This study investigates the effect of news sites’ explicit online comment moderation policies on spiral of silence (SOS) outcome variables. It advances the methodological understanding of SOS research by comparing the traditional willingness-to-share variable to more direct measures of attitudes. The results of two studies show that a one-sided editorial and comments generally silenced the opposition, particularly when participants were asked to provide their own comment. This finding suggests that open-ended comments may best measure SOS effects. With the inclusion of explicit comment moderation, however, participants were less likely to agree with the editorial as evidenced by their closed-ended attitudes.