UK News

Social media censor announced to tackle gang-related online content

The Home Secretary Sajid Javid has announced £1.38 million to strengthen the police's response to violent and gang-related online content.

Funding from the government's £40 million Serious Violence Strategy will be used to create a 20-strong team of police staff and officers tasked with disrupting and removing overt and covert gang-related online content.

The social media censor will proactively flag illegal and harmful online content for social media companies to take down. Hosted by the Metropolitan Police, the new capability will also prevent violence on our streets by identifying gang-related messages generating the most risk and violence.

The move follows the Serious Violence Taskforce chaired by the Home Secretary urging social media companies to do more to take down these videos. The Home Secretary invited representatives from Facebook and Google to Monday's meeting to explain the preventative action they are already taking against gang material hosted on their platforms.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said:

Street gangs are increasingly using social media as a platform to incite violence, taunt each other and promote crime.

This is a major concern and I want companies such as Facebook and Google to do more.

We are taking urgent action and the new social media hub will improve the police's ability to identify and remove this dangerous content.

Duncan Ball, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service and National Policing lead for Gangs, said:

Police forces across the country are committed to doing everything we can to tackle violent crime and the impact that it has on our communities. Through this funding we can develop a team that is a centre of expertise and excellence that will target violent gangs and those plotting and encouraging violence online.

By working together with social media companies we will ensure that online material that glamourises murder, lures young people into a dangerous, violent life of crime, and encourages violence is quickly dealt with to cut off this outlet for gangs and criminals.

Looking to the future we aim to develop a world class capability that will tackle the type of dangerous social media activity that promotes or encourages serious violence.

It is already an offence to incite, assist, or encourage violence online and the Home Office is focused towards building on the relationships made with social media providers to identify where we can take action relevant to tackling serious violence.

Comment: Making music videos is not a criminal activity -- no matter what genre

24th June 2018. See  article from theconversation.com

West London music group 1011 has recently been banned from recording or performing music without police permission. On June 15, the Metropolitan police issued the group, which has been the subject of a two-year police investigation, with a Criminal Behaviour Order .

For the next three years, five members of the group -- which creates and performs a UK version of drill, a genre of hip-hop that emerged from Chicago -- must give 24 hours notice of the release of any music video, and 48 hours notice of any live performance. They are also banned from attending Notting Hill Carnival and wearing balaclavas.

This is a legally unprecedented move, but it is not without context. A recent Amnesty UK report on the Metropolitan Police Gangs Matrix -- a risk assessment tool that links individuals to gang related crime -- stated that:

The sharing of YouTube videos and other social media activity are used as potential criteria for adding names to the Matrix, with grime music videos featuring gang names or signs considered a particular possible indicator of likely gang affiliation.

Furthermore, recent research indicates that almost 90% of those on the Matrix are black or ethnic minority.

For young people who make music, video is a key way to share their work with a wider audience. Online platforms such as SBTV, LinkUp TV , GRM daily and UK Grime are all popular sites. Often using street corners and housing estates as a location, these videos are a central component of the urban music scene. But the making of these music videos appears to feed into a continuing unease about youth crime and public safety.

Fifteen years ago, ministers were concerned about rap lyrics; in 2007 some MPs demanded to have videos banned after a shooting in Liverpool. UK drill music is only the focus of the most recent crackdown by the Metropolitan police, which has requested YouTube to remove any music videos with violent content.

The production and circulation of urban music videos has become a contested activity -- and performance in the public sphere is presented as a cause for concern. This is leading to the criminalisation of everyday pursuits. Young people from poor backgrounds are now becoming categorised as troublemakers through the mere act of making a music video.

See full article from theconversation.com

Up until this week, I had never heard of a man with the username Sargon of Akkad. Apparently, he is a political YouTube blogger, and seems to have an opinion on everything.

From my research, he is disliked by the far right and the far left. He gives his opinions in an honest way and invites debate. Nothing I have seen so far shows he is a hateful person. A lot of what he says I totally disagree with, but he certainly has a right to say it.

I heard of him because he was due to appear last week at Scarborough Spa. The event was cancelled following a risk assessment. The risk appears to be a campaign by a local left wing group to stop him appearing, and it worked.

Labour councillor Rob Barnett said: Scarborough Spa are to be congratulated for refusing to allow their stage to be used. We don't need division -- we need unity to fight for a better society.

Obviously, the society that Mr Barnett wants is one where censorship rules over freedom of speech. I find it very worrying that a political group should seek to censor those who do not agree with them.

