Francois calls for big toughening of social media harm laws
I suppose reducing freedom for everyone is much easier than taking action about the specific relevant factor which is a bit too embarassing for the modern Conservative party to touch.
Is there a basic fundamental right to be an anonymous troll online?
There's a case to be made for the law on littering in the countryside to be tightened up, but it would be about equally relevant to what happened to Amess.
Stopping anonymous trolls on the internet threatening violence on MPs has nothing to do with what happened? I think there is quite a significant connection between the two. Certainly more of a connection than littering.
And we already have practise and law around "credible / non-credible threats".
Remember the "twitter joke trial", where an initial conviction was overturned on appeal after work by the likes of David Allen Green.
On 6 January 2010, an intending traveller, Paul Chambers, then aged 26, who was planning to fly to Northern Ireland to meet his then girlfriend (later wife), posted a message on Twitter:
A week later, an off-duty manager at the airport found the message while doing an unrelated computer search. The airport management considered the message to be "not credible" as a threat, but contacted the police anyway. Chambers was arrested by anti-terror police at his office, his house was searched and his mobile phone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated. He was later charged with "sending a public electronic message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to the Communications Act 2003".
On 10 May, he was found guilty at Doncaster Magistrates' Court, fined £385 and ordered to pay £600 costs. As a consequence he lost his job as an administrative and financial supervisor at a car parts company.
..
The approved judgement concluded that "a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated, or who may reasonably be expected to see it, falls outside this provision [of the 2003 Act]". Accordingly, the appeal against conviction was "allowed on the basis that this 'tweet' did not constitute or include a message of a menacing character".
So his defence was basically that it took the airport a few days to see his message?
If they’d picked it up immediately, he’d have been in a whole load of trouble.
IMO direct threats to named businesses or individuals should damn well be illegal, whether they’re phoned in or posted on Twitter.
That’s very different to protecting whistleblowers.
The problem is that a lot of humour involves saying things that are ridiculous.
Is @IshmaelZ really suggesting that he would prefer you extracted his eyeballs with a rusty nail, than to watch a short speech?
Threats need to be credible. This wasn't.
If someone posted to Twitter "political betting down. If their sysadmin doesn't get it back in the next 30 minutes, I'm going round his house with a baseball bat", I wouldn't actually be concerned.
What if their IP address showed they were based in LA?
interesting piece from the Great White North . . .
cbc.com - 'What just happened?' Former Bloc candidate explains how it feels to lose by 12 votes 'Every vote counts, and I think I’m living proof,' says Bloc candidate Patrick O’Hara
Patrick O'Hara was driving home to Léry, Que., from Parliament Hill earlier this month when he got the call telling him that he wouldn't become a member of Parliament after all.
In the end, he came up 12 votes short.
"There's a feeling of ... what just happened? You're in awe and shock," O'Hara said.
Two weeks earlier, the rookie Bloc Québécois candidate in the riding of Châteauguay-Lacolle had every reason to believe a summer federal election had changed his life forever.
Feeling "ecstatic" and energized after having been declared the winner, he had started the process of hiring staff and "building the roadmap to taking over the riding."
The results had him unseating Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan by 286 votes in one of the tightest races in the country.
In a Facebook post two days after election day, Shanahan conceded defeat, congratulated O'Hara and tried to buck up supporters by reminding them that "life is good."
But days later, Shanahan requested a judicial recount in the riding, overseen by a superior court judge, in response to a "potential anomaly" in the count of one ballot box from an advance poll.
The request came on the heels of an earlier issue: A returning officer noticed that 410 votes had been mistakenly recorded for O'Hara, rather than 40 votes — an error that was corrected in the validation process.
O'Hara said he was still "pretty confident" everything would work out in his favour.
The recount started on Oct. 4. O'Hara was in Ottawa for orientation sessions at the time, meeting with other incoming MPs still buzzing from their victories in September.
The final numbers, released on Oct. 6, showed Shanahan had finished with 18,029 votes to his 18,017.
"Twelve votes," O'Hara said with a chuckle. "You know, you'd rather lose by 2,012. And then you're trying to figure out who are the 13 people that didn't make it to the voting." . . . .
O'Hara said he plans to run again and believes that, while it's a tough pill to swallow, gracefully accepting defeat is "how you prove to the people that you're fit for the job."
For Shanahan, it's a "testament to our democratic system" that a close-fought contest could be sorted out peaceably.
Campaigns are a time for partisan politics, she said, "but once the election is over and the people's choice has been made, the elected person is now the member of Parliament."
Democracy, O'Hara said, is a privilege.
"Every vote counts, and I think I'm living proof."
