Our Comment Policy After the Flock Camera Report

Key Takeaways

• The Flock camera report drew close to 7,000 comments, the most engagement anything Hardin Local has made has ever received
• More than 100 comments crossed into threats, slurs and attacks on neighbours, and stayed visible for nine days
• Hardin Local did not catch them; a viewer did
• A review of Hardin Local's own moderation found 11 comments hidden in error, all of which have been restored
• Going forward: criticism of the cameras, the police and Hardin Local stays up; hate, threats and cruelty aimed at neighbours draws removal and a lifetime ban

Summary

Hardin Local's special report on Flock cameras in Hardin County reached more people, and generated more engagement, than anything the show has ever produced. It also produced a comment section that got away from us.

On this week's episode Phil Taul took a few minutes to say so plainly: what was in there, how long it stayed, what we found when we audited our own moderation, and what the rule is from here. This article exists so the policy lives somewhere permanent rather than only in a livestream.

Full Article

The reach was the good news. "Our Flock camera report reached more people, or at least got more engagement, than anything we've really ever made," Phil said. Close to 7,000 comments across the post.

The bad news arrived inside that number. More than 100 of those comments crossed the line, in his description: "Threats, slurs, people tearing into their neighbors." And they did not come down quickly. "They sat there in the public for longer than I'd like to admit."

He was direct about why, and did not reach for an excuse. "I didn't see them, not because I didn't care, but because I couldn't keep up with 7,000." A viewer had to point them out. Nine days passed. "That's the part that bothers me the most."

Then the part that is harder to say out loud on your own show. Hardin Local went back through the comments it had hidden on those posts, and found that it had got some of them wrong. Eleven comments had been hidden that were people making real arguments and got caught for a single insult somewhere in the sentence. Those have been restored.

The standing offer that came with it: if we hid yours and there was a real point in it, message us and it goes back up.

The policy from here is a line rather than a mood, and it is worth quoting in full because the distinction is the whole thing.

"Come at the cameras. Come at the police. Come at us and our reporting. Blunt as you want. That stays up. That's the whole point of a local news feed."

"But hate, threats, or cruelty aimed at your neighbors gets you removed."

Hardin Local will be issuing lifetime bans for hateful speech and threats. The full statement and the comment policy will also be posted on Facebook.

There is an honest admission attached to it. "We won't catch everyone." Which is why the ask went out to the audience: if you see one, report it or tag us. "It took nine days last time. I'd like it to be nine minutes."

Phil also acknowledged that this is a retreat from how the page has tried to operate. The preference has always been to allow all public comments and hide nothing. "But this story has shown me that that's not the case for our patients," he said, before landing on the summary that got a laugh from the panel: "Adults who can't be adults."

Rachel closed it out on behalf of the show. "We love open discussion, and that's the whole point of our show. But certainly appreciate it to be conducted in an appropriate manner."

Why this story in particular

It is worth being clear about what the underlying reporting was, because the volume of response was not an accident.

The Flock special report examined the automated license plate reader network operating in Hardin County — Elizabethtown Police, Radcliff Police and the Hardin County Sheriff's Office — and included an on-the-record interview with EPD Chief Jeremy Thompson and RPD Chief Jeffrey Cross. All three agencies' written ALPR policies were obtained and published alongside it. Elizabethtown and Radcliff both reviewed the article for accuracy before publication.

It is a story where people hold strong and genuinely opposed views, and where the disagreement is legitimate on both sides. That is precisely why the comment rule is drawn where it is. Argument about surveillance, about policing, and about our reporting is the reason the page exists. Attacks on the neighbour who disagrees with you are not.