Jeff - your thoughts on the Hilaria Baldwin thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At what point will you retire the thread? I admit to enjoying it at first but I cannot believe the stamina of these posters. There’s nothing new happening and they are just clearly trying to keep it at the top.

DP- rather than that, I think it's more that since it is blowing up, more people are checking it out and either doing the whole thread (not me) or checking out a random twitter (me) with the crazy accents and commenting (me) - so it's probably casual passersby contributing to the bumping, and not rabid OGs. I never once looked in the Kane thread!

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jeff sorry to hijack but what are your thoughts on the Megan Markle thread?

I don't really like any of the celebrity threads. I am uncomfortable generally with anonymous posters discussing identifiable individuals. Obviously, I give some leeway where public figures are concerned, but I still don't really like it. My personal bias is that it is really stupid to waste even a minute discussing Markle or Baldwin or any of the others. It's just a version of opium for the people and keeps everyone distracted from the important things that are going on. I see some value in giving folks an escape from otherwise stressful lives, but I think these threads go well beyond that.

The Markle thread is challenging to moderate because there are overlapping issues. She has clearly faced significant racial bias. However, racial bias is obviously not the source of all criticism of her. It is impossible to know the motivations of posters (and, frankly, with the existence of so much unconscious racism posters themselves may not be aware), so it is never easy to decide that a post is provoked by racism or some other basis. Also, I am pretty consistent in not allow criticism of children, yet her child and child-bearing issues (for a lack of a better way of describing it) are a major part of her celebrity. This creates huge gray areas into which I am constantly asked to intervene.

Thanks Jeff for answering so seriously. I was kind of poking fun because you have mentioned in the past your disinterest of these type of People Magazine threads especially regarding the RF . As well as you I have a hard time understanding these fixations with celebrities. I can only imagine what a Matt Gaetz thread is like to moderate. Thanks for navigating the fluff and flotsam (as well as positivity and negativity). HFNY!