Moderation of the Blog, the TSA Delete-O-Meter, and Fake Twitter Accounts

The TSA Blog has been receiving quite a bit of attention this past month and I wanted to clarify a few things that have been popping up. It’s being falsely reported that I froze comments on the TSA Blog.

• The TSA is censoring all comments on their blog. Do you think we hurt their feelings? Reddit
• How Does The TSA Deal With Angry Travelers Online? By Censoring Its Blog’s Comments Forbes
• TSA Blogger Bob Watched Closely By Readers nextgov Tech Insider 

Comments were never frozen. Over 4,ooo comments were posted to  the blog in a very short period of time and we had to moderate them all prior to approving. When moderating, we work from oldest to newest comments. So, after posting several posts in a row, the newest post had zero comments for an extended period of time. In my dream world, I would have a command center with a moderation team. But the reality is that while TSA does have some folks who are able to assist; at times I am the only one moderating the blog, so your patience is greatly appreciated. 

We're not new to criticism here at TSA and we’re definitely not shy about posting negative comments as long as they’re not offensive or overly disrespectful and adhere to our comment policy. All you need to do is read what's been approved in the past 3 years and you’ll see that we’re pretty good at taking punches.

As far as the Delete-O-Meter, we created it to show that we’re not really deleting that many comments. Currently, the number is at 5,488. That might seem like a high number, but let’s do the math. Since January of 2008, we have received a total of 41,389 comments. So we’ve deleted a little over 10% and that number includes spam, double or multiple postings, and violations of our comment policy. The Delete-O-Meter is updated manually and is not a live counter.

We welcome your comments on postings at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) "Evolution of Security" blog. Comments submitted to the TSA blog will be reviewed before posting. This is a moderated blog, and TSA retains the discretion to determine which comments it will post and which it will not. We expect all contributors to be respectful. We will not post comments that contain personal attacks of any kind; refer to Federal Civil Service employees by name; contain offensive terms that target specific ethnic or racial groups, or vulgar language. We will not post comments that are spam, are clearly off topic or that promote services or products.

You can read our full comment policy here.

We are also aware of several fake Twitter accounts out there that appear to be actual TSA twitter accounts. Please be aware that @tsablogteam is the only verified TSA Twitter account. All others do not represent TSA.

We recieved nearly a million visits this month and thousands of comments have come in. Thanks for you patience and most of all, thanks for reading our blog.

Blogger Bob

TSA Blog Team