...Read the full article from yorkshirepost.co.uk

Nostalgic references to the sweets, clothes and cartoons of yesteryear saw a number of drinks fall foul of the alcohol marketing rules last year, according to the Portman Group's annual report.

The Chair of the Independent Complaints Panel, Jenny Watson CBE, has urged marketers to be careful if they use retro designs which appeal to an adult's inner child because they may inadvertently also appeal to children today.

Three of the five cases that came before the Independent Complaints Panel in 2017 were about the use of nostalgia-based designs with complainants concerned that references to retro sweets, clothes and cartoons could have particular appeal to children. In two of the cases, the complaints were upheld.

The majority of complaints received were under Code rules about particular appeal to under-18s and whether the alcoholic nature of the drink was communicated with clarity.

The Portman Group is currently updating its Code of Practice with the consultation running until the 6th July.

Five gang members caught with machetes and baseball bats have been banned from making drill music glorifying violence.

Members of the 1011 gang were jailed or detained for conspiracy to commit violent disorder, in Notting Hill.

The Criminal Behaviour Orders (CBOs), thought to be the first of their kind, bans the group from mentioning death or injury in songs or on social media. Three leaders will also be required to inform police of new music videos and upcoming performances.

Recorder Ann Mulligan at Kingston Crown Court issued the three-year CBOs, following an application by the Metropolitan Police's Trident gang unit.

Mic, a rapper and producer form north London, said the order sets an ugly precedent. He said:

There is a censorship problem in the country. There are a lot of young musicians in this country whose only outlet for expressing themselves is music. It might be violent but what do you expect in the Britain we're in right now?

Cosmetics chain Lush has removed its controversial campaign posters from some shops after it claimed to have been facing intimidation from ex-police officers.

The company outraged the authorities, including the Home Secretary Sajid Javid, after launching the #SpyCops campaign, which saw posters placed in shop windows featuring police officers and the words paid to lie, along with faux police tape emblazoned with the words: Police have crossed a line.

The campaign has been described by Lush as an attempt to raise awareness of the ongoing undercover policing scandal where officers have infiltrated the lives, homes and beds of activists.

In a statement the company said:

Whilst intimidation of our shop staff from ex-police officers and unhelpful tweets from those in high office are ongoing, not all of our shops feel able today to have the campaign window in their shops.

Update: Censored by police

8th June 2018.See  article from metro.co.uk

The cosmetics retailer Lush has now removed posters highlighting the misconduct of undercover police from the windows of all its stores after saying that shop staff had been intimidated by former officers.

The chain told of the posters' removal on Thursday, saying it needed to protect staff in its 104 stores. The move came less than a week after it started the campaign to publicise the alleged wrongdoing of undercover officers who had infiltrated political groups.

Offsite Comment: Cops, grow a backbone

9th June 2018. See  article from spiked-online.com by Fraser Myers

The police response to Lush's ads is utterly out of order.

Tommy Robinson has been jailed for contempt of court after he live-streamed himself speaking on the steps of Leeds Crown Court last Friday.

The hour-long film, which has been watched more than 250,000 times, included commentary that was prejudicial to the trial in progress concerning a grooming gang. A definite no-no for reporters.

In some haste over the course of 5 hours Robinson was jailed for 13 months, 10 months in jail for contempt of court, and a further three months for beaching a previous suspended sentence.

But for some reason the authorities issued a reporting restriction that resulted in people people being aware that Robinson had been arrested, but censored from knowing the reason why.

So the unsurprising conclusion on social media was that the authorities had arrested him for the more general censorship of his outspoken, but widely held, views on the muslim grooming gangs.

This resulted in a petition of half a million people calling to Free Tommy, it resulted in a raucous street protest in Westminster and good chunks of the Fox News viewing public in America seeing how fragile free speech has become in the UK.

...And all because someone thought it would be a good idea to prevent people knowing the facts about Robinson's arrest.

UK police are drilling down on a genre of rap music that they claim is driving rising knife and gun crime in London.

YouTube has deleted about 30 of 50-60 targeted by the Metropolitan Police in a dedicated operation against drill music, which originated in Chicago and has become increasingly popular in Britain.

Senior officers say the videos, which frequently contain graphic threats and gun signs, glamourise violence. Detective Superintendent Mike West said the number of videos that incite violence have been increasing since late 2015.

The gangs try to outrival each other with the filming and content -- what looks like a music video can actually contain explicit language with gangs threatening each other, he added. There are gestures of violence, with hand signals suggesting they are firing weapons and graphic descriptions of what they would do to each other.

