If there was ever anything that was obvious in the context of censorship - it would not be the sensitive and difficult issue that it is and accepted to be, just about everywhere else but on our forum. Where it and our essential freedoms are encouraged to seen in such embarrassingly simplistic terms.

As for "snuffing out racist/hate/abuse", most of us would be in favour of this but perhaps we have to be realistic on our forum? If "snuffing out" means preventing such things from being posted - there is no way of doing this.

All that current reactive measures can do is trying prevent such stuff from remaining after it has been posted and any damage already done. But the answer to 'snuffing it out' starts with accepting that such posting cannot be prevented and not indignantly over-reacting to it when it inevitably does appear.

All of this righteous judgement and indignant over-reaction does is provide the attention that these things crave and should be denied. If threads they appear with such things - ignore them - without fuss and let them die. If such posts appear in existing threads - simply ignore them. It is not too difficult - we do it with graffiti, so just treat it here in exactly the same way.

Leaving things that are posted univited on our forum in place but ignored is neither tolerating such propaganda or endorsing it. It is a show of strength not weakness. It is simply accepting the fact that there is no more way of preventing those with a will to do this - than there is of preventing graffiti. It is simply demonstrating acceptance of that fact and not indulging ourselves in making useless judgements.

Washing off graffiti does not solve the problem it only gives temporary respite and provides an irresistable open space to be filled again with bigger letters, brighter colours and more extreme opinions. The challenge is the same online and only increases with any clumsy measures to combat it.