The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
WTF is wrong with the BBC? Victoria Pendleton is on promoting TV program and she is captioned as ‘Jockey’. She is famous for cycling. Surely ‘Olympic cyclist and part time jockey’ would be more appropriate? If you can’t get the basics right, how are you going to report on the big stuff correctly?
They don’t?
Yesterday they were saying that “hundreds” were killed in an “attack” on the Gaza hospital last week.
- the number is dispute - the consensus is that it was a misfiring rocket rather than an “attack” on the hospital
Interesting how popular the idea has become that it's right to ban things that you happen to dislike.
Probably an effect of using social media - such as this website.
When the change of management at Twitter happened last year, a lot of people were being encouraged to move over to the Mastodon platform. The Mastodon server mods immediately drowned in an avalanche of requests for people to be banned. They explained that they have a “Mute” button which removed people you don’t want to hear from - but that wasn’t what the Twitter refugees wanted, they wanted to be able to have people they disliked kicked off the platform altogether and denied a voice, removed from ‘the conversation’.
And this is the free speech argument. So much of the opinions out there on social media are profoundly ignorant, stupid and simply incorrect. But if they aren't actually illegal who am I to shut them down?
We are not helped that there are clickbait agitators on these platforms who post material they know to be incorrect, misleading or even merely inaccurate. They do so to push the political / moral / social position they are agitating for. How is that any different to being the editorial team at GB News or various newspapers?
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You could legislate to make them publish their algorithms. Then let US class action lawyers do their stuff.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
WTF is wrong with the BBC? Victoria Pendleton is on promoting TV program and she is captioned as ‘Jockey’. She is famous for cycling. Surely ‘Olympic cyclist and part time jockey’ would be more appropriate? If you can’t get the basics right, how are you going to report on the big stuff correctly?
They don’t?
Yesterday they were saying that “hundreds” were killed in an “attack” on the Gaza hospital last week.
- the number is dispute - the consensus is that it was a misfiring rocket rather than an “attack” on the hospital
When social media began, Serious Journalists said it was terrible because 1) no fact checking and 2) Proper People didn’t get to decide what is a story.
The way that traditional media has dealt with the competition is to try be worse at 1 & 2
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
I say that the labour needs to be unionised for multiple reasons. Firstly, to prevent it just being offshored as much of it is now. Why? Because content moderation is a difficult and nuanced job that requires understanding of context and the discretion of language. Much tech training for AI or moderation falls to people in East Asia paid very little to click things that look similar or dissimilar - this is great for keeping profits high, but not good for outcomes.
The second reason I say unionisation must be there is due to the immense emotional toll moderation can take. Look at the last two weeks and imagine it being your job to scroll through pictures of Gaza or Israel and scrutinise them to determine what pictures are real and which are fake. Having to look at these disturbing and traumatic images and videos for a job requires significant support that, again, a company will not provide because it costs money. Union safeguarding of worker wellbeing is therefore a necessity.
The third reason is to respond to the tech bro culture of technofeudalism, as Varoufakis puts it, where the likes of Bezos, Theil, Musk, Zuckerburg etc. all see their success as the success of their individual might and genius rather than the lucky break they found themselves in. All of the big tech moguls are horrifically anti worker and anti union precisely because worker organising cuts into their bottom line and is anathema to their ideology - an ideology that is hollowing out our world and arguing for Caesarism (and not the good populist redistributing of land to the poor Caesarism, the bad, despotic "do what I say or else" kind of Caesarism). The number of these guys who now advocate essentially for libertarian monarchies where they (surprisingly!) would end up as the monarch is bad for them and bad for all of us, and worker unionisation would help combat that.
Again, short of seizing all their assets (which I would not be against) these individuals and multinational corporations are so powerful and across so many states that it would otherwise be seriously hard to force them to do anything. It is arguably easier to empower the workers, the actual people who do the actual labour of making social media platforms function, in a way to create positive outcomes then it is to try and force regulation top down on them.
I read that Suella Braverman is taking the Met to task for not doing enough to stop hateful and divisive rhetoric. I agree. They should arrest Braverman forthwith.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Better that people just shout jihad to the small group near them than plant bombs.
Better that they are allowed to let off steam than take offensive action.
Better that we keep a sense of proportion than embrace creeping authoritarianism.
Interesting how popular the idea has become that it's right to ban things that you happen to dislike.
Probably an effect of using social media - such as this website.
When the change of management at Twitter happened last year, a lot of people were being encouraged to move over to the Mastodon platform. The Mastodon server mods immediately drowned in an avalanche of requests for people to be banned. They explained that they have a “Mute” button which removed people you don’t want to hear from - but that wasn’t what the Twitter refugees wanted, they wanted to be able to have people they disliked kicked off the platform altogether and denied a voice, removed from ‘the conversation’.
And this is the free speech argument. So much of the opinions out there on social media are profoundly ignorant, stupid and simply incorrect. But if they aren't actually illegal who am I to shut them down?
We are not helped that there are clickbait agitators on these platforms who post material they know to be incorrect, misleading or even merely inaccurate. They do so to push the political / moral / social position they are agitating for. How is that any different to being the editorial team at GB News or various newspapers?
You talk about clickbait agitators, and there are certainly posters on the right and left who do this.
But also the mainstream media is occupied by clickbait agitators now. Even local regional papers, like the Chronicle and the Metro, are it it. Their social media feed is full of stories either lifted from Reddit or Mumsnet or Twitter or the like and presented as news or clickbait based on daytime TV. Usually highly exaggerated headlines. Susannah Reid quits GMB being one last week. She was going on holiday !!!! Being a news reporter nowadays seems to mean you harvest social media for stories to drive traffic to your website.
Social media has had a malign effect on the mainstream media as well as discourse in this country.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
I'm quite enjoying our nuggety weekend caravanserai around the inside of Mr Brooks' head. Thanks, Alan.
Very good debate starters - express the first 80% of a complete opinion, 20% of a provocation, and then stop.
I think social media has significant upsides as well as downsides, and it won't save us from being data profiled. The BBC reported the Tesco putting Beer next to Nappies story in April 1998 (obviously in a way deprecating to men) - before large social media platforms, before the blogosphere, and nearly pre-Google. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/77622.stm
I think social media allows us to be more transparent, and display our inner self without quite intending to. A good thing? That's debatable, too.
Interesting how popular the idea has become that it's right to ban things that you happen to dislike.
Probably an effect of using social media - such as this website.
When the change of management at Twitter happened last year, a lot of people were being encouraged to move over to the Mastodon platform. The Mastodon server mods immediately drowned in an avalanche of requests for people to be banned. They explained that they have a “Mute” button which removed people you don’t want to hear from - but that wasn’t what the Twitter refugees wanted, they wanted to be able to have people they disliked kicked off the platform altogether and denied a voice, removed from ‘the conversation’.
And this is the free speech argument. So much of the opinions out there on social media are profoundly ignorant, stupid and simply incorrect. But if they aren't actually illegal who am I to shut them down?
We are not helped that there are clickbait agitators on these platforms who post material they know to be incorrect, misleading or even merely inaccurate. They do so to push the political / moral / social position they are agitating for. How is that any different to being the editorial team at GB News or various newspapers?
You talk about clickbait agitators, and there are certainly posters on the right and left who do this.
