YUSU President Tim Ngwena has agreed to a compromise after having banned all comments on Nouse.co.uk. The ban came into place last Tuesday after Nouse moderators allowed derogatory comments regarding this year’s YUSU election candidates to be published, including ones stating that they were “useless pieces of humanity” and “dull”.
Conditions were agreed last Thursday at an emergency Union Council meeting, hours before election hustings, where Ngwena agreed to allow comments to be published if three non-students, who were relevantly trained, acted as moderators. Outside of liveblogging, all comments will have to be approved by YUSU until training can be organised.
Ngwena has faced widespread criticism over his actions, with disapproval from both the YUM Chair and media alumni via Twitter, even earning its own hashtag, #commentgate. In response, Ngwena posted a blog on the YUSU website defending his conduct, explaining: “this decision was taken following a cumulative concern and consequent warning about the nature of the comments that were being approved on the site.
“A firm stance was taken on this issue as up until the point where a warning was issued, too much tolerance had been entertained, regarding the implications of breaching the harrasment [sic] procedures of the University and the Union’s previous guidelines on related matters.”
Nouse editor Hannah Ellis-Peterson accepted responsibility on the matter, telling Vision: “We acknowledge that we made mistakes in approving certain comments, but I felt that banning website comments altogether was in no one’s benefit, which is why we fought so hard against the decision.
“I very much appreciate the compromise Tim agreed to in the end, and I felt it provoked some much needed discussion and debate between the media societies and YUSU Officers.”