TORONTO—The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation will no longer permit web readers to post comments on any articles involving indigenous peoples just days after the tragic death of a CBC comments moderator.
The unidentified moderator suffered a fatal heart attack after 52 consecutive hours deleting bigoted, hateful and ignorant comments from the CBC’s website. Her passing was the fourth death of a comments moderator at the CBC in as many months.
“You would not believe the horrible things she would see on the job, just real gruesome shit”, said a source close to the deceased. “It really took a toll on her. She would be muttering racial slurs over and over in her sleep like the words were haunting her.”
The coroner’s report cited the moderator was unable to keep pace with the comments and suffered from hand cramps and nerve degeneration linked to repeatedly clicking delete on hateful anecdotes, as well as dehydration and exhaustion from extended weeping.
The CBC currently employs over 6,500 full time employees, approximately 3,000 of whom are devoted exclusively to moderating the comments sections on the broadcaster’s online service.
“We are devastated to be losing yet another comments moderator to the foul mouths of our readers”, said CBC President Hubert T Lacroix. “But we are especially concerned about the feasibility of maintaining the comments section. We’ve thrown plenty of unpaid interns at this problem but it never stops.”
Not everyone is satisfied with the decision to close comment sections. A long-time comment section writer, Fiberal_Lies_From_CBC, stated “dis fukin sucks. clear dat indians run CBC. 1st all posts about “missing” squaw women, now censorship. fuck dat. wut if we we tell them not comment on r shit?”
CBC wanted to better moderate to comply with Canada’s hate speech laws but that would require 10,000 new moderators.
With files from Amy Kishek and Alex Huntley