Scotland Yard has compiled a central database of more than 1,400 indexed videos that are used to gather intelligence. Anyone identified in the videos can be targeted with action including criminal behaviour orders that can prevent them from associating with certain people, entering designated areas, wearing hoods or using social media and unregistered mobile phones.

Det Supt West said that only videos that raise the risk of violence are flagged, rather than drill music in general.

A woman has been convicted for performing offensive songs that included lyrics denying the Holocaust.

Alison Chabloz sang her compositions at a meeting of the far-right London Forum group.

A judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court found Chabloz had violated laws criminalising offence and intended to insult Jewish people.

District judge John Zani delayed her sentencing until 14 June but told the court: On the face of it this does pass the custody threshold.

Chabloz, a Swiss-British dual national, had uploaded tunes to YouTube including one defining the Nazi death camp Auschwitz as a theme park just for fools and the gas chambers a proven hoax. The songs remain available on YouTube.

The songs were partly set to traditional Jewish folk music, with lyrics like: Did the Holocaust ever happen? Was it just a bunch of lies? Seems that some intend to pull the wool over our eyes.

Adrian Davies, defending, previously told the judge his ruling would be a landmark one, setting a precedent on the exercise of free speech.

But Judge Zani said Chabloz failed by some considerable margin to persuade the court that her right to freedom of speech should provide her with immunity from prosecution. He said:

I am entirely satisfied that she will have intended to insult those to whom the material relates. Having carefully considered all evidence received and submissions made, I am entirely satisfied that the prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.

Chabloz was convicted of two counts of causing an offensive, indecent or menacing message to be sent over a public communications network after performing two songs at a London Forum event in 2016. As there wa nothing indecent or menacing in the songs, Chabloz was convicted for an offensive message.

See The Britisher for an eloquent and passionate defence of free speech.

Drink censors from the Portman Group have ludicrously whinged at Spar for describing a range of wines as 'everyday drinking'. The phrase was used as marketing speak for commonplace and cheap. It was not used for any customer facing promotional material. The press release included the paragraph:

Matt Fowkes , SPAR UK Wine Trading Manager added: Our new 'Everyday Drinking' range at £5 and 'Varietals' range at £6 are a result of an extensive review of our SPAR Brand wine values. We are targeting customers who buy wine by their preferred style and key grape varieties. We've made selecting wine easier and more accessible for them.

The Portman Group published the following adjudication:

A complaint about two SPAR press releases promoting a new Everyday Wine range has been upheld by the Independent Complaints Panel (Panel) for indirectly encouraging immoderate consumption.

The complainant, Alcohol Concern Wales, believed that SPAR, by naming the range Everyday Wine, was alluding to drinking the product everyday, going against the Chief Medical Officers' Guidelines on Low Risk Drinking which advises people who drink regularly to have alcohol free days.

The Panel noted that the press releases were for the company's retailer audience and were not intended for consumer communication. The term everyday was used to position the product to retailers as lower priced wine. In both press releases the wording used appeared as everyday drinking which linked the messaging to daily consumption of the product. The Panel concluded that the phrase was creating a direct correlation between low price and acceptability of everyday alcohol consumption, although this may have been unintentional. When considered in the context of the 2016 CMOs' Guidelines the Panel agreed that the term everyday drinking was unacceptable under rule 3.2(f).

The Panel advised that all companies should carefully consider the language used in brand communications regardless of intended audience, because in a digital age there was always the potential for the communication to be seen by a wider group. In this instance, a different phrase to categorise the range could have been used.

The Portman Group welcomed SPAR's confirmation that they would not use the term Everyday Wine in either consumer or retailer facing communications following the Panel's decision.

Universities minister Sam Gyimah hosts free speech summit and calls on higher education leaders to work together to create new guidance on free speech

Free speech on campus should be encouraged and those attempting to shut it down must have nowhere to hide, the Universities Minister will make clear to sector leaders at a free speech summit he is chairing today (Thursday 3 May).

Sam Gyimah will call on higher education organisations to stamp out the 'institutional hostility' to unfashionable views that have emerged in some student societies and will urge them to work with the government following recent reports of a rise in so-called 'safe spaces' and 'no-platform' policies that have appeared on campuses.

He will say that the current landscape is "murky", with numerous pieces of disjointed sector guidance out there, creating a web of complexity which risks being exploited by those wishing to stifle free speech.

The Universities Minister will demand further action is taken to protect lawful free speech on campus and will offer to work with the sector to create new guidance that will for the first time provide clarity of the rules for both students and universities -- making this the first government intervention of its kind since the free speech duty was introduced in 1986.