But also the mainstream media is occupied by clickbait agitators now. Even local regional papers, like the Chronicle and the Metro, are it it. Their social media feed is full of stories either lifted from Reddit or Mumsnet or Twitter or the like and presented as news or clickbait based on daytime TV. Usually highly exaggerated headlines. Susannah Reid quits GMB being one last week. She was going on holiday !!!! Being a news reporter nowadays seems to mean you harvest social media for stories to drive traffic to your website.
Social media has had a malign effect on the mainstream media as well as discourse in this country.
Without a built in audience - anything that needs an audience goes for the click bait headline to pull an extra few visitors in.
Heck just about the only papers that don't play the game are the Times and FT who know the audience have already paid so can use an informative headline - because they don't need to maximise viewers on every page..
Off topic, the Argentinian result is interesting (and cautiously encouraging) - the overwhelming favourite and leader in the polls, an aggressive Bolsonaro/Trump style populist with ultra-right opinions on the role of the state, was routed. There are some suggestions here on why:
That said, the probable winner is a Peronist, which is as I understand it watered-down populism which avoids dealing with serious economic problems. But I know enough about it - are there others here who know the Argentinian scene well?
The third placed candidate was the centre right candidate however whose preferences will be decisive in the run off
Social media is a channel. It allows people to disseminate their views as never before and I am failing to see how this is a bad thing. If people are nasty, spiteful bigots then so be it. That is people for you.
And also people are banging on about WhatsApp. How is that social media? It is a messaging app. Might as well ban the telephone or conference calls.
On topic: the local Facebook groups/pages are blaming the floods in Angus on the resident beaver population, calling for an immediate cull.
On that basis alone, social media has been a disaster.
Hang on, local councillors are now blaming the gravel beds (where Salmon spawn) for reducing capacity in the river.
This is where social media fails us - the simple, populist option, with 300 likes on Facebook, ends up as government policy. The solution to flooding is not to maximise flow - it's to slow it down, increase the capacity of upland areas to absorb and then release water slowly.
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
Anyone advocating that all user post content is moderated by a human obviously has no idea about how much user generated content is posted. Take just youtube for example 271,330 hours each and every day, To have a human watch every second of it would require about 34,000 moderators. And youtube is far from the biggest repository of user generated content.
Add in to that each and every moderator will have a bias, and would be ban happy on stuff they didn't personally like so you would probably end up needing a moderation review team of a similar size.
Absolutely no idea what he thinks the moderators joining a union adds to the process
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
Anyone advocating that all user post content is moderated by a human obviously has no idea about how much user generated content is posted. Take just youtube for example 271,330 hours each and every day, To have a human watch every second of it would require about 34,000 moderators. And youtube is far from the biggest repository of user generated content.
Add in to that each and every moderator will have a bias, and would be ban happy on stuff they didn't personally like so you would probably end up needing a moderation review team of a similar size.
Absolutely no idea what he thinks the moderators joining a union adds to the process
I explained at length in a response why I think human moderation is important and why I think it is skilled labour that requires unionisation
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Better that people just shout jihad to the small group near them than plant bombs.
Better that they are allowed to let off steam than take offensive action.
Better that we keep a sense of proportion than embrace creeping authoritarianism.
How far do we allow "let off steam" to go?
Is allowing the "brothers" to intimidate a pro-Israel march in N London enough to force it to be cancelled on the advice of the Police ok as long as it allows them "to let off steam"?
Is allowing groups to force teachers into hiding for making comments about the Koran maintaining "a sense of proportion"?
On topic: the local Facebook groups/pages are blaming the floods in Angus on the resident beaver population, calling for an immediate cull.
On that basis alone, social media has been a disaster.
Hang on, local councillors are now blaming the gravel beds (where Salmon spawn) for reducing capacity in the river.
This is where social media fails us - the simple, populist option, with 300 likes on Facebook, ends up as government policy. The solution to flooding is not to maximise flow - it's to slow it down, increase the capacity of upland areas to absorb and then release water slowly.
Though excessively slowing down the flow is equally problematic. Which is why water engineering has been a sophisticated thing since before the Romans.
On topic: the local Facebook groups/pages are blaming the floods in Angus on the resident beaver population, calling for an immediate cull.
On that basis alone, social media has been a disaster.
Bit harsh. Could just as well be the Rainbows to blame.
I've pointed out that it's probably a lack of beavers that has caused the issues, the doughty dam builders unable to construct enough in the time they've moved over from the Tay.
"Yousaf to deploy 10,000 beavers to Angus in wake of floods". I've had to turn notifications off.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
Not in this specific instance, no, but possibly that will be brought up as well.
Given the Tories could about to be routed everywhere. Only hotels in a very small number of Constituencies then. All Tory held seats are election battlegrounds surely
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
"From the river to the sea" is the standard Instagram post all my uni friends are posting in support of Palestine. I don't think they know the implication, and to be fair that's precisely how the Palestinian ambassador has been describing historical Palestine.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
"From the river to the sea" is the standard Instagram post all my uni friends are posting in support of Palestine. I don't think they know the implication, and to be fair that's precisely how the Palestinian ambassador has been describing historical Palestine.
The implication is only there if you put it there - "Palestine will be free / from the river to the sea" is about the desire for freedom and makes no reference to how; it is only because of other politicians and extremists use of the phrase "push Jews into the sea" that there is this implication, despite the use of that chant predating that.
Social media is a channel. It allows people to disseminate their views as never before and I am failing to see how this is a bad thing. If people are nasty, spiteful bigots then so be it. That is people for you.
And also people are banging on about WhatsApp. How is that social media? It is a messaging app. Might as well ban the telephone or conference calls.
Clearly a difficult, even impossible issue. But for an objective reason why it is a 'bad thing', I suggest that it is an example of Gresham's law. I.e, 'Bad dissemination drives out good'.
In the olden days of a few years ago all communication beyond the personal and the small group, was subject to moderation, reputation, correction and the laws of defamation. Nearly all mass communication was put out by bodies that had a reputation to defend and were worth suing in that they had funds to cough up.
There are now huge tracts of society online in which none of this it true or can work or could only work by the sort of self limitation characteristically shown on PB and other smallish outfits. (If PB stopped being like that I imagine most posters would immediately leave).
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
"From the river to the sea" is the standard Instagram post all my uni friends are posting in support of Palestine. I don't think they know the implication, and to be fair that's precisely how the Palestinian ambassador has been describing historical Palestine.
The implication is only there if you put it there - "Palestine will be free / from the river to the sea" is about the desire for freedom and makes no reference to how; it is only because of other politicians and extremists use of the phrase "push Jews into the sea" that there is this implication, despite the use of that chant predating that.
I think the general point is that people are posting/chanting stuff without any understanding of the connotations. For my generation, this is the first time Israel/Palestine had dominated the news.
Very grateful to Rory Stewart for his excellent explainer that went viral a few days ago.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
"From the river to the sea" is the standard Instagram post all my uni friends are posting in support of Palestine. I don't think they know the implication, and to be fair that's precisely how the Palestinian ambassador has been describing historical Palestine.
The implication is only there if you put it there - "Palestine will be free / from the river to the sea" is about the desire for freedom and makes no reference to how; it is only because of other politicians and extremists use of the phrase "push Jews into the sea" that there is this implication, despite the use of that chant predating that.
