Yahoo News Suspended Its Comment Section, and People Are Freaking Out

If you want to enjoy the time you spend online as much as possible, there’s one rule to remember: Don’t read the comments. As soon as you wade into the comment section, you’re probably going to have a bad time. For whatever reason, some people feel a need to comment on everything they see in their feed, and it very often leads to debates that then become all-out flame wars.

Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule. Some comment sections are downright lovely! But unless you know which ones are good, avoiding comment sections — especially on news sites — is generally a good idea if you want to maintain a good mood. Recently, Yahoo News announced its strategy for combating toxic comment sections: It has completely suspended commenting. That’s right, Yahoo comments are gone! And some people are not happy.

Usually, when you scroll to the bottom of a Yahoo News article, you’ll see a ton of angry commenters bashing the article and/or each other. Now, though, all you’ll see is the above message. “Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to connect over interest and passions,” the message reads. “In order to improve our community experience, we are temporarily suspending article commenting.”

Now, as you might expect, the people who usually spend their time commenting on Yahoo News articles are quite upset that their beloved comment section has (temporarily) disappeared. There are many, many tweets from people who feel as though they’re being censored and that Yahoo has made a huge mistake in getting rid of its comment section. 

“Yahoo News nuked all of their comment sections! Guess they were tired of people pushing back against their narratives,” one person wrote. “Yahoo just block[ed] their comment section as well. When you read thru them it was 90% conservative veiws [sic]. Guess they can't allow that type of ‘free speech,’” said another.

Others were thrilled to see Yahoo finally do away with a comment section that often contained messages of hate and vitriol. “Kudos to Yahoo for finally doing something about the comment threads on their articles,” one person wrote. “I support the removal of comments. Share articles as is and people can share/comment on their preferred platform,” another said.

It only takes a few seconds of scrolling through what people are saying about Yahoo on Twitter and other platforms to see why Yahoo chose to suspend its comment section. While many outlets deal with toxic commenters, it seems as though the discussion on Yahoo News articles often devolved into unproductive hostility.

Anyway, there’s a chance the comment section on Yahoo News won’t be gone forever. The message does say the suspension is temporary. However, if it does return, we wouldn’t be surprised to see some additional rules put in place that limit the types of comments that are allowed.

Anyone who is upset by Yahoo’s so-called “censoring of free speech” should be aware that the First Amendment does not require any outlets to provide comment sections for people to share their thoughts. If you find yourself wanting to share your opinions, you are welcome to do so in other corners of the internet, as well as offline. Perhaps you can even start your own website.