This morning I discovered something amazing at The Willamette Weekly, a lefty alt free publication here in Portland. I was censored by WW for commenting on a white nationalist march for "free speech". There is irony all over the place in this one.

First off, if The Willamette Weekly could be considered anything, it would be progressive, not only politically but socially, too. Why would they block a relatively innocuous comment that said white nationalists protesting for freedom of speech is like committing mass murder for peace.

I did not get profane.

I did not write about how to make $75 an hour from home.

I merely pointed out the irony of white nationalists marching for free speech. I suggested it was much like President Trump's garbled speech, often heavy with adjectives and short on nouns and complete sentences.

Why would WW ban me (and it wasn't an attack on what I wrote, but on me) for essentially writing something that agrees with their editorial stances?

Well, it turns out that they have recently switched to using Disqus for their comment screening.

Who is Disqus? Apparently, they are offered for free, so it's unsurprising that small, independent publications or websites would be tempted to use their services. This is how Disqus, at its own website, describes its services: "Disqus helps digital publishers build strong audiences. If you publish content, our platform can increase reader engagement and give you the right tools to grow. Even better, it’s simple to install and free to use."

So why would Disqus ban a commenter who actually agrees with the editorial direction of the site?

I tried to find out something by going to their website. From the photos apparently happy young people who work at Disqus have remarkable career opportunities. Lots of smiling people. But how they determine who should and shouldn't be banned is a company secret.

From its wiki page Disqus was created by a couple of undergrads at UC Davis. Four years later they went for venture capital. "According to a study by Lijit, Disqus was used by 75% of websites in March 2011 who used a third-party commenting or discussion system."

This is what Disqus does:

Disqus Basic is a free, ads supported plan. It includes access to the core functionality of Disqus, including:

Engage comments plug-in
Advanced spam filtering
Moderation tools
Basic analytics
Configurable ads
Real-time discussions
Responsive web support
iOS and Windows apps
Photo and video support
Audience ownership
Google Perspective to combat toxic comments

There are some clues. Recently sites that use Disqus have been identifying me as "Bob In Pacifica" instead of Bob In Portland. In fact I used to call myself Bob in Pacifica when I lived there (a sleepy coastal town in California) before I moved north in 2011. Apparently, I'd been identified as a troublemaker by someone way back then.

Imagine if you were a venture capitalist sitting in a New York office, and you had the power to limit commentary by progressives or people framing their arguments by class issues. And you could limit these comments to 75% of all websites in the world.

You don't have to imagine it.

It would be interesting to find out some names at Disqus. With names you can find business and professional relationships. You may even see government connections. At the least it appears this is just another tool of the monied classes to control discussions of important issues. What appeared to be free isn't.