"It all had deep historical roots deriving from the claim in the 1937 Constitution that the national territory embraced the whole island of Ireland."
Interesting.
For the sake of the GFA this needs to be dropped from the ROI's Constiution.
It was! As part of the GFA.
Yeah - I didn't read the whole article which makes that clear.
Just another Briskin error.
I'm currently pondering now though -
What comes first:
An Island of Ireland Border poll
OR
Indyref2 in Scotland
?
The former given there has not yet been a border poll and if SF and the SDLP win more seats than the combined Unionist parties and the Alliance also vote for a border poll there would be one under the GFA. (At present though while SF lead the combined Unionist parties have more votes than the Nationalist parties and the Alliance also oppose a border poll).
As long as there is a UK Tory government it will refuse indyref2 for a generation after 2014 and as union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 nothing the SNP could do about it
Thanks for the response. I think your analysis given for Scotland is correct given Boris only needs to write a letter post the inevitable Section 30 request.
So many Muslims call their son Mohammed, Why do so few Christians call their son Jesus?
That's probably dependent on local culture. Just not done here. Seems more common in eg Latin-based cultures (Spanish, Cuban etc) and others.
Also the status of JC is rather higher in Christianity than a prophet; saints and OT figures - Mary, Paul, Micah, Ruth, Adam - are all more approachable.
We did have the fun time for names when the Puritans were on top.
Francois calls for big toughening of social media harm laws
I suppose reducing freedom for everyone is much easier than taking action about the specific relevant factor which is a bit too embarassing for the modern Conservative party to touch.
Is there a basic fundamental right to be an anonymous troll online?
There's a case to be made for the law on littering in the countryside to be tightened up, but it would be about equally relevant to what happened to Amess.
Stopping anonymous trolls on the internet threatening violence on MPs has nothing to do with what happened? I think there is quite a significant connection between the two. Certainly more of a connection than littering.
And we already have practise and law around "credible / non-credible threats".
Remember the "twitter joke trial", where an initial conviction was overturned on appeal after work by the likes of David Allen Green.
On 6 January 2010, an intending traveller, Paul Chambers, then aged 26, who was planning to fly to Northern Ireland to meet his then girlfriend (later wife), posted a message on Twitter:
A week later, an off-duty manager at the airport found the message while doing an unrelated computer search. The airport management considered the message to be "not credible" as a threat, but contacted the police anyway. Chambers was arrested by anti-terror police at his office, his house was searched and his mobile phone, laptop and desktop hard drive were confiscated. He was later charged with "sending a public electronic message that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character contrary to the Communications Act 2003".
On 10 May, he was found guilty at Doncaster Magistrates' Court, fined £385 and ordered to pay £600 costs. As a consequence he lost his job as an administrative and financial supervisor at a car parts company.
..
The approved judgement concluded that "a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated, or who may reasonably be expected to see it, falls outside this provision [of the 2003 Act]". Accordingly, the appeal against conviction was "allowed on the basis that this 'tweet' did not constitute or include a message of a menacing character".
So his defence was basically that it took the airport a few days to see his message?
If they’d picked it up immediately, he’d have been in a whole load of trouble.
IMO direct threats to named businesses or individuals should damn well be illegal, whether they’re phoned in or posted on Twitter.
That’s very different to protecting whistleblowers.
The problem is that a lot of humour involves saying things that are ridiculous.
Is @IshmaelZ really suggesting that he would prefer you extracted his eyeballs with a rusty nail, than to watch a short speech?
Threats need to be credible. This wasn't.
If someone posted to Twitter "political betting down. If their sysadmin doesn't get it back in the next 30 minutes, I'm going round his house with a baseball bat", I wouldn't actually be concerned.
What if their IP address showed they were based in LA?
When I was an equity research analyst at Goldman Sachs, I produced some work that (basically) claimed that a Belgian software company was a fraud.
I got a bunch of very real death threats (which, to their credit, Goldman Sachs took very seriously).
So I think I know the difference between a real threat and jokey comment.
Somebody who posts - using their real name - that they're unhappy an airport is not operating at capacity and threatens to blow it 'sky high' is not making a real threat.
Top 1% of US households now hold a larger share of US wealth (27%) than the entire US middle class (26.6%) — Federal Reserve data. Lowest share of national wealth held by US middle class—defined as middle 60% of US households by income—on record. https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1450024997469237249?s=20
I used to hope that when Christian Fuchs and Islam Slimani played for the foxes that the Leicester Mercury would run the back page headline "Christian crosses, Islam converts!"
