A tip of the Mad Dog fedora — the one with the “Press” card in the hatband — to Pat O’B for noticing that, unbeknownst to Your Humble Narrator, WordPress had surreptiously installed a “Report” button next to the “Reply” button in comments.
I’d been having all manner of hassles accessing the goddamn blog this morning, and I suspect that this shameless little attempt at speech-policing may have been the culprit. When the dust finally settled I slapped up the “Don’t touch that dial!” post as a heads-up, Pat commented on same, and hey presto! We were off to the First Amendment races.
First at bat: A.I. When I asked it, “What is this ‘Report’ button that has suddenly become an option in comments on my posts?” WP’s robot buddy told me:
The Report button in comments is a WordPress.com feature that allows readers to flag comments they find inappropriate, spammy, or abusive — it helps with community moderation. It’s shown to logged-in WordPress.com users viewing your posts, and reported comments get reviewed. You can manage your comments at Comments. Want to know more about your comment settings?
Uh, no. Fetch me one of your disgusting Meat-Things® at whom I may shout, and with all possible haste. Be advised that I have my “comment settings” at “phasers on full.”
A Happiness Engineer appeared after a short wait and spake thusly:
We would like to let you know that the report button under comments is a standard feature that now comes with Comment forms, this is so that all of our users can report any content they may find harmful or inappropriate. This doesn’t mean a comment will be deleted for being reported; it will only be flagged and go through our review process.
I threw a flag on that play:
I review comments. Not you. Me. It’s my blog. I can’t begin to tell you how angry this makes me.
I was a professional journalist for 45 years. I began blogging on WordPress ages ago. Everyone who visits my site sees a disclaimer about what to expect. Anyone who acts out gets warned, then blocked.
If WordPress is going to start deciding what is “harmful or inappropriate” on my blog, the blog I pay WP for, based on some undefined “review process,” I will look into taking my tiny little bit of business elsewhere.
The Happiness Engineer divined that my little choo-choo was headed off the rails and ran up the track a ways, waving a red lantern.
When s/he/they jumped back aboard, the story was as follows:
The Report button is part of a recent update to the Akismet spam-protection settings on your site. It’s not a change to how your blog is moderated and no one at WordPress will review or override your moderation decisions. If a comment gets reported through that button, it’s simply flagged to Akismet’s spam system; it doesn’t get removed or hidden from your site.
Uh huh. I’ve edited a story or two in my time, but I usually aimed for clarification, not simply topping it off with, “Just kidding!”
Long story short: If you have a WordPress blog, and this “Report” button appears in your comments, you can remove it in your Dashboard by going to Jetpack > Akismet Anti-Spam and unchecking “Allow visitors to report spam or inappropriate comments.” This bullshit is apparently enabled by default, and fuck you very much, meep meep meep.
I thanked the Happiness Engineer for helping me deny a hall pass to rat finks, stool pigeons and informers, and then added:
Adding this “feature” without a bit of warning is insane. Please feel free to tell Management that.
Come to think of it, if you have an email address for anyone in Management to whom I could express my extreme discontent, that would be helpful. We’re a tiny little group of overeducated First Amendment types, and more than a few of us have WP blogs. We’d like to kick this matter up your food chain if you have someone handy for me to yell at.
The HE promised to “share this internally,” added that my volcanic feedback “shows how this can look very different from what was intended,” and gave me an email address which may or may not be useful: support@akismet.com.
I wonder what Akismet’s robot thinks about this? Probably too busy trolling the Meat-Things’® cloud storage for actionable intelligence. If any.
Mad Blog Media 
Good grief. Having that report button is an invitation to anyone who disagrees with any of us to do mischief. To hell with that idea. This isn’t a public newspaper. It is a blog. You don’t like the contents, don’t drop by.
Mind-boggling. One minute it’s a fink file, the next just a handy-dandy anti-spam tool. Please to be biting my bollocks, etc.
I’ma check a few other WP blogs, see if any of them are sporting these buttons. I just emailed Akismet, because why the hell not? What a way to burn an otherwise-delightful morning.