One of the things I find most disconcerting about that chant is that you could put the word "Jew" before the word "free" and it would both not change its cadence and yet give it a much darker meaning.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
Hey what's your problem. I said that it referred to Hamas' desire to team up with the Jews, from the river to the sea, and play hopscotch and quoits with them. Perhaps make some lemonade.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
My favourite from this weekend was the Manchester Useless (*) supporters wailing all over twitter that their failed football club was perhaps going to be significantly run, and hopefully rescued from the swamp, by a CYCLING COACH (aka Dave Brailsford),
Online Footy Supporters are one demographic that constantly blames "the cyclist" for not wearing Hi-Viz or similar to be seen by a driver, when said driver has just driven through a red light "without seeing it" and put someone in hospital.
(* No league titles for 10 years, more managers since Ferguson than the Tory Party has had leaders.)
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
Anyone advocating that all user post content is moderated by a human obviously has no idea about how much user generated content is posted. Take just youtube for example 271,330 hours each and every day, To have a human watch every second of it would require about 34,000 moderators. And youtube is far from the biggest repository of user generated content.
Add in to that each and every moderator will have a bias, and would be ban happy on stuff they didn't personally like so you would probably end up needing a moderation review team of a similar size.
Absolutely no idea what he thinks the moderators joining a union adds to the process
Highlights the triumph and disaster of self published/social media, though.
Creating content of an enjoyable and useful standard is pretty cheap these days. So is distribution. Neither of those used to be the case.
The main expensive bit left is the curation/moderation/censorship. If SM companies had to do that properly with actual human staff, the costs would blow their business models apart. Hence the tendency to armwave those costs out of existence.
Social media is a channel. It allows people to disseminate their views as never before and I am failing to see how this is a bad thing. If people are nasty, spiteful bigots then so be it. That is people for you.
And also people are banging on about WhatsApp. How is that social media? It is a messaging app. Might as well ban the telephone or conference calls.
Clearly a difficult, even impossible issue. But for an objective reason why it is a 'bad thing', I suggest that it is an example of Gresham's law. I.e, 'Bad dissemination drives out good'.
In the olden days of a few years ago all communication beyond the personal and the small group, was subject to moderation, reputation, correction and the laws of defamation. Nearly all mass communication was put out by bodies that had a reputation to defend and were worth suing in that they had funds to cough up.
There are now huge tracts of society online in which none of this it true or can work or could only work by the sort of self limitation characteristically shown on PB and other smallish outfits. (If PB stopped being like that I imagine most posters would immediately leave).
Hmm. Has a slight whiff of "Auntie knows best" about it. What reputation are talking about. To use the current Middle East hoo-ha as an example. Hamas would want to protect its reputation but what how would it want to portray itself.
I've recently taken sabbaticals from the News too. I don't expect everyone to follow suit but Reuters have reported a marked drop in people who follow the News since the pandemic:
Since the Hamas atrocity I have barely watched or looked at the News. Why fret about things you cannot change? I'm much happier for it.
But back to social media: absolutely!
Life was generally far happier before the internet. Discuss.
Absolutely, 100% correct
Social media discussions are so much more divisive than those in real life, where you are more likely to end up finding some common ground with your opponent. When I was banned from here for 18 months I barely took any interest on politics or watched the news - you’d be amazed how easy it is to be pretty much completely unaware of the topics PB considers hugely important; the idea of getting het up in an argument over them seemed ludicrous
One of the kindest and most interesting people I’ve met in the last few years lives down the street I moved into in 2021 - we go walking/running together. He is a vegan who reads the Guardian. & said he was devastated by the referendum result, so I just kept schtum about what I thought. The one time we vaguely discussed politics it veered into critical race theory/feminism and got a bit frosty, so now we just don’t talk about it. If he were a poster on here I’d probably have been at odds with him constantly rather than considering him a close friend
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
Lol, I've seen counter protesters / fash dressed up as literal crusaders holding banners saying stuff like "Deus Vult" - they would not get arrested.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
There has to be a halfway house.
It's called the 2 state solution that all major UK Parties claim to support.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
Crusades get an especially bad press in relative terms, especially considering that no part of the Christian world either defends them or wants to have another go.
In reality they are an ancient part of a long, sad, continuing history in which Jerusalem has been captured and recaptured 44 times (Wiki; other numbers are available), with almost everyone having had a least one shot at it.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
Any state in that area should be a multiethnic, multireligious land - similar to how it was prior to British Rule and eventual Zionism (even if it wasn't perfect, Jewish people, Muslim Arabs and Christians lived together in communities with common levels of unrest, and no significant persecution of Jewish people outside extra taxation, which has always been part of how Islam governs "people of the Book" - Jewish people and Christians). As I have said here before, a state that has both Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs and does a truth and reconciliation process that brings justice to criminal actors on both sides is the only solution for long term peace.
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
Anyone advocating that all user post content is moderated by a human obviously has no idea about how much user generated content is posted. Take just youtube for example 271,330 hours each and every day, To have a human watch every second of it would require about 34,000 moderators. And youtube is far from the biggest repository of user generated content.
Add in to that each and every moderator will have a bias, and would be ban happy on stuff they didn't personally like so you would probably end up needing a moderation review team of a similar size.
Absolutely no idea what he thinks the moderators joining a union adds to the process
Highlights the triumph and disaster of self published/social media, though.
Creating content of an enjoyable and useful standard is pretty cheap these days. So is distribution. Neither of those used to be the case.
The main expensive bit left is the curation/moderation/censorship. If SM companies had to do that properly with actual human staff, the costs would blow their business models apart. Hence the tendency to armwave those costs out of existence.
12 months ago, Forbes reported Facebook as having 15,000 employee or contract moderators.
At present Youtube has real problems with their system; I have seen no ideas as to how they are going to fix it.
There are a lot of people who due to content censorship (eg picture of a tank firing its gun) or fake copyright strikes are putting their full-fat content elsewhere and using Youtube for in part bowdlerised trailers.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
There has to be a halfway house.
It's called the 2 state solution that all major UK Parties claim to support.
In the long run the most interesting question, never raised at demonstrations, is: What are the policies and politics which best assist good people who are Palestinians and good people who are Israelis and do least harm to both.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
So what? As I said if far white marchers protesting against immigration had shouted for a 'crusade' I repeat they would have been arrested for inciting racial hatred (a crusade for better education is a different context).
Just as those shouting 'jihad' in a march against Israel were clearly campaigning for terrorism against Israel
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
Any state in that area should be a multiethnic, multireligious land - similar to how it was prior to British Rule and eventual Zionism (even if it wasn't perfect, Jewish people, Muslim Arabs and Christians lived together in communities with common levels of unrest, and no significant persecution of Jewish people outside extra taxation, which has always been part of how Islam governs "people of the Book" - Jewish people and Christians). As I have said here before, a state that has both Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs and does a truth and reconciliation process that brings justice to criminal actors on both sides is the only solution for long term peace.
"... and no significant persecution of Jewish people outside extra taxation"
As has been pointed out before, that is rubbish.
What you suggest would just end up with the Jews being 'removed' from the Middle East. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that your idealism is trumping your realism.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
I was listening to that Alistair Campbell/Rory Stewart podcast last week - they've been very good and balanced in looking at this latest flare up in the region and explaining how we got here, going back to the Romans, via WW1, Lawrence's promises to the Arabs and the Balfour Declaration, the Holocaust, 1948 and the wars and conflict that have brought us to today. They had an hour long interview with the PA's ambassador to the UK. They didn't give him an easy ride at all.