It spoilt it for me when Colin Powell was taken in by, or went along with, Alistair Campbell's Dodgy Dossier. And anyway, wasn't Boris up for impeaching the WMD gang?
It spoilt it for me when Colin Powell was taken in by, or went along with, Alistair Campbell's Dodgy Dossier. And anyway, wasn't Boris up for impeaching the WMD gang?
No, Boris voted for the Iraq War when he was MP for Henley as he wanted Saddam gone.
First UK vaccine rollout was fast, reaching most vulnerable with a one dose before every other country (bar Israel). But there are questions about speed of the booster dose rollout as we head quickly into winter. Wrote this (with thanks to @john_actuary
The JCVI wasted so much time. The government should have forced them to come to a decision on kids and boosters by a set date or simply ploughed ahead without them. As it is they had to do that for kids. Our booster roll out should have started in at the beginning of September. Instead we waited for an extra 4 weeks and now have to play catch up. It's just idiotic really.
I do not understand it. There must have been some scientific resistance to vaxxing kids and doing boosters. But what was it, and why? Because there is no political rationale. Vaccines are popular. They make the government popular.
No one has given a satisfactory explanation for the sluggishness.
The cynic in me would suggest that Robert Dingwall may not have been fully objective. From the leaked chat logs of the HART antivaxxer group:
It was only when they got rid of him that JCVI came up with any recommendation. I'm still somewhat shocked that they decided the balance wasn't strongly enough in favour of an outright recommendation.
... and putting the balance between benefit and risk per million first doses (Tables 1 and 4):
(width of bars is median time in hospital per outcome. PIMS-TS is the very rare paediatric condition that can be triggered by covid. Translucency of the myocarditis bar is the range (ie 3-17 per million))
At least they did emphasise that transmission impairment and Long Covid concerns weren't to do with them and the CMOs should consider these in their own recommendations. But looking at that, I really feel that "the difference is marginal" is placing an excessive burden on the English language.
Since we've got a quasi-theological discussion going on, might be relevant to note that in a least one sense, as John the Baptist was precursor to Jesus Christ (or whatever you call him), so was Collin Powell a precursor to Barack Obama.
In the sense that Colin Powell convinced the majority of the American people that a Black man was totally capable of serving in and handling one of the highest and most critical positions of power, authority and responsibility in the United States and the entire world, as chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Indeed, highly possible that Colin Powell could have been elected President in 1992 if he'd chosen to run.
Believe it was 1991 when he visited Seattle on a book tour for his autobiography. By then the Emerald City was a liberal Democratic peacenik bastion. And the lines to see the General and obtain his autograph stretched for many blocks.
Sadly Powell's reputation was seriously tarnished when he became - against his own better judgement methinks - a mouthpiece for the Big Lie of the Iraq War. And doubt that many born after 1990 or thereabouts know who the heck he was.
But none of that diminishes the key role he played in American politics and society.
Since we've got a quasi-theological discussion going on, might be relevant to note that in a least one sense, as John the Baptist was precursor to Jesus Christ (or whatever you call him), so was Collin Powell a precursor to Barack Obama.
In the sense that Colin Powell convinced the majority of the American people that a Black man was totally capable of serving in and handling one of the highest and most critical positions of power, authority and responsibility in the United States and the entire world, as chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Indeed, highly possible that Colin Powell could have been elected President in 1992 if he'd chosen to run.
Believe it was 1991 when he visited Seattle on a book tour for his autobiography. By then the Emerald City was a liberal Democratic peacenik bastion. And the lines to see the General and obtain his autograph stretched for many blocks.
Sadly Powell's reputation was seriously tarnished when he became - against his own better judgement methinks - a mouthpiece for the Big Lie of the Iraq War. And doubt that many born after 1990 or thereabouts know who the heck he was.
But none of that diminishes the key role he played in American politics and society.
Iraq is now free of Saddam and elects its own President and Parliament, Afghanistan is back under the Taliban and Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
It seems the Iraq War outcome has ended up rather more successful than the Afghanistan war outcome and of course Powell helped liberate Kuwait from Saddam too
Since we've got a quasi-theological discussion going on, might be relevant to note that in a least one sense, as John the Baptist was precursor to Jesus Christ (or whatever you call him), so was Collin Powell a precursor to Barack Obama.
In the sense that Colin Powell convinced the majority of the American people that a Black man was totally capable of serving in and handling one of the highest and most critical positions of power, authority and responsibility in the United States and the entire world, as chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Indeed, highly possible that Colin Powell could have been elected President in 1992 if he'd chosen to run.
Believe it was 1991 when he visited Seattle on a book tour for his autobiography. By then the Emerald City was a liberal Democratic peacenik bastion. And the lines to see the General and obtain his autograph stretched for many blocks.
