(Credit: Globe and Mail, screenshot)

The Globe and Mail is going to start moderating comments on stories about Gaza before publication after the newspaper’s website received a slew of comments that included racism or hate speech, public editor Sylvia Stead reported.

Stead wrote in her Nov. 20 blog:

“Starting later today and continuing for the next while, The Globe is making some changes to the comment policy on stories dealing with the Gaza crisis. At the end of each article on the topic, readers will have a chance to enter comments, which will be reviewed by a moderator before being published. If the comments meet our guidelines, they will be published.”

The Globe and Mail’s Community Guidelines explain in part that “In most cases our comments are post-moderated, which means that we don’t review them prior to posting them (although we use an automated filter to block offensive words).”