Can someone explain to me how Yahoo News can permit comments by its readers advocating the murder of a well-known political figure in Ireland? The target of the online trolls is the civil rights activist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, the former elected representative for the constituency of Mid-Ulster and a life-long socialist republican. In 1981 Bernadette and her husband Michael narrowly escaped death when British terrorists smashed their way into their home and shot both several times, the attack watched by a nearby foot patrol of soldiers from Britain’s infamous Parachute Regiment. The gunmen were members of the UDA, a Unionist terror faction that the British government refused to ban until 1992 as part of the secret negotiations during the Irish-British peace process of the 1990s. One of those involved in the assassination, Ray Smallwoods, was himself later assassinated by the (Provisional) Irish Republican Army, his coffin carried by a number of prominent Unionist politicians including the DUP’s Peter Robinson MP, the present Joint First Minister of the regional administration in the north-east of Ireland.
This is what Yahoo has on its website as of 07.00 this morning:
“Proud Scotsman • 11 hours ago
Is that #$%$ still living ? she should have been killed years ago for prolonging the troubles and I am saying this as I know she was behind a lot of the troubles caused, even the IRA wanted her gone.
Daniel • 11 hours ago
sloppy work on the UDA`s part, they really should have tapped one in her head, Republican Jezebel, she has the face of purest evil, lets hope she dies very soon somehow from complications of her old wounds.”
While the news media in Britain focuses on reports detailing the alleged threat from the dissemination of militant Islam on the internet it is indeed ironic that the most poisonous forms of British nationalism are given free rein across a host of international websites. Up to and including the most respected of United States’ news organisations.
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Unfortunately, I doubt anyone at Yahoo has any clue what’s being said in the comments section on most of the stories they post. As long as the stories get clicks, that’s all they care about.
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It is an awful, trollish place. Some incredibly incendiary language is posted on a regular basis. I’m all for free speech but there has to be some sort of responsible oversight. But then I suppose quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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