Why I stopped reading TechCrunch

(oh, Happy New Year and all that too… :) )

These two posts on TechCrunch: “Australia joins China in censoring the Internet” and “Australian Government equates freedom of speech to liking kiddie porn”.

Are poorly written, needlessly inflammatory, and in the case of the second one, totally wrong. I think Duncan Riley (the author) seems unable to separate his political leanings from his reporting. TechCrunch isn’t a political blog; it’s meant to be about the web industry. I don’t read it for lame political commentary from people with a primary school approach to politics.

But that’s not the reason I don’t read it anymore. The real reason is that, after writing several comments highlighting my issues with the first article, the second one came along, and posted a comment there. Essentially saying what I’m saying here — perfectly reasonable, perhaps slightly harsh. But considering the state of the second article, and the fact that it totally misinterprets the quotes that form the basis of it, I think being harsh is just being fair.

But my comment disappeared. And was replaced by a comment from Duncan telling one person they were an idiot, and another they were naive (in not those exact words). I would like to give Duncan the benefit of the doubt, especially since part of my comment was talking about the juvenile way the original article was written. But it seems like a strange coincidence to me. Also, I now appear to be blocked.

Lame.