The gist of what the ambassador was saying was the Hamas is not part of the PA. It never has been. Hamas never supported the Oslo Accords. The ambassador's view, and that of the PA and its constituent parts such as the PLO, he said, was that the two state solution as outlined by the Oslo Accords is the only viable solution.
Hamas are extremists. Their position is no Jews in Palestine, but if the ambassador was speaking the truth than the view of the non-extremist Palestinian leadership is still the two state solution is the only resolution.
In another podcast they spoke to a centrist Israeli, again for an hour, who is a fierce critic of Netanyahu but who was also, understandably, rocked to the core by the Hamas attacks. He despaired of Israel's actions over the past few years and, IIRC, too couldn't see any resolution beyond the two state solution.
The problem, sadly, is that the extremists in both sides are in control and the Oslo proposals seem a million miles away. And each side is becoming ever more extreme as they slaughter each other, and the cycle continues.
It's a tragedy for innocent people on both sides. Both sides are, at the same time, victims and guilty of crimes, which can be difficult to recognise and assimilate, I think.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
Any state in that area should be a multiethnic, multireligious land - similar to how it was prior to British Rule and eventual Zionism (even if it wasn't perfect, Jewish people, Muslim Arabs and Christians lived together in communities with common levels of unrest, and no significant persecution of Jewish people outside extra taxation, which has always been part of how Islam governs "people of the Book" - Jewish people and Christians). As I have said here before, a state that has both Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs and does a truth and reconciliation process that brings justice to criminal actors on both sides is the only solution for long term peace.
So back to the heady, idyllic days of Islam discriminating against Christians and Jews on account of their religion. How blissful this nirvana of yours will be.
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
Anyone advocating that all user post content is moderated by a human obviously has no idea about how much user generated content is posted. Take just youtube for example 271,330 hours each and every day, To have a human watch every second of it would require about 34,000 moderators. And youtube is far from the biggest repository of user generated content.
Add in to that each and every moderator will have a bias, and would be ban happy on stuff they didn't personally like so you would probably end up needing a moderation review team of a similar size.
Absolutely no idea what he thinks the moderators joining a union adds to the process
500 million tweets per day.
"I have found a tweet that appals me." Really? What was the probability of that? 😀
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
I was listening to that Alistair Campbell/Rory Stewart podcast last week - they've been very good and balanced in looking at this latest flare up in the region and explaining how we got here, going back to the Romans, via WW1, Lawrence's promises to the Arabs and the Balfour Declaration, the Holocaust, 1948 and the wars and conflict that have brought us to today. They had an hour long interview with the PA's ambassador to the UK. They didn't give him an easy ride at all.
The gist of what the ambassador was saying was the Hamas is not part of the PA. It never has been. Hamas never supported the Oslo Accords. The ambassador's view, and that of the PA and its constituent parts such as the PLO, he said, was that the two state solution as outlined by the Oslo Accords is the only viable solution.
Hamas are extremists. Their position is no Jews in Palestine, but if the ambassador was speaking the truth than the view of the non-extremist Palestinian leadership is still the two state solution is the only resolution.
In another podcast they spoke to a centrist Israeli, again for an hour, who is a fierce critic of Netanyahu but who was also, understandably, rocked to the core by the Hamas attacks. He despaired of Israel's actions over the past few years and, IIRC, too couldn't see any resolution beyond the two state solution.
The problem, sadly, is that the extremists in both sides are in control and the Oslo proposals seem a million miles away. And each side is becoming ever more extreme as they slaughter each other, and the cycle continues.
It's a tragedy for innocent people on both sides. Both sides are, at the same time, victims and guilty of crimes, which can be difficult to recognise and assimilate, I think.
Nice summary. I dislike that podcast intensely but that seems a fair summation from its guests.
I do not, if I had a quibble, see the equivalence between Netanyahu and Hamas but if I was a West Bank Arab I would be looking at the settlements I might think differently.
It sounded like both "sides" saw Hamas as the problem - so did they venture a solution in the here and now wrt them rather than more broadly advocating a currently impossible "Two State solution"?
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
Anyone advocating that all user post content is moderated by a human obviously has no idea about how much user generated content is posted. Take just youtube for example 271,330 hours each and every day, To have a human watch every second of it would require about 34,000 moderators. And youtube is far from the biggest repository of user generated content.
Add in to that each and every moderator will have a bias, and would be ban happy on stuff they didn't personally like so you would probably end up needing a moderation review team of a similar size.
Absolutely no idea what he thinks the moderators joining a union adds to the process
Highlights the triumph and disaster of self published/social media, though.
Creating content of an enjoyable and useful standard is pretty cheap these days. So is distribution. Neither of those used to be the case.
The main expensive bit left is the curation/moderation/censorship. If SM companies had to do that properly with actual human staff, the costs would blow their business models apart. Hence the tendency to armwave those costs out of existence.
12 months ago, Forbes reported Facebook as having 15,000 employee or contract moderators.
At present Youtube has real problems with their system; I have seen no ideas as to how they are going to fix it.
There are a lot of people who due to content censorship (eg picture of a tank firing its gun) or fake copyright strikes are putting their full-fat content elsewhere and using Youtube for in part bowdlerised trailers.
Youtube just let Fox News obtain copyright strikes against dozens of American political YouTube channels, over footage of the last Republican debate. The vast majority of them were clearly commentary or discussion, which is fair use, rather than simply rebroadcasting of Fox’s content.
The really sinister backdrop to this, is that a second similar offence will take a live YT channel off air for three months in the run up to the election. It’s been seen as mainstream media channels trying to shut down independent media at a critical time.
The freelance and offshore content moderators should really be banned. There’s thousands of people in the Philippines and India who get to spend their days watching snuff movies and child porn, for a couple of dollars an hour. Facebook’s contractor has a few in the US, paid little more than minimum wage, with little counselling, and no counselling at all once you quit - which they all do, after only a few months.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
So what? As I said if far white marchers protesting against immigration had shouted for a 'crusade' I repeat they would have been arrested for inciting racial hatred (a crusade for better education is a different context).
The English Defence League evoke the Crusades constantly in their demos. They literally have people dressed as Crusaders, and their logo is a Knight's Templar-style cross with the Crusader slogan "in hoc signo vinces" (by this sign we conquer).
“From the river to the desert Palestine is gonna geddit”
Which has the advantage of novelty and candour, unlike the more occultated version from the pro-Pal types
Scans like shit whoever thought that up needs, er, pushing into the sea.
I think the rhyme is more the issue, than the scansion?
The advantage of this imperfect couplet is that it can be read both ways: Palestine is going to take all the land from the Jordan to the Med, or, Palestine is gonna get it in terms of bombs
But if I was aiming for the latter my personal choice would be:
“From the river to the Tophet Gaza Strip is gonna cop it”
Which has the bonus of a clever reference, if I say so myself
“From the river to the desert Palestine is gonna geddit”
Which has the advantage of novelty and candour, unlike the more occultated version from the pro-Pal types
Scans like shit whoever thought that up needs, er, pushing into the sea.
I think the rhyme is more the issue, than the scansion?
