The Scotsman a TROLL only site!

Cyber bullying is part of the unfortunate nature of the internet. Where there is disagreement on matters sporting, religious, artistic, scientific and, yes, even political here be Trolls. It is not a phenomenon unique to the Scottish independence referendum debate but it does exist on both Yes and No sides of the indyref debate on the internet, just because some of the debate is "on the internet"; for either side to deny that unworthy comments have been made by supporters of both Yes and No is sticking ones head in the sand.

I am an unequivocal supporter of the Yes campaign, but some comments that I have read on Twitter, Facebook and newspaper response sites from YES supporters have turned my stomach, they shouldn’t have been made and should have been condemned by fellow yesers.

Likewise decent supporters of the No side should condemn the vile vitriol that is spewed by too many No supporters on line. If there is one thing that should unite those who are passionate about either side of the argument it should be that the debate should be a good clean fight.

However there is one thing that worries me about the ability to have a good clean fight and that is that a number of us, from both sides of the debate, who use to have respectable discussions on the Scotsman site now get our comments rejected with This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.

The Scotsman is actively blocking those of us who wish to debate the issues with mutual respect and only allows abusive trolls (from both sides) to comment, whilst publishing leaders condemning abusive comments as a “Cybernat” problem!