Sadly Powell's reputation was seriously tarnished when he became - against his own better judgement methinks - a mouthpiece for the Big Lie of the Iraq War. And doubt that many born after 1990 or thereabouts know who the heck he was.
But none of that diminishes the key role he played in American politics and society.
If he was going to run it would likely have been in 1996 when Dole got the nomination.
Iraq is now free of Saddam and elects its own President and Parliament, Afghanistan is back under the Taliban and Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
It seems the Iraq War outcome has ended up rather more successful than the Afghanistan war outcome and of course Powell helped liberate Kuwait from Saddam too
That’s a bit like saying somebody hates Keir Starmer less than @bigjohnowls
Since we've got a quasi-theological discussion going on, might be relevant to note that in a least one sense, as John the Baptist was precursor to Jesus Christ (or whatever you call him), so was Collin Powell a precursor to Barack Obama.
In the sense that Colin Powell convinced the majority of the American people that a Black man was totally capable of serving in and handling one of the highest and most critical positions of power, authority and responsibility in the United States and the entire world, as chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Indeed, highly possible that Colin Powell could have been elected President in 1992 if he'd chosen to run.
Believe it was 1991 when he visited Seattle on a book tour for his autobiography. By then the Emerald City was a liberal Democratic peacenik bastion. And the lines to see the General and obtain his autograph stretched for many blocks.
Sadly Powell's reputation was seriously tarnished when he became - against his own better judgement methinks - a mouthpiece for the Big Lie of the Iraq War. And doubt that many born after 1990 or thereabouts know who the heck he was.
But none of that diminishes the key role he played in American politics and society.
If he was going to run it would likely have been in 1996 when Dole got the nomination.
Iraq is now free of Saddam and elects its own President and Parliament, Afghanistan is back under the Taliban and Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
It seems the Iraq War outcome has ended up rather more successful than the Afghanistan war outcome and of course Powell helped liberate Kuwait from Saddam too
That’s a bit like saying somebody hates Keir Starmer less than @bigjohnowls
The Iraq War has ended up a victory, Iraq free of Saddam and better off than most Middle Eastern states freedom wise.
More than can be said for Afghanistan after Biden's withdrawal
Since we've got a quasi-theological discussion going on, might be relevant to note that in a least one sense, as John the Baptist was precursor to Jesus Christ (or whatever you call him), so was Collin Powell a precursor to Barack Obama.
In the sense that Colin Powell convinced the majority of the American people that a Black man was totally capable of serving in and handling one of the highest and most critical positions of power, authority and responsibility in the United States and the entire world, as chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Indeed, highly possible that Colin Powell could have been elected President in 1992 if he'd chosen to run.
Believe it was 1991 when he visited Seattle on a book tour for his autobiography. By then the Emerald City was a liberal Democratic peacenik bastion. And the lines to see the General and obtain his autograph stretched for many blocks.
Sadly Powell's reputation was seriously tarnished when he became - against his own better judgement methinks - a mouthpiece for the Big Lie of the Iraq War. And doubt that many born after 1990 or thereabouts know who the heck he was.
But none of that diminishes the key role he played in American politics and society.
If he was going to run it would likely have been in 1996 when Dole got the nomination.
Iraq is now free of Saddam and elects its own President and Parliament, Afghanistan is back under the Taliban and Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
It seems the Iraq War outcome has ended up rather more successful than the Afghanistan war outcome and of course Powell helped liberate Kuwait from Saddam too
That’s a bit like saying somebody hates Keir Starmer less than @bigjohnowls
The Iraq War has ended up a victory, Iraq free of Saddam and better off than most Middle Eastern states freedom wise.
More than can be said for Afghanistan after Biden's withdrawal
I’m not sure what’s more baffling - that you believe it, or that you say it.
Comments
Cameron by contrast had a 26% deficit in Tory-Labour marginals in 2014 and an 18% deficit across GB
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1449687194864660482?s=20
cbc.com - 'What just happened?' Former Bloc candidate explains how it feels to lose by 12 votes
'Every vote counts, and I think I’m living proof,' says Bloc candidate Patrick O’Hara
Patrick O'Hara was driving home to Léry, Que., from Parliament Hill earlier this month when he got the call telling him that he wouldn't become a member of Parliament after all.
In the end, he came up 12 votes short.
"There's a feeling of ... what just happened? You're in awe and shock," O'Hara said.
Two weeks earlier, the rookie Bloc Québécois candidate in the riding of Châteauguay-Lacolle had every reason to believe a summer federal election had changed his life forever.