The advantage of this imperfect couplet is that it can be read both ways: Palestine is going to take all the land from the Jordan to the Med, or, Palestine is gonna get it in terms of bombs:
But if I was aiming for the latter my personal choice would be:
“From the river to the Tophet Gaza Strip is gonna cop it”
Which has the advantage of a clever reference, if I say so myself
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
I was listening to that Alistair Campbell/Rory Stewart podcast last week - they've been very good and balanced in looking at this latest flare up in the region. The had an hour long interview with the PA's ambassador to the UK. They didn't give him an easy ride at all.
The gist of what the ambassador was saying was the Hamas is not part of the PA. It never has been. The ambassador's view, and that of the PA and its constituent parts he said, was that the two state solution as outlined by the Oslo Accords is the only viable solution. He, understandable
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
I was listening to that Alistair Campbell/Rory Stewart podcast last week - they've been very good and balanced in looking at this latest flare up in the region and explaining how we got here, going back to the Romans, via WW1, Lawrence's promises to the Arabs and the Balfour Declaration, the Holocaust, 1948 and the wars and conflict that have brought us to today. They had an hour long interview with the PA's ambassador to the UK. They didn't give him an easy ride at all.
The gist of what the ambassador was saying was the Hamas is not part of the PA. It never has been. Hamas never supported the Oslo Accords. The ambassador's view, and that of the PA and its constituent parts such as the PLO, he said, was that the two state solution as outlined by the Oslo Accords is the only viable solution.
Hamas are extremists. Their position is no Jews in Palestine, but if the ambassador was speaking the truth than the view of the non-extremist Palestinian leadership is still the two state solution is the only resolution.
In another podcast they spoke to a centrist Israeli, again for an hour, who is a fierce critic of Netanyahu but who was also, understandably, rocked to the core by the Hamas attacks. He despaired of Israel's actions over the past few years and, IIRC, too couldn't see any resolution beyond the two state solution.
The problem, sadly, is that the extremists in both sides are in control and the Oslo proposals seem a million miles away. And each side is becoming ever more extreme as they slaughter each other, and the cycle continues.
It's a tragedy for innocent people on both sides. Both sides are, at the same time, victims and guilty of crimes, which can be difficult to recognise and assimilate, I think.
Nice summary. I dislike that podcast intensely but that seems a fair summation from its guests.
I do not, if I had a quibble, see the equivalence between Netanyahu and Hamas but if I was a West Bank Arab I would be looking at the settlements I might think differently.
It sounded like both "sides" saw Hamas as the problem - so did they venture a solution in the here and now wrt them rather than more broadly advocating a currently impossible "Two State solution"?
I think both sides see the extremists, on both sides, as the problem.
And no, sadly, neither of them saw a solution in the here and now. Both were very downbeat.
Social media is a channel. It allows people to disseminate their views as never before and I am failing to see how this is a bad thing. If people are nasty, spiteful bigots then so be it. That is people for you.
And also people are banging on about WhatsApp. How is that social media? It is a messaging app. Might as well ban the telephone or conference calls.
Whatsapp joined social media when groups and companies realised they can start a Whatsapp chat and invite the public. For instance:-
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
Lol, I've seen counter protesters / fash dressed up as literal crusaders holding banners saying stuff like "Deus Vult" - they would not get arrested.
There were two cars doing laps of Edinburgh on the eve of Indyref '14. One had a huge Statue of Liberty replica sticking out the sunroof with "Caledonia" full blast. The second had two guys dressed up as crusaders with "Land of hope and glory".
In retrospect, Indyref was remarkably well behaved. Politics feels much dirtier nowadays.
Poland's ruling party, PiS, just lost an election which they themselves organized and manipulated to their advantage. Now PiS propagandists are suggesting *they* were cheated and somehow deserve to stay in power. Sound familiar? https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1716370301817167994
Social media is a channel. It allows people to disseminate their views as never before and I am failing to see how this is a bad thing. If people are nasty, spiteful bigots then so be it. That is people for you.
And also people are banging on about WhatsApp. How is that social media? It is a messaging app. Might as well ban the telephone or conference calls.
Whatsapp joined social media when groups and companies realised they can start a Whatsapp chat and invite the public. For instance:-
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
So what? As I said if far white marchers protesting against immigration had shouted for a 'crusade' I repeat they would have been arrested for inciting racial hatred (a crusade for better education is a different context).
The English Defence League evoke the Crusades constantly in their demos. They literally have people dressed as Crusaders, and their logo is a Knight's Templar-style cross with the Crusader slogan "in hoc signo vinces" (by this sign we conquer).
You really are a clown sometimes.
The cops always give the far right an easy ride. Presumably they're scared of them - or perhaps it's the overlap in terms of membership and ideology.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Better that people just shout jihad to the small group near them than plant bombs.
Better that they are allowed to let off steam than take offensive action.
Better that we keep a sense of proportion than embrace creeping authoritarianism.
How far do we allow "let off steam" to go?
Is allowing the "brothers" to intimidate a pro-Israel march in N London enough to force it to be cancelled on the advice of the Police ok as long as it allows them "to let off steam"?
Is allowing groups to force teachers into hiding for making comments about the Koran maintaining "a sense of proportion"?
We should allow people to "let off steam" in their own demo by shouting slogans.
We should not allow them to take offensive action including credible threats of violence. Offending people or upsetting people is not a threat of violence. It is legitimate though rude.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
"From the river to the sea" is the standard Instagram post all my uni friends are posting in support of Palestine. I don't think they know the implication, and to be fair that's precisely how the Palestinian ambassador has been describing historical Palestine.
The implication is only there if you put it there - "Palestine will be free / from the river to the sea" is about the desire for freedom and makes no reference to how; it is only because of other politicians and extremists use of the phrase "push Jews into the sea" that there is this implication, despite the use of that chant predating that.
Social media is a channel. It allows people to disseminate their views as never before and I am failing to see how this is a bad thing. If people are nasty, spiteful bigots then so be it. That is people for you.
And also people are banging on about WhatsApp. How is that social media? It is a messaging app. Might as well ban the telephone or conference calls.
Whatsapp joined social media when groups and companies realised they can start a Whatsapp chat and invite the public. For instance:-
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
So what? As I said if far white marchers protesting against immigration had shouted for a 'crusade' I repeat they would have been arrested for inciting racial hatred (a crusade for better education is a different context).
The English Defence League evoke the Crusades constantly in their demos. They literally have people dressed as Crusaders, and their logo is a Knight's Templar-style cross with the Crusader slogan "in hoc signo vinces" (by this sign we conquer).
You really are a clown sometimes.
The cops always give the far right an easy ride. Presumably they're scared of them - or perhaps it's the overlap in terms of membership and ideology.
You cannot seriously believe this drivel
If a far right group marched through London demanding a “crusade” against black people or an African country they’d be in HMP Wormwood Scrubs within 20 minutes
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
Any state in that area should be a multiethnic, multireligious land - similar to how it was prior to British Rule and eventual Zionism (even if it wasn't perfect, Jewish people, Muslim Arabs and Christians lived together in communities with common levels of unrest, and no significant persecution of Jewish people outside extra taxation, which has always been part of how Islam governs "people of the Book" - Jewish people and Christians). As I have said here before, a state that has both Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs and does a truth and reconciliation process that brings justice to criminal actors on both sides is the only solution for long term peace.
So back to the heady, idyllic days of Islam discriminating against Christians and Jews on account of their religion. How blissful this nirvana of yours will be.