Ho ho. I got a reply from Akismet’s “Happy Bot,” which was everything you would expect it to be. A thumb in the eye for Your Humble Narrator. Well played, Akismet. You arse-munchers.
If you can be offended, stay the hell away!! META gets flogged by the courts for gross negligence, and every organization tries to fix a state of chaos. I have to listen to MAGA horse crap day after day. I hate it, but it is their right to drink the Kool-Aid. Just as it may be right to listen to the moderates or lefties or just plain folks who come here and vent or opine on any number of subjects. Stay in your DAMN LANE. Idjits
I’m offended more or less 24/7. Made a kinda-sorta-OK living off that state of mind for a few years, too. Lord, lord, did I ever love it when some mouth-breather lost his shit over a ’toon or column. It was what I lived for, a payoff better than money.
I take my inspiration from The Dude when I read something that annoys me: “Yeah, well, y’know, that’s just like, uh, your opinion, man.. …” And I keep that shit to myself. Or blog about it. Blogging well is the best revenge.
Glad to help out. That job title ” happiness engineer” tickles the shit out of me. See, they say, it does work.
Anywho, Akismet is a spam filter, I assume AI powered, and most WordPress users are probably oblivious to it. When someone gets blocked, and they will, shit will hit a happiness engineer’s fan. That will be a kismet well deserved.
Sheeyit, bruh. All I wanted was a quiet little corner of the overpass to decorate with my rattle-can. And here we are, all these years down the Infobahn, with Happiness Engineers who need A.I. and informers to strangle anyone who mumbles, “Ooh, this guy said ‘motherfucker.’ I find that inappropriate, spammy, or abusive. Call the Speech Police!” (Presses “Report” button.)
I’m tellin’ ya: The handwritten broadside nailed to a wooden post is gonna make a comeback.
You can blame Ol’ Herb I suppose. I knew sooner or later my rants would run afoul to some computer somewhere. But I figured they’d just permanently wipe my ass with a death ray from space. Not take it out on the fine folks who gather here.
The good news is that no matter how smart and efficient A.I. gets, our masters will still need MeatWorld® stoolies, squealers, and tweety boids to rat us out.
Yep. I just checked Sandy’s blog, which is years without update. Andy keeps her website, myyellowswing.com, alive every year, and we thank him. Occasionally, I think about putting a guitar post on there, but there are a million of them. But, still. Anyway, the report button is there. But, there is a little light on my world today, as, as usual, I was late to the party. Watched this last night on DVD and it amazed me. You folks have probably seen it. If not, the first scene lit us up. I think I want to play at some nursing homes.
A small annoyance for us small-potatoes bloggers, but an annoyance nonetheless. Somebody thought this was a good idea. That someone should be run up and down a steep hill, wearing a heavy pack and boots a size too small, while shouting, “Nobody likes a tattletale!” until the message sinks in.
You will remember that our old buddy Marv played for hospice patients. I thought that was a swell idea, and I like the nursing-home idea as well. Marv also gigged at the neighborhood senior center, and for all I know he may have played some nursing homes too. The man flat liked to play and loved an audience.
Too often we think of music as a personal thing, especially in an age in which, with an iPhone and AirPods, you can basically be your own DJ and shut out the rest of the world. But there’s something about sharing music that just can’t be beat. I recall going to concerts in a park, with a bandshell, seating, the works, when we motored north from Texas to spend part of our summers at my grandmother’s place in Sioux City. I was learning to play the flute and piano and got a real bang out of it.
Ain’t that the truth! That’s why I enjoy jam sessions so much. Like so many other things including cycling, doing it with other people, especially those more skilled or experienced than you are, is better than doing it alone. Add an audience, and it becomes magic. You be flowing!
The only reason I read your BLOG is because abusive, disrespectful and offensive.
I’ll use that button when that stops being the case . . .
Make It a Great Day,
Michael
+1-971-570-1960
Thank you, sir. I found a short WordPress forum post mentioning the “Report” button and posted my experience there. We’ll see if it gets any traction.
I’ve considered moving to Medium, Ghost, or one of the other blog/newsletter outfits that’ve become so popular, but The Big Book of Rules at Medium … holy hell, talk about guardrails. I want the Infobahn, not a slot-car track.