Comments are back on News24 as part of our digital subscription offering. We want to hear your voice and encourage healthy and robust conversations in our comments section. We know you, our readers, have strong opinions and we want to give you as many opportunities as possible to discuss the stories we publish.
How to get started
Only News24 subscribers are able to read and post comments at the bottom of articles. You can become a subscriber by clicking here. Once you are subscribed and logged in, you will need to create a username under 'My Profile Details' to comment.
Personal settings
Our commenting system allows you to control your interaction with other commenters. On our mobile site and website (not yet available in app) you can choose to get a notification when your comments receive replies, when it's featured at the top of the stream and when a pending comment has been reviewed. You can receive these notifications immediately, hourly or daily. You can also ignore other commenters by clicking on their username and selecting 'Ignore'. Your settings will also apply in the News24 app.
What kind of comments are we looking for?
We understand that conversations can become spirited, but please argue fairly and be constructive. Treat others as you would want to be treated. News24's moderators will set the tone and will often start the conversation with a specific question at the end of the article. Look out for comments from users with a 'staff' tag. It is likely to be the journalist interacting with readers or a moderator making an intervention.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Below each comment, you'll see that there is a 'respect' button. We encourage you to click it when you value someone else's opinion, whether you agree with them or not.
What kind of comments won't we publish?
We won't tolerate hate speech, vulgarity, personal attacks or trolling and won't hesitate to give a reader a 24-hour timeout or even ban them when they behave in a way that disregards the News24 commenting policy.
How will we moderate comments?
After a lot of research on how to create a positive commenting environment, we have brought in Coral by Vox Media. This platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) to weed out the trolls and abusive behaviour to make commenting sections more of an interactive experience between readers and journalists. Coral's AI is the first measure of defence against potentially harmful comments and will warn a reader if a comment is potentially offensive.
This system flags suspect words and phrases and is able to pick up on sentiment that may not be conducive to a respectful commenting environment. These messages are then sent to the second line of defence - a human moderator - who will be able to make the final decision. Moderators will also review comments that Coral has approved as acceptable for publication, and Coral will learn from these reviews to inform future decisions.
For more details, read our full commenting policy here.