The guidance signals a new chapter for free speech on campus, ensuring future generations of students get exposure to stimulating debates and the diversity of viewpoints that lie at the very core of the university experience.

Universities Minister Sam Gyimah said:

A society in which people feel they have a legitimate right to stop someone expressing their views on campus simply because they are unfashionable or unpopular is rather chilling.

There is a risk that overzealous interpretation of a dizzying variety of rules is acting as a brake on legal free speech on campus.

That is why I am bringing together leaders from across the higher education sector to clarify the rules and regulations around speakers and events to prevent bureaucrats or wreckers on campus from exploiting gaps for their own ends.

The free speech summit will be hosted in London and brings together a wide range of influential organisations, including those that have existing guidance in this area, such as the Charity Commission, UUK and EHRC.

The Office for Students, which came into force on April 1, will act to protect free speech and can use its powers to name, shame or even fine institutions for not upholding the principle of free speech. Michael Barber, Chair of the Office for Students, said:

Our universities are places where free speech should always be promoted and fostered. That includes the ability for everyone to share views which may be challenging or unpopular, even if that makes some people feel uncomfortable. This is what Timothy Garton-Ash calls 'robust civility'. The Office for Students will always encourage freedom of speech within the law. We will never intervene to restrict it.

Alistair Jarvis, Universities UK Chief Executive, said:

Universities are committed to promoting and protecting free speech within the law. Tens of thousands of speaking events are put on every year across the country, the majority pass without incident. A small number of flash points do occasionally occur, on contentious or controversial issues, but universities do all they can to protect free speech so events continue.

As the Joint Committee on Human Rights recently found, there is no systematic problem with free speech in universities, but current advice can be strengthened. We welcome discussions with government and the National Union of Students on how this can be done.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights launched an inquiry on freedom of speech on 22nd November and issued its report on 25th March. The roundtable attendee include:

• Home Office -- Matt Collins, Director of Prevent
• Office for Students (OfS) -- Yvonne Hawkins, Directer of Universities and Colleges
• Charity Commission - Helen Stephenson, Chief Executive
• NUS - Amatey Doku, Vice President
• EHRC - Rebecca Thomas, Principal, Programmes
• Universities UK (UUK) - Chris Hale, Director of Policy
• iHE - Alex Proudfoot, Chief Executive
• GuildHE - Alex Bols, Deputy CEO

Offsite Comment: Banning students from banning speakers is beyond stupid

4th May 2018.  See  article from blogs.spectator.co.uk By Brendan O'Neill

So, the government has finally come up with a solution to the scourge of yellow-bellied censoriousness that has swept university campuses in recent years: it is going to ban it. Yes, it is going to ban banning. It is going to No Platform the No Platformers. It is going to force universities to be pro-free speech. Which is such a contradiction in terms it makes my head hurt. You cannot use authoritarianism to tackle authoritarianism. This is a really bad thinking.

Mersey side police have threatend

We've issued the following statement following reports of social media posts being made in relation to Alder Hey Hospital and the ongoing situation with Alfie Evans:

Chief Inspector Chris Gibson said: Merseyside Police has been made aware of a number of social media posts which have been made with reference to Alder Hey Hospital and the ongoing situation involving Alfie Evans.

I would like to make people aware that these posts are being monitored and remind social media users that any offences including malicious communications and threatening behaviour will be investigated and where necessary will be acted upon.

Reporters Without Borders has published its annual review of Worldwide press freedom.

The Index ranks 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists. It is a snapshot of the media freedom situation based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each country. It does not rank public policies even if governments obviously have a major impact on their country's ranking. Nor is it an indicator of the quality of journalism in each country.

The top 5 countries are Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland. The bottom 5 in descending order are China, Syria, Turkmenistan, Eritrea and North Korea.

Reporters Without Borders offer a note about the UK's disgraceful 40th position in  the rankings:

A worrying trend

A continued heavy-handed approach towards the press (often in the name of national security) has resulted in the UK keeping its status as one of the worst-ranked Western European countries in the World Press Freedom Index. The government began to implement the Investigatory Powers Act -- the most extreme surveillance legislation in UK history -- with insufficient protection mechanisms for whistleblowers, journalists, and their sources. Home Secretary Amber Rudd repeatedly threatened to restrict encryption tools such as WhatsApp and announced plans to criminalize the repeated viewing of extremist content. Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 remained on the books, presenting cause for concern since the law's punitive cost-shifting provision could hold publishers liable for the costs of all claims made against them, regardless of merit.

