Woman Goes For Walk; Buys Some Stuff

Today the Daily Fail’s most-important story in the world is that Amanda Knox decided to go for a walk. She also bought some chocolate.

Just in case you didn’t catch the non-story from that, the Daily Mail decided to justify a paparazzi purchase print over 15 photographs of said outing. Don’t worry, that link is cached.

Given that she is innocent and now a free citizen, how is this considered in the public interest? This isn’t the first time the Daily Mail has published a completely irrelevant article about Amanda Knox. They were so determined to get that elusive first post that they misjudged her court ruling and got it horrendously wrong (making up quotes in the process, which is the dodgy part).

It’s safe to say the Daily Mail shouldn’t be considered a news source any more - they’re just a gossip rag happy to intrude on private lives.

It’s Political Correctness Gone Sensible!

The Daily Mail likes to target the BBC. They are too left-wing, they waste taxpayer’s money. Now I believe the BBC do try to be more inclusive and remain balanced. I accept they do get this wrong from time to time – and sometimes very wrong. Mistakes are made. Live TV, editorial pressures and personal prejudice affect the ability to remain balanced; but they try. It is much easier to maintain an ideological position and, in the words of Richard Littlejohn, “throw bottles”. This is what the Daily Mail does.

Sometimes, the target is because of a perceived editorial stance, or some decision (such as cancelling Last of the Summer Wine). Other times, they simple make stuff up.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail ran with the following front page (cached online version here):

A follow-up to the original article (cached again here) bleated:

“Andrew Marr says he will ignore BBC diktat to stop use of BC and AD.”

Take note of the language. The BBC has apparently forced its staff to stop using the AD/BC date format in favour of the secular terms CE/BCE – “to avoid offending non-Christians”. The articles contain some quotes from religious figures (the Christians say they are offended at the removal, the others say they aren’t offended by AD/BC) as well as the typical Tory rent-a-gobshites. Given that the Daily Mail is a horrendously Islamophobic newspaper – by non-Christians, they mean Muslims. They are again using the ‘them and us’ rhetoric, that implicitly racist position that other religions are coming here and imposing their values on us, to stir up a shitstorm.

For those not familiar with the way the Daily Mail writes articles, allow me to give you a tip. Don’t read the headline; just read the last paragraph. Let’s do that now, as it contains a quote from the BBC on the matter:

“Both AD and BC, and CE and BCE are widely accepted date systems and the decision on which term to use lies with individual production and editorial teams.”

Oh. That matches the headline, doesn’t it?! There is a whole can of worms relating to this writing technique, and how the PCC refuses to regulate this kind of article, where the headline is deliberately contradictory and incorrect. It is a disgrace to journalism and insulting to the readers. To me, it is like saying ‘we are going to lie through our teeth whilst obfuscating the truth to scrape through the regulatory procedure.’

Does the BBC quote say they have ‘turned their backs’? No. Did they issue a “diktat”? No. This is simply made up drivel.

The regular munch bunch of Peter Hitchens, Melanie Phillips and James Delingpole are quick to point out the liberal elite Marxist conspiracy at work here, eroding the rights of the Christians. Get real. If there really is a liberal elite ruling us (not in the economic sense, obviously) – then I suggest they should go and do some investigative journalism and find some stuff out, rather relying on made up shit to justify their incoherent, albeit well-remunerated rants.

This ‘attack on Christianity’ leads me right into another narrative. Political correctness gone mad! The use of politically-correct language, very often meaning secular language, is used as to not cause offense. We don’t say ‘nigger’, ‘paki’, ‘faggot’, ‘pikey’ or ‘spasticated’ – they are deeply offensive terms. Privilege is a bad thing – especially when based on illogical and ideological grounds. Whites, men, heterosexuals and abled people are still more privileged than their counterparts. Why is this the case? Why should any group feel a sense of entitlement, and have it reinforced through dogma, bigotry and stereotypes? Politically-correct language is aimed at a common, neutral ground. It is an attempt at showing an understanding of our differences. Secularism is about ensuring no religion has any privilege over any other religion, or over no religion at all.

In America (a country built upon wave-upon-wave of immigration) it is customary to say ‘Happy Holidays’ rather than ‘Merry Christmas’. Dates too, have cultural significance. We all know of 9/11, but that’s not how a British person would format that date. There are loads of well-documented cultural differences regarding the passage of time. Why should we continue to use a religious convention, when we have a perfectly good secular system? We don’t even know if Christ was born in the year the AD/BC system implies!*

if you believe, truly believe, that your privileges should be reinforced in our culture in favour of others, please leave a comment and say why. I genuinely want to know.

* For more fun on the year 0 and its implications – see Wikipedia.

