciation and gratitude to those who visit our site, read our stories, and offer constructive and respectful insights, I publish Ivan Bakalov’s article:

How I Became a Censor or about the Freedom of Internet Forums

Something is very wrong with the Bulgarian internet forums. I started wondering about the issue for the first time when a classmate – Gogo, who has been living in the South African Republic for 20 years, told me: “I read all sports forums and comments about football articles (he is a huge football fan) and cannot believe the type of people we, Bulgarians, are.” Gogo had been comparing the Bulgarian sports forums with the English ones and became deeply troubled. In our Bulgarian forums half of the postings had been curses and desperate attempts to come up with the most profane insult against someone. There is something very wrong in Bulgaria. And not only when it comes to sports sites.

For 3 years now I am publishing an internet site. Together with the web designer we came up with everything to the last detail. We tried hard to create a good forum, font, columns etc., so that our readers really enjoy writing in it. And this is where the problems began. It is not enough to just create a forum. We quickly realized that it needs to be constantly monitored, controlled and censured. Even when the creator posts rules for its use, banning insults etc., most of the users really do not care about them.

I must point out here that the following text is aimed only at those readers who abuse the forum and think that the use of slander, profanity, insults and vulgarity equals freedom of speech.

If we make an analysis, the predominant content of the forums can be divided in three groups – insults against the article’s author, insults against a certain individual, subject of the article, or insults against other participants in the forum. It seems that many of those writing in it have been humiliated and suppressed for so long that once they found an opportunity they cannot help it, but start freely abuse everyone and anyone. Before November 10, under the Communism, there was no internet or freedom of speech. The public restrooms served as a field for the expression of opinions and opportunity to vent. Their walls were covered with writings and comas from top to bottom. These writings have almost completely disappeared now. Everything was transferred online. Those feelings, suppressed for so long, are now freely flowing in forums.

Yes, but no, as our colleague, prominent Bulgarian journalist, Petko Bocharov, used to say. I, as an internet publisher, do not want writings of curses, insults and vulgarities in my edition. So, I delete them. And ban the IPs of such authors. Without any shame or the feeling I am acting as a censor. Insults and profanities repulse the reader. I would not allow myself, for the sake of some ersatz democracy, to give someone the right to offend and stir bad feelings in other readers that push them away from my publications. Or spread spam and slander.

Those crying censorship are my top favorites; those, who complain about censorship, and write postings that do not relate to the topic of the article at all; those who just found a space to publish their non-sense free of charge.

Like the other day – someone wrote under an article about writer Bogomil Raynov some insane slander about Raynov’s colleague, the great Radoy Ralin – that he has been mentally unstable, urinating on the street, masturbating in public, in front of the National Library Building, in plain view of passersby, including children at whom he yelled profanities while the militia did not bother him because his mind had already been taken away by God…?

So, do we need to let such idiocy be for the sake of the freedom of speech? Radoy Ralin never used alcohol in his life, and this is a well known fact, while all the rest is also complete smear. I gave this example on purpose. Such posting on our site not only gets deleted, we also ban the IP where it came from. Those who do not like it can complain at the nearest police precinct.

And here is where the biggest problem arises. A forum such as the one of e-vestnik.bg must be monitored 24 hours a day. It cannot be done by one person. Three of us monitor constantly, along with trying to write and do our other, main work. So, from time to time we ban in the name of Admin. Our team is very small; we really do not have time to follow, who exactly wrote a particular posting; what had he or she written before, and for how long they have been a member of our forum. If this person has so blatantly violated our rules, we ban them – end of story.

Some enthusiastic nationalists who write stuff such as “let’s turn gypsies into soap,” “the scum Jews,” etc – such postings are erased immediately and the IPs get banned. If they do not like it, they should visit the “Ataka” newspaper forum and write there.

There are other “more intellectual” scribers, who replace the direct vulgarities with allegories, thinking this way they do not break the rules of the forum. For example, instead of saying a straight insult about Meglena Kuneva, they express themselves allegorically – what exactly she had done to Barroso, how exciting it is to get a b*** j** from a woman with glasses etc. So while people from all over Europe voted and elected Kuneva “European of the Year,” and “EU Commissioner of the Year,” here those people explain her success in EU politics with some other things, more comprehensible to the limited mind. So, such “intellectual” opinions get deleted too and the IPs banned. The internet is wide, let them write somewhere else, create their own blog.