Both the Conservative and Labour parties restricted journalists' access to campaign events ahead of the June 2017 general election, and BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg received extensive online abuse and threats, resulting in her being assigned bodyguards to cover the Labour Party conference.

Offshore law firm Appleby sued the BBC and The Guardian for breach of confidence over the Paradise Papers source materials, making them the only two media outlets out of 96 in 67 countries to have analyzed the Paradise Papers and taken to court.

2018 World Press Freedom Index
1 Norway 7.63 2 Sweden 8.31 3 Netherlands 10.01 4 Finland 10.26 5 Switzerland 11.27 6 Jamaica 11.33 7 Belgium 13.16 8 New Zealand 13.62 9 Denmark 13.99 10 Costa Rica 14.01 11 Austria 14.04 12 Estonia 14.08 13 Iceland 14.10 14 Portugal 14.17 15 Germany 14.39 16 Ireland 14.59 17 Luxembourg 14.72 18 Canada 15.28 19 Australia 15.46 20 Uruguay 15.56 21 Surinam 16.44 22 Samoa 16.69 23 Ghana 18.41 24 Latvia 19.63 25 Cyprus 19.85 26 Namibia 20.24 27 Slovakia 20.26 28 South Africa 20.39 29 Cabo Verde 20.39 30 Liechtenstein 20.49 31 Spain 20.51 32 Slovenia 21.69 33 France 21.87 34 Czech Republic 21.89 35 OECS 22.11 36 Lithuania 22.20 37 Andorra 22.21 38 Chile 22.69 39 Trinidad and Tobago 40 United Kingdom 23.25 41 Burkina Faso 23.33 42 Taiwan 23.36 43 South Korea 23.51 44 Romania 23.65 45 United States 23.73 46 Italy 24.12 47 Belize 24.55 48 Botswana 25.29 49 Comoros 25.30 50 Senegal 25.61 51 Tonga 25.68 52 Argentina 26.05 53 Papua New Guinea 54 Madagascar 26.20 55 Guyana 26.25 56 Mauritius 26.45 57 Fiji 26.55 58 Poland 26.59 59 Dominican Republic 60 Haïti 26.82	61 Georgia 27.34 62 Bosnia-Herzegovina 63 Niger 27.40 64 Malawi 27.43 65 Malta 27.44 66 El Salvador 27.78 67 Japan 28.64 68 Lesotho 28.78 69 Croatia 28.94 70 Hong Kong 29.04 71 Mongolia 29.05 72 Mauritania 29.09 73 Hungary 29.11 74 Greece 29.19 75 Albania 29.49 76 Serbia 29.58 77 Northern Cyprus 29.59 78 Kosovo 29.61 79 Sierra Leone 29.98 80 Armenia 29.99 81 Moldova 30.01 82 Côte d'Ivoire 30.08 83 Guinea Bissau 30.09 84 Benin 30.16 85 Seychelles 30.17 86 Togo 30.23 87 Israel 30.26 88 Peru 30.27 89 Liberia 30.33 90 Nicaragua 30.41 91 Panama 30.56 92 Ecuador 30.56 93 Tanzania 30.65 94 Bhutan 30.73 95 East Timor 30.81 96 Kenya 30.82 97 Tunisia 30.91 98 Kyrgyzstan 31 99 Mozambique 31.12 100 Lebanon 31.15 101 Ukraine 31.16 102 Brazil 31.20 103 Montenegro 31.21 104 Guinea 31.90 105 Kuwait 31.91 106 Nepal 32.05 107 Paraguay 32.32 108 Gabon 32.37 109 Macedonia 32.43 110 Bolivia 32.45 111 Bulgaria 35.22 112 Central African Republic 113 Zambia 35.36 114 Congo-Brazzaville 35.42 115 Mali 36.15 116 Guatemala 36.17 117 Uganda 36.77 118 Afghanistan 37.28 119 Nigeria 37.41 120 Maldives 37.95	121 Angola 38.35 122 Gambia 38.36 123 Chad 38.45 124 Indonesia 39.68 125 Qatar 40.16 126 Zimbabwe 40.53 127 Oman 40.67 128 United Arab Emirates 129 Cameroon 40.92 130 Colombia 41.03 131 Sri Lanka 41.37 132 Jordan 41.71 133 Philippines 42.53 134 Palestine 42.96 135 Morocco / Western Sahara 136 Algeria 43.13 137 Myanmar 43.15 138 India 43.24 139 Pakistan 43.24 140 Thailand 44.31 141 Honduras 45.23 142 Cambodia 45.90 143 Venezuela 46.03 144 South Sudan 46.88 145 Malaysia 47.41 146 Bangladesh 48.62 147 Mexico 48.91 148 Russia 49.96 149 Tajikistan 50.06 150 Ethiopia 50.17 151 Singapore 50.95 152 Swaziland 51.46 153 Brunei 51.48 154 Democratic Republic of Congo 155 Belarus 52.59 156 Rwanda 52.90 157 Turkey 53.50 158 Kazakhstan 54.41 159 Burundi 55.26 160 Iraq 56.56 161 Egypt 56.72 162 Libya 56.79 163 Azerbaijan 59.73 164 Iran 60.71 165 Uzbekistan 60.84 166 Bahrain 60.85 167 Yemen 62.23 168 Somalia 63.04 169 Saudi Arabia 63.13 170 Laos 66.41 171 Equatorial Guinea 172 Cuba 68.90 173 Djibouti 70.77 174 Sudan 71.13 175 Vietnam 75.05 176 China 78.29 177 Syria 79.22 178 Turkmenistan 84.20 179 Eritrea 84.24 180 North Korea 88.87

