Free Speech & Cancel Culture

Ofcom wrote:

People's Forum: The Prime Minister
GB News, 12 February 2024, 20:00

Ofcom received 547 complaints about this live, hour-long current affairs programme which featured the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, in a question-and-answer session with a studio audience about the Government's policies and performance, in the context of the forthcoming UK General Election.

We considered that this constituted a matter of major political controversy and a major matter relating to current public policy. When covering major matters, all Ofcom licensees must comply with the heightened special impartiality requirements in the Code. These rules require broadcasters to include and give due weight to an appropriately wide range of significant views within a programme or in clearly linked and timely programmes.

Ofcom had no issue with this programme's format in principle. Broadcasters have freedom to decide the editorial approach of their programmes as long as they comply with the Code. We took into account factors such as: the audience's questions to the Prime Minister; his responses; the Presenter's contribution; and whether due impartiality was preserved through clearly linked and timely programmes. In this case:

• While some of the audience's questions provided some challenge to, and criticism of, the Government's policies and performance, audience members were not able to challenge the Prime Minister's responses and the Presenter did not do this to any meaningful extent.

• The Prime Minister was able to set out some future policies that his Government planned to implement, if re-elected in the forthcoming UK General Election. Neither the audience or the Presenter challenged or otherwise referred to significant alternative views on these.

• The Prime Minister criticised aspects of the Labour Party's policies and performance. While politicians are of course able to do this in programmes, licensees must ensure that due impartiality is preserved. Neither the Labour Party's views or positions on those issues, or any other significant views on those issues were included in the programme or given due weight.

• The Licensee did not, and was not able to, include a reference in the programme to an agreed future programme in which an appropriately wide range of significant views on the major matter would be presented and given due weight.

We found that an appropriately wide range of significant viewpoints was not presented and given due weight in this case. As a result, Rishi Sunak had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his Government in a period preceding a UK General Election.

GB News failed to preserve due impartiality, in breach of Rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Code. Our decision is that this breach was serious and repeated.

We will therefore consider this breach for the imposition of a statutory sanction

 

Update: GB News to challege Ofcom's censorship in the courts

21st May 2024. See article from pressgazette.co.uk

A GB News spokesperson responded to the Ofcom censorship:

GB News has begun the formal legal process of challenging recent Ofcom decisions which go against journalists' and broadcasters' rights to make their own editorial judgements in line with the law and which also go against Ofcom's own rules.

Ofcom is obliged by law to uphold freedom of expression. Ofcom is also obliged to apply its rules fairly and lawfully. We believe that, for some time now, Ofcom has been operating in the exact opposite manner.

We cannot allow freedom of expression and media freedom to be trampled on in this way.

Freedom of the press is a civil right established by the British in the seventeenth century with the abolition of censorship and licensing of the printing press.

We refuse to stand by and allow this right to be threatened. As the People's Channel we champion this freedom; for our viewers, for our listeners, for everyone in the United Kingdom.

 

Ofsite Comment: Ofcom's contempt for GB News viewers

21st May 2024. See article from spiked-online.com by Andrew Tettenborn

How, you might ask, could a show featuring independently selected, non-aligned voters directly quizzing an embattled PM breach impartiality rules? The Ofcom ruling makes no sense, at least if you look at it from the perspective of the average, level-headed man or woman in the street. But then, the apparatchiks who run Ofcom are neither particularly level-headed nor remotely reflective of the average voter.

See article from spiked-online.com

 

Ofsite Comment: The real reason Ofcom has gone after GB News

27th May 2024. See article from spectator.co.uk by Toby Young

Police Scotland is grappling with potential budgetary pressures and service reductions. David Threadgold of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) has raised concerns about the financial impact of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. According to him, the legislation has already led to an overload of calls, with over 6,000 logged since its enactment.

Threadgold's worry centers on the unforeseen costs of handling these cases, particularly the overtime payments for control room staff. He believes these expenses will reverberate throughout the year, affecting other police services. Calum Steele, former general secretary of the SPF, echoes these concerns. As reported by The Scotsman, Steele criticized Police Scotland's preparation for the Act, calling it negligently unprepared and pointing out that the additional costs were predictable.

The legislation's impact extends beyond financial strains. The Act has resulted in a notable rise in the logging of non-crime hate incidents, incidents perceived as hateful but not necessarily criminal. This increase has prompted concerns about a potential inundation of trivial or malicious complaints, especially in the context of highly charged events like football matches. Tory MSP Murdo Fraser has already lodged a complaint over a tweet he posted being logged as a hate incident.

Scotland's disgraceful new hate crime law has come into force that will undoubtedly restrict free speech and give power to those wih a scores to settle regardless of the merits of their claims.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of stirring up hatred relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. The maximum penalty is a prison sentence of seven years. A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, with the intention of stirring up hatred based on the protected characteristics.

The bar for this offence is lower than for the other protected characteristics, as it also includes insulting behaviour, and as the prosecution need only prove that stirring up hatred was likely rather than intended.

As well as the offence of stirring up hatred, the Hate Crime Act also consolidates the existing law on crimes which are aggravated by prejudice. These are where an offender demonstrates malice or ill-will towards their victim based on a protected characteristic, which can be taken into account by a sheriff or judge with a longer sentence or a higher fine than would otherwise have been the case. This is the first time that age has been included in the list of protected characteristics for aggravated offences, a move welcomed by some campaign groups.

Adam Tomkins, professor of public law at Glasgow University, and a former Conservative MSP, voted against the bill because it could see someone convicted of stirring up hatred for a comment they make in private in their own home, not just in public, and I just don't think that's where the criminal law belongs.

Susan Smith of For Women Scotland fears those who are investigated under the new law will have their lives upended.  She told BBC News:

The tests are quite woolly and we don't know how people are going to interpret this. We do anticipate that there will be a lot of malicious complaints, a lot of rather trivial complaints and potentially people who are investigated will see their lives upended. I imagine there will be many complaints, for example, made against JK Rowling.

Ch Supt Rob Hay of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents (ASPS), which represents senior officers, said there was the potential for a huge uplift in complaints about social media posts. And as is so often the case, the police have sided with complainers and have pledged to investigate every hate crime complaint it receives.

BBC News understands that these will be assessed by a dedicated team within Police Scotland including a number of hate crime advisers to assist officers in determining what, if any, action to take.