EDIT: OH IT'S ONLY TAXATION FFS GET A GRIP
Was the Ottoman Empire perfect - of course not, it was an empire. But the history seems pretty clear that at least the treatment of the land in question and its people was mostly peaceful, and seemed a damn site better than rule by the British who did what they usually do and set the local factions against each other - using the Palestinians when the British themselves wanted to express anti-Semitism and using the Jewish population when they wanted to curtail the Arab Muslim population.
I've recently taken sabbaticals from the News too. I don't expect everyone to follow suit but Reuters have reported a marked drop in people who follow the News since the pandemic:
Since the Hamas atrocity I have barely watched or looked at the News. Why fret about things you cannot change? I'm much happier for it.
But back to social media: absolutely!
Life was generally far happier before the internet. Discuss.
Absolutely, 100% correct
Social media discussions are so much more divisive than those in real life, where you are more likely to end up finding some common ground with your opponent. When I was banned from here for 18 months I barely took any interest on politics or watched the news - you’d be amazed how easy it is to be pretty much completely unaware of the topics PB considers hugely important; the idea of getting het up in an argument over them seemed ludicrous
One of the kindest and most interesting people I’ve met in the last few years lives down the street I moved into in 2021 - we go walking/running together. He is a vegan who reads the Guardian. & said he was devastated by the referendum result, so I just kept schtum about what I thought. The one time we vaguely discussed politics it veered into critical race theory/feminism and got a bit frosty, so now we just don’t talk about it. If he were a poster on here I’d probably have been at odds with him constantly rather than considering him a close friend
Social media killed one friendship of mine stone dead some years ago. He was someone I knew from school, and we had a shared interest in motorbikes. Our time together was mostly spent talking and riding bikes, and fixing engines. We never mentioned politics at all.
Then Facebook came along, and he took to it enthusiastically. First of all his posts were mainly about bikes, but then he started to post increasingly far-right political stuff. In the end it was full on Hitler was right, send them all home stuff, and at that point our friendship was finished.
It was quite sad really. He always seemed a pleasant bloke when we were young. He wasn't the brightest of people, but I enjoyed our friendship over a shared interest. It's like his mind was poisoned by social media.
The problem with social media is that all the pro-social aspects (keeping in touch with friends and family, knowledge of elsewhere, platforms for start up and independent media and entertainment) do not make the platforms themselves money, whereas the anti-social aspects (conflict, conspiracy, lies) do. Facebook and X/Twitter specifically have algorithms that specifically boost posts that promote conflict because conflict = engagement. You could make Facebook a much better environment just by removing that algorithmic push.
The other issue I notice a lot of people bringing up is their "echo chamber" - which I find a bizarre criticism. You wouldn't be friends with someone you actively dislike in the real world, so why should you be forced to be on an online space? Where this leads to people falling down rabbit holes into conspiracism is, again, less about echo chambers and more about algorithmic pushing. Take Youtube - you can watch some pretty innocuous videos and the suggested tab will offer you some relatively extreme typically right wing stuff. Why? Because Youtube promotes based on average view watch, and certain channels (especially right wing content) have very rigid and effective release schedules alongside an audience that will watch videos all the way through. There were times when this benefited longer videos, because it only cared about time watched and so if a video was 1hr long if someone watched 20 minutes that was considered the same as if someone watched a whole 20 minute video start to finish. Now it's based on percentage of video viewed, which benefits short form content over lengthy and (potentially) more explorative content.
Essentially I would say social media is not in and of itself bad - like the telephone or public post system, it allows people to communicate over great distances and has revolutionised human experience. The negative aspects almost solely crop up as part of the profit motive that drives the companies to push for engagement over anything else.
This subtle point is really important. I don't think we can or should do much about individual decisions to interact with like-minded people to pass the time as they want, and much of Alanbrooke's post is really complaining about human nature. But aglorithms that actively promote fury and conflict are obviously dangerous. I'm not sure anything can be done about them, though. What would you do if you were PM (which seems to me rather an attractive concept), @148grrss?
The problem I think we'll find is, as multinational corps, these platforms will often choose to withdraw from markets rather than follow regulation (as even Musk is threatening now with the EU). As PM I don't think I could do much outside of an education campaign, including social media literacy as part of the national curriculum.
If I were the head of the EU / POTUS I think I might have enough leverage to do stuff. I think we need to have better technology literacy in government rather than the general deference to tech industry out of ignorance and a hope it will bring economic growth. I think we could start by mandating that content moderation has to be done by human labour, not AI, and that labour needs to be unionised - that would be a great start at dealing with harmful material effectively. I think next steps would be to try and regulate away push algorithms - either via warnings similar to those on cigarette packages, or by straight up saying that companies such as Facebook or X will become liable for the impacts of disinformation, extremism and violence that are fostered on their platforms. That is a rather wide net that lots of politicians wouldn't like (I remember once reading Twitter / X refusing to use AI moderating for extreme right wing content because the content of an extreme right winger who may go shoot up a school is not that different from a typical GOP politician posting).
I think in the end, ideally, these platforms will be recognised as the necessary infrastructure they are and will come under some form of public control. If you remove the profit motive and the push towards conflict and rabbit holes so many of the problems just drop away. It wouldn't make social media perfect, but it would have a noticeable impact almost immediately.
You can’t help yourself, can you
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
Anyone advocating that all user post content is moderated by a human obviously has no idea about how much user generated content is posted. Take just youtube for example 271,330 hours each and every day, To have a human watch every second of it would require about 34,000 moderators. And youtube is far from the biggest repository of user generated content.
Add in to that each and every moderator will have a bias, and would be ban happy on stuff they didn't personally like so you would probably end up needing a moderation review team of a similar size.
Absolutely no idea what he thinks the moderators joining a union adds to the process
I explained at length in a response why I think human moderation is important and why I think it is skilled labour that requires unionisation
I understand the point. But @Pagan2's point - that there is simply too much to do so - is valid.
Poland's ruling party, PiS, just lost an election which they themselves organized and manipulated to their advantage. Now PiS propagandists are suggesting *they* were cheated and somehow deserve to stay in power. Sound familiar? https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1716370301817167994
Are you referencing the behaviour of the remain/rejoin side in the 2017-19 parliament ?
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
"From the river to the sea" is the standard Instagram post all my uni friends are posting in support of Palestine. I don't think they know the implication, and to be fair that's precisely how the Palestinian ambassador has been describing historical Palestine.
The implication is only there if you put it there - "Palestine will be free / from the river to the sea" is about the desire for freedom and makes no reference to how; it is only because of other politicians and extremists use of the phrase "push Jews into the sea" that there is this implication, despite the use of that chant predating that.
Freedom from what/whom if not Israel/the Jews?
To be fair, if I was Jewish and a load of people matched past chanting "Jihad" in the current climate, I'd be bricking it.
I have no idea where the line is though. It's unacceptable that the Jewish community have to put up with this hostile environment, but I don't want people arrested for saying stuff either (unless it plainly calls for physical violence).
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Better that people just shout jihad to the small group near them than plant bombs.
Better that they are allowed to let off steam than take offensive action.
Better that we keep a sense of proportion than embrace creeping authoritarianism.
How far do we allow "let off steam" to go?
Is allowing the "brothers" to intimidate a pro-Israel march in N London enough to force it to be cancelled on the advice of the Police ok as long as it allows them "to let off steam"?
Is allowing groups to force teachers into hiding for making comments about the Koran maintaining "a sense of proportion"?
We should allow people to "let off steam" in their own demo by shouting slogans.