Free speech hero Count Dankula got one over on a news reporter from Sky who wanted to do his boot to stick the establishment boot in.

Count Dankula was well up for the challenge and wiped Mr snotty's nose into the ground.

See video from YouTube

Youtuber Count Dankula who filmed his girlfriend's pet dog doing a Nazi salute has been fined £800.

Mark Meechan was sentenced at Airdrie Sheriff Court after he was found guilty last month of a 'hate crime'.

He recorded his girlfriend's pug, Buddha, responding to statements such as gas the Jews and Sieg Heil by raising its paw during the footage called M8 Yur Dug's a Nazi .

The original Youtube video had been viewed more than three million times on YouTube.

Surely free speech has dropped to a new low in Britain but the widespread disquiet at the verdict may have helped keep Count Dankula out of prison.

Free speech campaigners orgainised a protest in London to coincide with the announcement of the sentencing. See video from YouTube

Update: Sheriff's comments

24th April 2018. See  article from dailymail.co.uk

Sheriff O'Carroll had told the court he did not believe Meechan had made the video only to annoy his girlfriend and ruled it was anti-Semitic. Fining Meechan, he said:

You deliberately chose the Holocaust as the theme of the video.

I also found it proved that the video contained anti-Semitic, and racist material, in that it explicitly and exclusively referred to Jews, the Holocaust and the role of the Nazis in the death of six million Jews in a grossly offensive manner. You knew or must have known that.

The social work report on you is important. It is very favourable to you and, leaving aside the circumstances of this offence, shows you to have led a generally pro-social life thus far.

It also shows that you have learned a certain amount from your experiences and that you are of low risk of reoffending.

In these circumstances, I rule out a custodial sentence and therefore any alternative to a custodial sentence. You have a certain amount of income and other resources according to the reports. I now fine you the sum of 2£800.

Offsite Comment: Count Dankula and the death of free speech

24th April 2018. See  article from blogs.spectator.co.uk by Brendan O'Neill

On freedom of speech, Britain has become the laughing stock of the Western world. People actually laugh at us. I recently gave a talk in Brazil on political correctness and I told the audience about the arrest and conviction of a Scottish man for publishing a video of his girlfriend's pug doing a Nazi salute for a joke and they laughed. Loudly. Some of them refused to believed it was true.

Read the full  article from blogs.spectator.co.uk

Google has released their latest transparency report, for Youtube takedowns. It contains information about the number of government requests for terrorist or extremist content to be removed. For a number of years, the government has promoted the idea that terrorist content is in rampant circulation, and that the amount of material is so abundant that the UK police alone are taking down up to 100,000 pieces of content a year.

These referrals, to Google, Facebook and others, come from a unit hosted at the Metropolitan Police, called CTIRU, or the Counter-Terrorism Internet Referrals Unit . This unit has very minimal transparency about its work. Apart from claiming to have removed over 300,000 pieces of terrorist-related content over a number of years, it refuses to say how large its workforce or budget are, and has never defined what a piece of content is.

Google and Twitter publish separate takedown request figures for the UK that must be largely from CTIRU. The numbers are much smaller than the tens of thousands that might be expected at each platform given the CTIRU figures of around 100,000 removals a year. For instance, Google reported 683 UK government takedown requests for 2,491 items through Jan-June 2017 .

Google and Twitter's figures imply that CTIRU file perhaps 2,000-4,000 removal requests a year, for maybe 12,000 items at most, implying a statistical inflation by CTIRU of around 1,000%.

