Website Community Guidelines

Updated July 30, 2019

Media Matters for America is dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

We are committed to providing a forum where anyone, from anywhere on the political spectrum, can address and respond to the work we do. We request that your posts be relevant to the topic at hand and respectful of others. Media Matters reserves the right to remove comments, topics, and threads in its sole discretion, including those that are hateful, derogatory, trolling, spam, irrelevant to the conversation, or in violation of copyrights.

Users who disrupt the forums or violate the Terms of Use may be banned from participating in our forums. Users agree that they will not create alternative identities or other means to rejoin the forums if they are banned. Any obviously faked email addresses or attempts to rejoin after being banned may result in immediate banning.

If you find a post that violates the Terms of Use, please click on the “flag this comment” link to let us know so we can review and decide whether to delete or approve it. Do not abuse the “flag this comment” feature. It is intended to alert Media Matters to comments that violate these Terms of Use, not to remove opinions you do not agree with or to retaliate against users you dislike. Users who abuse the privilege of flagging posts may be banned from the site. Administrative decisions to remove posts or ban users are in Media Matters’ sole discretion and are final. Occasionally, when banning users, we will make the decision to also remove past comments that have already been approved if we believe they were not posted in good faith.

These forums are a public space, and Media Matters is not responsible for the opinions expressed in comments here, nor is Media Matters responsible for links posted in comments to external sites. Please keep comments civil and on-topic.

In posting on the Media Matters website, you explicitly agree to the terms herein. They may be revised at any time, but if so, we will note the day it was changed. Furthermore, if you use your Twitter account or Facebook account (or another platform), you are also responsible for their respective terms of use and privacy policies.

Some general forum “dos and don'ts”

DO express your opinion as it relates to the item under discussion.

DO respect others' opinions. We expect posters from all parts of the political spectrum here.
Please express your opinion without insulting other posters.

DO ask questions of one another.

DO stay on the topic of the thread.

DO flag posts that you think violate the Terms of Use outlined above.

DO explain what you're linking to if you post a link in your comment. Don't just post the link.
We may delete links that appear to be phishing or scams.

DON'T post the text of an article. Rather, summarize in your own words and link to the complete story. It is helpful to other posters if you explain why this article is relevant to the topic at hand.

DON’T post or link to any content or materials that infringe or violate the copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, rights of publicity, or other rights of any third party.

DON’T post comments that include obscenities, profanity, personal insults, ethnic slurs, or other disparaging, offensive, hateful, or derogatory language.

DON’T post comments that are defamatory, make threats of any kind, or that intimidate or bully anyone.

DON'T post here if your purpose is to start a flame war. Arguments and debates are fine; obscenity, name-calling, and trolling are not.

DON'T take another person's comments personally. Have a thick skin and ignore posters who insist on trolling, obscenities, and name-calling.

DON'T post or link to any comments or content that violates or encourages others to violate any applicable law, rule, or regulation.

DON'T use posts for advertising of any kind.

DON'T post the same comment on multiple threads.

DON'T waste the moderator's time. Posting gibberish, excessive use of caps, and lengthy rants are all subject to deletion.

DON’T use this forum to send spam or other unauthorized advertising, promotions, chain letters, or pyramid schemes or to engage in any harassing, predatory, stalking, or other harmful activity.

DON’T post false or misleading information, impersonate any person or entity, or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age, or your affiliation with any person or entity.

Posts that violate any of the foregoing rules may be deleted and may result in your being banned.

Enforcement of these Community Guidelines and the other rules set forth in the Terms of Use is solely at the discretion of Media Matters, and failure to enforce such rules in some instances does not constitute a waiver of its right to enforce such rules in other instances. In addition, these rules do not create any private right of action on the part of any user or third party or any reasonable expectation that the site will not contain any content that is prohibited by these Website Community Guidelines.
 

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't I post on your site?

Registration with Talk, our commenting service, is required to post comments on mediamatters.org. To sign up for a Talk account, click Sign in to comment at the bottom of a Media Matters piece. You will then be prompted to sign in or register. To register, click “Register” at the bottom of the screen and follow the instructions provided to sign up for a Talk account. To sign in, input your existing Talk credentials. If you have trouble with the registration or sign-in process or with commenting, please contact moderator@mediamatters.org. 

How can I help improve the debate in Media Matters' forums?

We rely on our users to help us moderate the heavy traffic in our forums. The most important thing you can do is follow our Terms of Use when you post and be respectful of other posters and their opinions. We expect differing points of view on our message boards, and it benefits everyone when we can debate issues without resorting to name-calling and obscenities.

You can also help us by flagging any posts you see that violate the forums' Terms of Use. The Media Matters staff reviews flagged posts and decides whether to delete or approve them. Administrative decisions regarding flagged posts are in Media Matters' sole discretion and are final. We recommend that if you flag a post, you don't respond to it. Users who abuse the “flag this comment” feature may be banned from the forums. The purpose of flagging is to bring Media Matters' attention to comments that violate these Website Community Guidelines or our Terms of Use, not to remove opinions you do not agree with or to retaliate against posters you dislike.

Why was my post removed?

Posts may be removed for many reasons, including trolling, duplicate or spam posts, posting copyrighted materials, taking the discussion off topic, obscenity, hatefulness, etc. Posts are generally NOT removed because of the writer's opinions. All posts connected to a deleted thread or post may also be removed. Media Matters reserves the right to delete posts in its sole discretion, for any reason or for no reason.

Why was I banned?

Users may be banned from the Media Matters forums for many reasons, including consistently violating these Website Community Guidelines or our Terms of Use. The most common reasons for banning are name-calling, trolling, and repeatedly taking a discussion far from its original topic. The decision to ban a poster is at Media Matters’ sole discretion and may be based on a review of that user's posts and flagged items. We DO NOT ban users because of their opinions. Our goal is to foster lively discussion with opinions from all sides that doesn't degenerate into name-calling and flaming. Media Matters reserves the right to ban users in its sole discretion, for any reason or for no reason.