We should not allow them to take offensive action including credible threats of violence. Offending people or upsetting people is not a threat of violence. It is legitimate though rude.
There is no formula, including this one, which does away with the grey area in which police and prosecutors have to operate. Bad actors, including criminals and extremists are invariably good at exploiting the uncertain area in which words and actions have equivocal and deniable meanings.
Social media is a channel. It allows people to disseminate their views as never before and I am failing to see how this is a bad thing. If people are nasty, spiteful bigots then so be it. That is people for you.
And also people are banging on about WhatsApp. How is that social media? It is a messaging app. Might as well ban the telephone or conference calls.
Whatsapp joined social media when groups and companies realised they can start a Whatsapp chat and invite the public. For instance:-
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Interesting to see Robert Jenrick (a minister) giving his opinion that a criminal offence had been committed, despite a previous statement to the contrary by the Met, stating that the CPS agreed.
It is illegal to incite terrorism, shouting jihad clearly falls under that
Jihad as a word is not necessarily about violent overthrow or holy war - it has the potential, depending on the context, to mean the equivalent of "crusade" that we would use in the west; a "moral crusade" or a literal "crusade". Just because it is foreign and scary sounding to some people does not mean that it should be criminalised.
It already is criminalised under the Terrorism and Public Order Acts.
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
So what? As I said if far white marchers protesting against immigration had shouted for a 'crusade' I repeat they would have been arrested for inciting racial hatred (a crusade for better education is a different context).
The English Defence League evoke the Crusades constantly in their demos. They literally have people dressed as Crusaders, and their logo is a Knight's Templar-style cross with the Crusader slogan "in hoc signo vinces" (by this sign we conquer).
You really are a clown sometimes.
The cops always give the far right an easy ride. Presumably they're scared of them - or perhaps it's the overlap in terms of membership and ideology.
You cannot seriously believe this drivel
If a far right group marched through London demanding a “crusade” against black people or an African country they’d be in HMP Wormwood Scrubs within 20 minutes
Sorry Alanbrooke but this header could only have been written by someone who neither uses nor understands social media. This is the equivalent of saying lets ban pubs because some people get drunk in them. You are simply pandering to a combination of your own ignorance and the stereotypes which for 99% of people are far removed from reality.
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
Doesn't this relate to them chanting "from the river to the sea" which our very own @148grss, who sings this with gusto, assures us is a pleasant song referring to the daisies that Hamas will plant to make daisy chains together with the Jews in the area.
I said, with historical grounding, that "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used as a desire for Palestinian freedom and is not about "pushing Israeli Jews into the sea" as many argue. Just because people like to cultivate their own ignorance in favour of their prejudices, doesn't make it true. Do some people use the chant in an exterminationist manner - yes, I'm sure they do - but it doesn't necessarily mean that. It would be like saying "power to the people" is a slogan aimed at inciting anarchist rebellion because some anarchists have used that phrase.
My initial response was "bullshit". But to be more polite, what specifically do you think would happen to the Jews if Palestine was created from the river to the sea?
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
Any state in that area should be a multiethnic, multireligious land - similar to how it was prior to British Rule and eventual Zionism (even if it wasn't perfect, Jewish people, Muslim Arabs and Christians lived together in communities with common levels of unrest, and no significant persecution of Jewish people outside extra taxation, which has always been part of how Islam governs "people of the Book" - Jewish people and Christians). As I have said here before, a state that has both Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Arabs and does a truth and reconciliation process that brings justice to criminal actors on both sides is the only solution for long term peace.
So back to the heady, idyllic days of Islam discriminating against Christians and Jews on account of their religion. How blissful this nirvana of yours will be.
EDIT: OH IT'S ONLY TAXATION FFS GET A GRIP
Was the Ottoman Empire perfect - of course not, it was an empire. But the history seems pretty clear that at least the treatment of the land in question and its people was mostly peaceful, and seemed a damn site better than rule by the British who did what they usually do and set the local factions against each other - using the Palestinians when the British themselves wanted to express anti-Semitism and using the Jewish population when they wanted to curtail the Arab Muslim population.
You are an imbecile. The Ottoman Empire imported millions of black slaves, but made sure the men were completely castrated first. This is why there are so few black people in ex Ottoman lands, despite the huge slave trade. So on that basis alone it was far worse than any European empire
It also went around the Balkans seizing and stealing Christian children for centuries
(Ottoman Turkish: دوشیرمه, romanized: devşirme, lit. 'collecting', usually translated as "child levy"[a] or "blood tax"[b])[3] was the Ottoman practice of forcibly recruiting soldiers and bureaucrats from among the children of their Balkan Christian subjects and forcibly converting them to Islam.[4][5][6]
I know it’s great that you’re a fresh new voice on PB and all that, but you are also insultingly stupid and execrably misinformed and you need to go away and do an awful lot of reading
There are a lot of people who due to content censorship (eg picture of a tank firing its gun) or fake copyright strikes are putting their full-fat content elsewhere and using Youtube for in part bowdlerised trailers.
Poland's ruling party, PiS, just lost an election which they themselves organized and manipulated to their advantage. Now PiS propagandists are suggesting *they* were cheated and somehow deserve to stay in power. Sound familiar? https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1716370301817167994
Are you referencing the behaviour of the remain/rejoin side in the 2017-19 parliament ?
Comments
Much of your proposal is interesting and social media does need regulating
But forcing employees to join a union? Recreating the closed shop?
Yesterday they were saying that “hundreds” were killed in an “attack” on the Gaza hospital last week.
- the number is dispute
- the consensus is that it was a misfiring rocket rather than an “attack” on the hospital
Then let US class action lawyers do their stuff.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/10/22/braverman-metropolitan-police-palestine-rally-jihad-chant/ (£££)
The jihad chants in question came not at the main Palestine march but at a small demo outside the Turkish embassy by the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Older PBers might remember that David Cameron pledged to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait, there's more.
The government was warned in 2021 of a gap in anti-terrorist legislation that meant marchers could shout jihad with impunity, but did not act on the report written by Sir Mark Rowley. The same Sir Mark Rowley who is now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, whom the Home Secretary wants to haul over the coals for police not arresting anyone for shouting things the government has not banned at a rally by an Islamist group the government has not banned.
The way that traditional media has dealt with the competition is to try be worse at 1 & 2
The second reason I say unionisation must be there is due to the immense emotional toll moderation can take. Look at the last two weeks and imagine it being your job to scroll through pictures of Gaza or Israel and scrutinise them to determine what pictures are real and which are fake. Having to look at these disturbing and traumatic images and videos for a job requires significant support that, again, a company will not provide because it costs money. Union safeguarding of worker wellbeing is therefore a necessity.
The third reason is to respond to the tech bro culture of technofeudalism, as Varoufakis puts it, where the likes of Bezos, Theil, Musk, Zuckerburg etc. all see their success as the success of their individual might and genius rather than the lucky break they found themselves in. All of the big tech moguls are horrifically anti worker and anti union precisely because worker organising cuts into their bottom line and is anathema to their ideology - an ideology that is hollowing out our world and arguing for Caesarism (and not the good populist redistributing of land to the poor Caesarism, the bad, despotic "do what I say or else" kind of Caesarism). The number of these guys who now advocate essentially for libertarian monarchies where they (surprisingly!) would end up as the monarch is bad for them and bad for all of us, and worker unionisation would help combat that.