A number of CTIRU requests have been published on the takedown transparency database Lumen. These sometimes have more than one URL for takedown. However this alone does not explain the disparity.

Perhaps a 'piece of terrorist content' is counted as that 'piece' viewed by each person known to follow a terrorist account, or perhaps everything on a web page is counted as a piece of terrorist content, meaning each web page might contain a terrorist web font, terrorist Javascript and terrorist CSS file.

Nonetheless, we cannot discount the possibility that the methodologies for reporting at the companies are in some way flawed. Without further information from CTIRU, we simply don't know whose figures are more reliable.

There are concerns that go beyond the statistics. CTIRU's work is never reviewed by a judge, and there are no appeals to ask CTIRU to stop trying to remove a website or content. It compiles a secret list of websites to be blocked on the public estate, such as schools, departmental offices or hospitals, supplied to unstated companies via the Home Office. More or less nothing is known: except for the headline figure.

Certainly, CTIRU do not provide the same level of transparency as Google and other companies claim to be providing.

People have tried extracting further information from CTIRU, such as the content of the blacklist, but without success. Ministers have refused to supply financial information to Parliament, citing national security. ORG is the latest group to ask for information, for a list of statistics and a list of documents ; turned down on grounds of national security and crime prevention. In the case of statistics, CTIRU are currently claiming they hold no statistics other than their overall takedown figure; which if true, seems astoundingly lax from even a basic management perspective.

The methodology for calculating CTIRU's single statistic needs to be published, because what we do know about CTIRU is meaningless without it. Potentially, Parliament and the public are be being misled; or otherwise, misreporting by Internet platforms needs to be corrected.

A woman from Liverpool has been found guilty of sending a supposedly grossly offensive message after posting rap lyrics on Instagram.

The post referenced lyrics from Snap Dogg's I'm Trippin' to pay tribute to a 13-year-old boy who had died in a road crash in 2017. It is not clear exactly which words were deemed to 'hate crimes' but the words 'bitch' and 'nigga' seem to be the only relevant candidates.

Merseyside Police were anonymously sent a screenshot of the woman's Instagram update (on a public profile), which was received by hate crime unit PC Dominique Walker. PC Walker told the court the term the woman had used was grossly offensive to her as a black woman and to the general community.

The Liverpool Echo reported that the woman's defence had argued the usage of the word had changed over time and it had been used by superstar rapper Jay-Z in front of thousands of people at the Glastonbury Festival.

The woman was given an eight-week community order, placed on an eight-week curfew and fined £585.

Prosecutors said her sentence was increased from a fine to a community order as it was a 'hate crime'.

Offsite Comment: Now it's a crime to quote rap lyrics? Censorship in Britain is out of control.

See article from spiked-online.com By Andrew Doyle

So we are facing the bizarre situation in which a teenager has been given an eight-week community order and curfew because one police officer perceives a black musician's work to be inherently racist.

Offsite Video: Liverpool hate speech verdict

See video from YouTube By The Britisher, An eloquent examination of yet another British free speech failure.

Update: The Death of free speech

See  article from blogs.spectator.co.uk by Brendan O'Neill

Brendan O'Neill notes that these are the lyrics she quoted:

Off a whole gram of molly, and my bitch think I'm trippin.
Now I'm clutchin' on my forty, all I can think about is drillin''.
I hate fuck shit, slap a bitch nigga, kill a snitch nigga, rob a rich nigga.'

O'Neill comments:

We now live under a bizarre tyranny of self-esteem, where hurt feelings can lead to court cases, and where the easily offended can marshal the state to crush those who dared to offend them. An unholy marriage between our wimpish offence-taking culture and a state desperate to be seen as caring and purposeful has nurtured an insidious new censorship that targets everything from comedy and rap to criticism of Islam or strongly stated political views.

Police are to drop their controversial policy of automatically believing anyone who reports a crime.

A top-level report obtained by The Mail on Sunday says official guidance should be changed to tell detectives they must listen to victims and take them seriously -- but not automatically assume they are telling the truth.

The dramatic move follows a series of unjust inquiries based on false allegations that left dozens of innocent people's lives and reputations destroyed, including high-profile figures.

The U-turn has been drawn up by the College of Policing, which sets national standards, and after being considered by chief constables last week it will be sent to Home Office Ministers to become official policy.