Migration Statistics

The latest migration statistics have been released, and so the seemingly-perpetual “the foreigners are taking over” story hits the front pages of the media once again.

The Mail screamed Immigration soared by 20% last year – making a mockery of Government pledge to bring it DOWN. The Express ran with Immigration soars 20% in a year. The stories weren’t just restricted to the right, either. The Mirror and the Independent jumped on the “Immigration up 20%” bandwagon. Others such as Sky News and the Evening Standard joined in the fun.

The problem is – that is not what the statistics show.

The ONS report actually describes net migration – the number of incoming immigrants minus the number of outgoing emigrants. Net migration was estimated at 198,000, it was actually 239,000 – a 21% difference. Two further key points explain why net migration has risen:

• “Emigration is at its lowest since June 2005".
• “Immigration remains steady at 575,000”.

So what the report actually says is that the reason net migration has increased is that less people are moving out – not more people are moving in.

Funny – that’s not the impression you get from the headlines above. Read the articles, however, and they all talk about net migration. It seems the headlines do not match. Let’s see what our regulators say about that. According to the Press Complaints Commission’s Editor’s Code of Practice (not that it means much anyway):

“1 i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.”

Furthermore:

“1 iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.”

Are these newspapers doing the above? No. Will anything be done about this? No. According to the PCC:

“Given that headlines are usually only a few words in length, it can be quite challenging for newspapers and magazines to summarise what are often quite detailed or complicated stories. The editor will have to decide how much prominence to give to particular aspects of the story; some parts may be omitted from the headings altogether. The PCC's approach to headlines is that a headline should be read in conjunction with the text of the article before considering whether or not it is misleading.”

It seems fair enough that a headline should be read in context of a story, but the above advise does not reflect that a headline can be physically separate from an article. After all, the front page of the newspaper only has a shouty statement rather than a full article. A passer-by or a skimmer will pick up the headline, but not the article. How are they meant to judge if the headline is misleading? The logic is flawed. But in the eyes of the PCC this is fine. Clearly the article content undid the damage caused by the headline, just look at the comments under the Daily Mail’s online article:

As a result of the PCC’s total inability to handle the ongoing phone hacking scandal, it seems as if they will not be around in their current form for much longer, so hopefully whatever replaces it will have the strength to be able to enforce its rules, and make sensible rules in the first place.

The reason why these things matter can be found on our streets. The perpetuation of the fear of immigration is one of the causes for the rise in far-right groups such as the BNP and the EDL. Constant demonising of Muslims and immigrants in general has led to the immortal phrase “I’m not racist, but”. Immigration was one of the hot topics of the 2010 General Election. In the first live TV debate, the on-screen Tory approval ratings shot through the roof when Cameron started talking about imposing tougher border restrictions.

This “them and us” culture is a difficult one to tackle, especially when those who spread these stories have no concerns of retribution. Even when the PCC does wrangle an apology out of a newspaper it is never given equal prominence. These stories are spread like wildfire on forums and social networking sites, but the retractions and apologies never fully percolate the minds of the public.

Politicians tap into the fears of the public to gain power. We cannot say that the fear of immigration elected a Tory-led coalition, but I’m sure it contributed something. It’s time we stopped creating boogeymen and viewed the world in a different, more factual way - maybe then we'll have a better society.

Istyosty Down–Google Next?

The proxy service istyosty has had to close due to legal threats from Associated Newspapers (aka The Daily Mail). The cease-and-desist letter has been published online.

Istyosty worked by caching webpages and providing a URL to the cached version. This means that the cached website does not get hit every single time the cached page is loaded. This deprives the target site of advertising revenue, whether that be through page ads (which can be stripped by an automated script – this is what browser extensions like Adblock do), or by pay-per-hit schemes.

Obviously, the Daily Fail found istyosty either vocal enough, or popular enough to warrant it a threat to its online business. We can take that as a good thing. The Daily Mail is one of the most popular online news sites, gaining in popularity through flamebaitery articles (case in question: Facebook gives you cancer), reams of celebrity drivel supplemented by photographs, and the sheer ignorant and offensive columns of the likes of Richard Littlejohn and Jan Moir. Their bile is what causes people to take these measures – but they don’t care too much about that.

Now, the source of some of this content has been brought into question – allegations stand from multiple sources that the Mail online uses copyrighted images without remuneration or attribution; and there is also evidence of plagiarism. From a business perspective, this all makes sense. Competing on the Internet largely translates for competing for Google search rankings. The Mail is always up there at the top of the first page – an impressive feat. It seems as if they are willing to do anything to get there, whether that be rip off content or threaten

The big question is – will the Daily Mail go after Google? Google caches web pages in the same way:

Furthermore, I can link to the Daily Mail homepage using that cached link, just like istyosty. Google is considerably stronger that istyosty (both in terms of financial and server power) – and so will cache pages at a vastly accelerated rate. Surely this is a bigger threat to them?

