Firstpost has decided, with immediate effect, to move to a pre moderated system of commenting, which means your comment will not get published on the site unless we approve it.

Dear readers,

Firstpost has decided, with immediate effect, to move to a pre moderated system of commenting, which means your comment will not get published on the site unless we approve it.

The decision to do so was not an easy one to make given that Firstpost believes strongly in the free expression of ideas and opinion, and has prided itself on being a platform that celebrates diversity of thought.

However we have been forced to do this for two reasons:

One, as elections have drawn closer, we have been unable to discourage the tide of vitriolic comments that have started flooding the site. The comments have completely drowned out rational voices who used to comment on Firstpost in the past, and have dissuaded a lot of people from even attempting to express their opinions. This is completely contrary to what we had hoped for when we initiated an open comments policy. We have no intention of being the exclusive domain of the loudest voices.

Second, our comments platform which is run by third party provider Disqus, has been repeatedly hacked despite our best efforts to contain it. A number of persons have been using the FP Editors moderator account to make comments on various posts, both in support of and against various political parties and individuals. The language used has been crude, partisan and completely inflammatory on occasion, and has been a direct attack on our values of free speech.

We have been trying to moderate the comments after they have been posted, but the sheer volume and extent of abuse has left us with no choice but to institute a preemptive policy.

We hope that this step will encourage people with strong opinions to continue commenting without fear of reprisals from trolls.

Keep reading us, and do keep commenting. We are still very keen to hear your voice.

Firstpost editors