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Lt. Rick Banks introduces himself to readers as the officer in charge who manages the blog "by approving the postings and reading all of your comments and evaluating which ones will be published. Once published, your comment is added to the discussion board for everyone to read."
The LAPD created the blog to be able to disseminate our news and information while managing how it is presented to the public, the cyber and global community. In its few years of existence, the blog has proven to be a successful and valuable tool, which comes with a great amount of responsibility....Unfortunately, people take advantage of being anonymous. People find it very easy to make accusatory remarks and point fingers at others without having to provide complete, factual and accurate background information or context and that is irresponsible. On occasion, I have been unable to publish several comments because they included explicit, inappropriate or slanderous language and were personal attacks. I will not post a comment that will help perpetuate a rumor or an unfounded accusation."
He goes on to make a plea for profanity-free comments. No comments have been approved for his post, apparently. Zach Behrens, editor of LAist, wonders if it is legal to selectively censor comments on a publicly owned website.