Feeling "ecstatic" and energized after having been declared the winner, he had started the process of hiring staff and "building the roadmap to taking over the riding."
The results had him unseating Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan by 286 votes in one of the tightest races in the country.
In a Facebook post two days after election day, Shanahan conceded defeat, congratulated O'Hara and tried to buck up supporters by reminding them that "life is good."
But days later, Shanahan requested a judicial recount in the riding, overseen by a superior court judge, in response to a "potential anomaly" in the count of one ballot box from an advance poll.
The request came on the heels of an earlier issue: A returning officer noticed that 410 votes had been mistakenly recorded for O'Hara, rather than 40 votes — an error that was corrected in the validation process.
O'Hara said he was still "pretty confident" everything would work out in his favour.
The recount started on Oct. 4. O'Hara was in Ottawa for orientation sessions at the time, meeting with other incoming MPs still buzzing from their victories in September.
The final numbers, released on Oct. 6, showed Shanahan had finished with 18,029 votes to his 18,017.
"Twelve votes," O'Hara said with a chuckle. "You know, you'd rather lose by 2,012. And then you're trying to figure out who are the 13 people that didn't make it to the voting." . . . .
O'Hara said he plans to run again and believes that, while it's a tough pill to swallow, gracefully accepting defeat is "how you prove to the people that you're fit for the job."
For Shanahan, it's a "testament to our democratic system" that a close-fought contest could be sorted out peaceably.
Campaigns are a time for partisan politics, she said, "but once the election is over and the people's choice has been made, the elected person is now the member of Parliament."
Democracy, O'Hara said, is a privilege.
"Every vote counts, and I think I'm living proof."
Thanks for the response. I think your analysis given for Scotland is correct given Boris only needs to write a letter post the inevitable Section 30 request.
Also the status of JC is rather higher in Christianity than a prophet; saints and OT figures - Mary, Paul, Micah, Ruth, Adam - are all more approachable.
We did have the fun time for names when the Puritans were on top.
He leaves a lasting legacy and I’m sure his life will continue to be an inspiration to many.'
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1450158880420503554?s=20
https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1450162772117889030
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1449980169381453825?s=20
After the Motoon episode quite a lot of ancient images of Mohammed came out of the woodwork.
I got a bunch of very real death threats (which, to their credit, Goldman Sachs took very seriously).
So I think I know the difference between a real threat and jokey comment.
Somebody who posts - using their real name - that they're unhappy an airport is not operating at capacity and threatens to blow it 'sky high' is not making a real threat.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1450024997469237249?s=20
https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/
What happens when you choose NULL as your license plate.
It was only when they got rid of him that JCVI came up with any recommendation. I'm still somewhat shocked that they decided the balance wasn't strongly enough in favour of an outright recommendation.
Taking their report itself here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/jcvi-statement-september-2021-covid-19-vaccination-of-children-aged-12-to-15-years/jcvi-statement-on-covid-19-vaccination-of-children-aged-12-to-15-years-3-september-2021
... and putting the balance between benefit and risk per million first doses (Tables 1 and 4):
(width of bars is median time in hospital per outcome. PIMS-TS is the very rare paediatric condition that can be triggered by covid. Translucency of the myocarditis bar is the range (ie 3-17 per million))
At least they did emphasise that transmission impairment and Long Covid concerns weren't to do with them and the CMOs should consider these in their own recommendations. But looking at that, I really feel that "the difference is marginal" is placing an excessive burden on the English language.
In the sense that Colin Powell convinced the majority of the American people that a Black man was totally capable of serving in and handling one of the highest and most critical positions of power, authority and responsibility in the United States and the entire world, as chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Indeed, highly possible that Colin Powell could have been elected President in 1992 if he'd chosen to run.
Believe it was 1991 when he visited Seattle on a book tour for his autobiography. By then the Emerald City was a liberal Democratic peacenik bastion. And the lines to see the General and obtain his autograph stretched for many blocks.
Sadly Powell's reputation was seriously tarnished when he became - against his own better judgement methinks - a mouthpiece for the Big Lie of the Iraq War. And doubt that many born after 1990 or thereabouts know who the heck he was.
But none of that diminishes the key role he played in American politics and society.
https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1450124139717709825?s=20
Iraq is now free of Saddam and elects its own President and Parliament, Afghanistan is back under the Taliban and Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
It seems the Iraq War outcome has ended up rather more successful than the Afghanistan war outcome and of course Powell helped liberate Kuwait from Saddam too
More than can be said for Afghanistan after Biden's withdrawal
Bicyclists will start getting jumpers with rude taxi and bus drivers' numbers on them :-) .