Last night, former Police Minister David Mellor, who served under Leon Brittan, told the MoS: It's been obvious for years that the policy of automatic belief invites time-wasters and it's an invitation to cranks to come forward with ludicrous allegations. He said:

Plainly if someone complains of a crime, that has got to be looked at, but the idea police should assume they're telling the truth invites dreadful injustice.

However, the change will be fiercely opposed by some feminist campaigners who seem to think that its ok to lock up innocent men, saying it will deter genuine rape victims from coming forward, for fear they will be disbelieved or ignored.

A businessman fighting for the right to be forgotten has won a UK High Court action against Google.

The unnamed businessman who won his case was convicted 10 years ago of conspiring to intercept communications. He spent six months in jail. He as ked Google to delete online details of his conviction from Google Search but his request was turned down.

The judge, Mr Justice Mark Warby, ruled in his favour on Friday.

But he rejected a separate but similar claim made by another businessman who had committed a more serious crime. The other businessman, who lost his case, was convicted more than 10 years ago of conspiring to account falsely. He spent four years in jail.

Google said it would accept the rulings.

We work hard to comply with the right to be forgotten, but we take great care not to remove search results that are in the public interest, it said in a statement:

We are pleased that the Court recognised our efforts in this area, and we will respect the judgements they have made in this case.'

Explaining the decisions made on Friday, the judge said one of the men had continued to mislead the public while the other had shown remorse.

But how is Google the right organisation to arbitrate on matters of justice where it is required to examine the level of remorse shown by those requesting censorship?

The BBC has defended a decision to air Enoch Powell's 1968 Rivers of Blood speech on Radio 4.

The Archive on 4 programme, presented by BBC media editor Amol Rajan, will on Saturday broadcast the right-wing MP's anti-immigration speech - voiced by an actor - in full, for the first time.

The decision to do so was criticised as an incitement to racial hatred. The peer Andrew Adonis has called for the broadcast to be banned, and has written to the TV censor Ofcom. He wrote: What is happening to our public service broadcaster? He said the speech was the worst incitement to racial violence by a public figure in modern Britain. He added: Obviously this matter will be raised in parliament should the broadcast go ahead.

Presumably critics are worried that the concerns voiced by Enoch Powell still exist today, and so may chime with listeners. Surely if this is the case, then it would be better if views were aired so that the authorities could address the concerns. For instance if politicians had been better aware of  such opinions, they would not have called the incredibly divisive Brexit referendum.

The BBC said there would be rigorous journalistic analysis and the show was not endorsing controversial views.

Delivered to local Conservative Party members in Birmingham, days before the second reading of the 1968 Race Relations Bill, then MP Powell referenced observations made by his Wolverhampton constituents including in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man. He ended with a quote from Virgil's Aeneid, when civil war in Italy is predicted with the River Tiber foaming with much blood.

The anti-immigration speech ended his career in Edward Heath's shadow cabinet.

Archive on 4 will broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday at 8pm.

Update: BBC response

14th April 2018. See  article from bbc.co.uk

Complaint

We received complaints from people who feel it is irresponsible to broadcast Enoch Powell's 1968 Rivers of Blood speech.

Response:

BBC Radio 4's well established programme Archive on 4 reflects in detail on historical events. Many people know of this controversial speech but few have heard it beyond soundbites and, in order to assess the speech fully and its impact on the immigration debate, it will be analysed by a wide range of contributors including many anti-racism campaigners.

This is a rigorous journalistic analysis of a historical political speech. It is not an endorsement of the controversial views and we believe people should wait to hear the programme before they judge it.

Justice is not seen to being done in the UK. A string of cases have emerged where men have been prosecuted for rape whilst evidence suggesting their innocence has been kept hidden away by the authorities. The presumption is that the authorities are willing to let innocent people be convicted so as to inflate the rape conviction rates to keep feminist campaigners happy.

But once exposed, this failure in justice is surely very corrosive in trying to keep society ticking over in increasingly tetchy times.

So even the police have decided something needs to be done about this disastrous approach to justice. Met police commissioner Cressida Dick has announced that the police will abandon the policy of automatically believing 'victims '. [but using the word 'victims' rather suggests the she still automatically believes complainants].

Dick said officers must investigate rather than blindly believe an allegation, and should keep an open mind when a 'victim' has come forward. It is very important to victims to feel that they are going to be believed , she told the Times. [But what about when they are out and out lying]. She added:

Our default position is we are, of course, likely to believe you but we are investigators and we have to investigate.

Dick spoke about several other topics including a whinge about the violent undercurrent in some music, especially grime. 

Meanwhile Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecution overseeing this disgraceful period of injustice, will not get her contract renewed by the government.