The Daily Mail has a history of setting the lawyers on those who disagree with it – but will Google be considered too powerful to pull the same tactic on?

The Danger of Social Media is also its Strength

In the wake of last week’s riots across the UK, David Cameron announced on Thursday that the government would look into banning people from using social media “when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”. I think this is a ridiculous, ignorant and impossible position to uphold.

What can already by done?

Social media services are provided by private companies, and by signing up to those services you agree to abide by their rules. You do not have the right to freedom of speech on their services. It is very often the case that “private” messages are rarely private – there is money to be made in mining your data and handing it over to advertisers. This kind of policy exists so that administrators can remove hate speech and graphic content.

Looking at the terms of use of Facebook, Twitter and RIM, it is pretty clear that all three services have clauses allowing them to hand information over to the authorities. Facebook asserts:

“We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests if we have a good faith that the response is required by law.”

Twitter similarly states that:

“We also reserve the right to access, read, preserve and disclose any information as we reasonably believe is necessary to:

(i) Satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request

(v) protect the rights, property or safety of Twitter, its users and the public”

Finally, RIM

“Reserves the right to review materials posted to or sent through a Communication Service and to remove any materials in its sole discretion.”

Furthermore,

“You hereby authorize RIM to co-operate with (i) law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violation”.

All of these services will aid law enforcement authorities with their enquiries – which is in their commercial interests as by doing so they will be seen as responsible organisations who do not want to promote criminal activity.

But, David Cameron was not just talking about having these companies hand over information; he was talking about going further and banning people from these sites altogether. So, let’s take a look at whether this could actually be implemented.

The Implementation

As this was just a general speech, not a lot of details were discussed on how such a policy would be implemented. There are a lot of questions to be answered; these are a few of the big ones that come to my mind:

• Will banning be a proactive or a reactive task?
  • If done proactively – how is this reconciled with the presumption of innocence?
• Will this be a blanket internet ban, or a ban on specific sites?
  • If a blanket ban is in place – how can you guarantee that person cannot access the Internet from another machine?
  • If a social media ban is in place:
    • What is the definition of a social media service?
    • Who will keep track of what social media services exist?
    • How often will this be updated?
  • Who will enforce this ban?
• When will users be allowed back on the Internet/services?
• What is the process of appeals?

This is quite a difficult area to be wrangling policy in, as actually enforcing such a ban would incur a massive and ongoing cost to the state, would require the full co-operation of all parties involved, and verges on the impossible. BBM, for example, is encrypted. To actively police this network would require the ability to decrypt a message and identify the origin, in addition to catching the criminal with enough other evidence to prosecute.

Chris Morris’ excellent film Four Lions shows the main characters communicating through a web service called “Puffin Party”. The reason I bring this to your attention is to state that not all social network activity is carried out via the larger services. Once you start heading into the obscure, you suddenly find yourself dealing with hundreds, if not thousands of places in which communications could be taking place. When Twitter and Facebook were blocked in the Middle East uprisings earlier this year, people turned to dating sites to communicate. People even get around the so-called ‘Great Firewall of China’. These systems are never perfect.

Neutral

During the riots there were various rumours going around on Twitter that riots had started in several cities when they hadn’t. Some police forces were very visual on Twitter to dispel these rumours. There is a risk in such a fast-moving story that these rumours might gain some traction and people would take to the streets, but this is not an exclusive feature of social networks. It is good ol’ scapegoating to say that social media was the cause of the riots. Sure, it might have been one of or the major means by which the message spread, but we must also consider the flipside.

Users of social media regularly use the service to do good – by linking to charities, or important stories, or in context of this article, organise a community cleanup operation (see the #riotcleanup hashtag feed). Tom Watson MP was correct in calling this technology “neutral” as the technology does not encourage this kind of behaviour. Social media is unique in that is has the ability to spread information on a scale never seen before – that is one the whole a good thing that we should not want restricted because of some bad apples.

To me, it seems as if this part of David Cameron’s speech is nothing more than populism, with the intention of gaining small-term favour from the public, and ensuring they remain in control of the media cycle by looking ‘tough’. There is clearly a fine line between the need for the Police to be able to effectively police our society, and acting in an oppressive manner. Whilst this does mean that the Police will have to adapt to new technology, we should always be wary of how much power we hand over. In times of crisis – keep a watchful eye on the government, and think critically about what they want to introduce into law.