The insults targeting the editor-in-chief deserve their own chapter. There is name calling, threats, offenses… One person, stubbornly, for months now, writes: “Bakalov, f* you and die!” with the hope some of his curses will make it through, despite the ban on his IP. When he hacks us from a different computer, we ban that IP too. So, slowly the forum becomes cleaner. We are not feeling sorry and we do not hurt because we now have fewer postings.

And there is a particular category of forumers who seem to have a split personality disorder – they write with several different nicknames at once while sometime almost argue with themselves. Or try to make it look like their opinion about an article is the prevalent one. Or, with one of their nicks they write a polite opinion and under the other – curse at us, make hard-line statements, or offer some more subdued insults i.e. – this is not me; this is someone else. Yes, but when we ban the IP, this person cannot use an alternative nick. And he or she begins crying, name calling the Admin. And if ignored, begins cursing and insulting.

On several occasions we appealed to our regular users to register. This way we would be able to contact them and if someone went overboard and his or her IP got banned, they could write to Admin and receive and answer. (The “Sega” newspaper, for example, asks all participants to register.) But no. All prefer to write in anonymity i.e. make up a name for each posting. In all honesty, our designer had not fully done his job – there are problems with the registration, bugs, and there is not a reply email. So now, in the occasion of this article, we pushed him to improve. But still no interest in registering. There are scores of cases when other people’s nicks get abused. We even follow them once in a while. When someone begins complaining that their nick has been used by others, we delete the opinion of the culprit. But not always. There is no way we can monitor non-stop.

Those who write against the editor and the publisher with libel such as: “We know who pays you,” or “We understand, you must make a living too,” are also a particular category. Often we leave those, but when someone permanently and persistently writes these things – we ban them. You came to somebody’s house for free, so, as we say, please respect the hosts a little. If you offend them and slander them, well, they could throw you out.

Some get really angry when we criticize Boyko Borisov and hold us accountable like we have violated some law. But this has been our site since the beginning of 2007, when we had no idea he was going to become Prime Minister. It is, after all, not mandatory to read our publication, there are so many others glorifying Borisov.

One forumer, for a week now, keeps asking the same question: “Why did you delete the pictures of Boyko Borisov and Tsvetan Tsvetanov from the front page?” implying there has been censorship and someone ordered us to do so. He offered this idea on several occasions. We, actually, post pictures on the front page related to current events, and try to avoid politics. But we decided to post Tsvetanov and Borisov from the GERB congress when Borisov officially became the party’s leader. The pictures there get changed every 2 – 3 days, (it was every other day before, but the crisis limited this too, as everything else.) And after Borisov’s picture stayed there for two days, we took it off – it is after all a current event, not a landscape, which we would have kept longer. But our vigilant forumer is asking relentlessly, for days: “Why did you take off Borisov’s picture? Who ordered you?”

So, what should we tell him? Get into a debate? Try to explain? The most logical thing is to ban the person after the third time. (We have explicitly written that we are not allowing addressing the editors and we are not debating in the forum; there is email for this.) If he did not understand that pictures change after 2 days, there are other sites and forums more suitable for him. And other newspapers.

Then there are people in the forum who become induced by some personalities and authors. By Milena Fuchedzhieva for example. She lives in Los Angeles and is the daughter of a prominent Bulgarian writer during the Communism/ Socialims, former Director of the National Theater. And every time she writes something in the column “Letters from Los Angeles,” hysterical insults begin to overflow underneath, from the entire spectrum – Communism, age, gender, education, intelligence, looks etc. She acts like tincture of valerian to tom cats with inferiority complexes and fixations on some topics – they lay in the forum and begin rolling and meowing ominously. We were forced to ban the entire discussion under one of her letters.

So, slowly and painfully I perfect the trade of a censor. And I constantly ask myself questions about what can be and what should not. My feeling of freedom and justice is constantly in agony – what to allow and what to ban…

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