Again, short of seizing all their assets (which I would not be against) these individuals and multinational corporations are so powerful and across so many states that it would otherwise be seriously hard to force them to do anything. It is arguably easier to empower the workers, the actual people who do the actual labour of making social media platforms function, in a way to create positive outcomes then it is to try and force regulation top down on them.
I agree.
They should arrest Braverman forthwith.
Better that they are allowed to let off steam than take offensive action.
Better that we keep a sense of proportion than embrace creeping authoritarianism.
On that basis alone, social media has been a disaster.
But also the mainstream media is occupied by clickbait agitators now. Even local regional papers, like the Chronicle and the Metro, are it it. Their social media feed is full of stories either lifted from Reddit or Mumsnet or Twitter or the like and presented as news or clickbait based on daytime TV. Usually highly exaggerated headlines. Susannah Reid quits GMB being one last week. She was going on holiday !!!! Being a news reporter nowadays seems to mean you harvest social media for stories to drive traffic to your website.
Social media has had a malign effect on the mainstream media as well as discourse in this country.
I'm quite enjoying our nuggety weekend caravanserai around the inside of Mr Brooks' head. Thanks, Alan.
Very good debate starters - express the first 80% of a complete opinion, 20% of a provocation, and then stop.
I think social media has significant upsides as well as downsides, and it won't save us from being data profiled. The BBC reported the Tesco putting Beer next to Nappies story in April 1998 (obviously in a way deprecating to men) - before large social media platforms, before the blogosphere, and nearly pre-Google.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/77622.stm
I think social media allows us to be more transparent, and display our inner self without quite intending to. A good thing? That's debatable, too.
Heck just about the only papers that don't play the game are the Times and FT who know the audience have already paid so can use an informative headline - because they don't need to maximise viewers on every page..
(Still on Chrome, here)
Social media is a channel. It allows people to disseminate their views as never before and I am failing to see how this is a bad thing. If people are nasty, spiteful bigots then so be it. That is people for you.
And also people are banging on about WhatsApp. How is that social media? It is a messaging app. Might as well ban the telephone or conference calls.
This is where social media fails us - the simple, populist option, with 300 likes on Facebook, ends up as government policy. The solution to flooding is not to maximise flow - it's to slow it down, increase the capacity of upland areas to absorb and then release water slowly.
Add in to that each and every moderator will have a bias, and would be ban happy on stuff they didn't personally like so you would probably end up needing a moderation review team of a similar size.
Absolutely no idea what he thinks the moderators joining a union adds to the process
Is allowing the "brothers" to intimidate a pro-Israel march in N London enough to force it to be cancelled on the advice of the Police ok as long as it allows them "to let off steam"?
Is allowing groups to force teachers into hiding for making comments about the Koran maintaining "a sense of proportion"?
"Yousaf to deploy 10,000 beavers to Angus in wake of floods". I've had to turn notifications off.
Thousands of fines sent to EU drivers by TfL debt collection agent may be unlawful, Belgian transport ministry claims
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/23/belgium-investigating-alleged-criminal-breach-of-data-protection-laws-over-ulez-fines
Opposing Ulez makes strange bedfellows.
In the olden days of a few years ago all communication beyond the personal and the small group, was subject to moderation, reputation, correction and the laws of defamation. Nearly all mass communication was put out by bodies that had a reputation to defend and were worth suing in that they had funds to cough up.
There are now huge tracts of society online in which none of this it true or can work or could only work by the sort of self limitation characteristically shown on PB and other smallish outfits. (If PB stopped being like that I imagine most posters would immediately leave).
If far right marchers started shouting out about a 'Crusade' you can be sure the Met would arrest them for inciting racial hatred
Offshore trusts involved.
HMRC starved of resources.
Since 2010 £450bn - 1500bn of tax not collected due to evasion, avoidance and error.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/22/tory-donors-anthony-mark-bamford-jcb-empire-could-face-500m-bill-to-settle-tax-inquiry
Very grateful to Rory Stewart for his excellent explainer that went viral a few days ago.
Remember that the PA/PLO have no interest in accommodating the generations of Jews who live there - they openly and explicitly want their land back.
There is no half-way house. Both sides not only claim the land, but believe that God gave it to them.
LOCK HER UP
My favourite from this weekend was the Manchester Useless (*) supporters wailing all over twitter that their failed football club was perhaps going to be significantly run, and hopefully rescued from the swamp, by a CYCLING COACH (aka Dave Brailsford),
Online Footy Supporters are one demographic that constantly blames "the cyclist" for not wearing Hi-Viz or similar to be seen by a driver, when said driver has just driven through a red light "without seeing it" and put someone in hospital.
(* No league titles for 10 years, more managers since Ferguson than the Tory Party has had leaders.)
Creating content of an enjoyable and useful standard is pretty cheap these days. So is distribution. Neither of those used to be the case.
The main expensive bit left is the curation/moderation/censorship. If SM companies had to do that properly with actual human staff, the costs would blow their business models apart. Hence the tendency to armwave those costs out of existence.
On-topic: perhaps we need to reregulate Social Media to be a goldmine, as they do in Brussels.
Labour goes above 45% following its party conference.
Impact of the by-election wins/losses likely to encountered in this weeks average.
Social media discussions are so much more divisive than those in real life, where you are more likely to end up finding some common ground with your opponent. When I was banned from here for 18 months I barely took any interest on politics or watched the news - you’d be amazed how easy it is to be pretty much completely unaware of the topics PB considers hugely important; the idea of getting het up in an argument over them seemed ludicrous
One of the kindest and most interesting people I’ve met in the last few years lives down the street I moved into in 2021 - we go walking/running together. He is a vegan who reads the Guardian. & said he was devastated by the referendum result, so I just kept schtum about what I thought. The one time we vaguely discussed politics it veered into critical race theory/feminism and got a bit frosty, so now we just don’t talk about it. If he were a poster on here I’d probably have been at odds with him constantly rather than considering him a close friend
Most of the so called gap is
1) personal tax allowance
2) pensions
3) ISA
It's called the 2 state solution that all major UK Parties claim to support.
In reality they are an ancient part of a long, sad, continuing history in which Jerusalem has been captured and recaptured 44 times (Wiki; other numbers are available), with almost everyone having had a least one shot at it.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertzafft/2022/10/09/twitter-facebook-et-al-the-case-for-freelance-content-moderation/
At present Youtube has real problems with their system; I have seen no ideas as to how they are going to fix it.
There are a lot of people who due to content censorship (eg picture of a tank firing its gun) or fake copyright strikes are putting their full-fat content elsewhere and using Youtube for in part bowdlerised trailers.
Who Will Replace Jeremy Hunt as The Next Chancellor Of The Exchequer?
3/1 Mel Stride
4/1 Rachel Reeves
5/1 Claire Coutinho
10/1 Jeremy Quin
10/1 Steve Barclay
12/1 James Cleverly
https://sports.ladbrokes.com/event/politics/uk/uk-politics/next-chancellor-of-the-exchequer/235459021/all-markets
Just as those shouting 'jihad' in a march against Israel were clearly campaigning for terrorism against Israel
As has been pointed out before, that is rubbish.
What you suggest would just end up with the Jews being 'removed' from the Middle East. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that your idealism is trumping your realism.
“From the river to the desert
Palestine is gonna geddit”
Which has the advantage of novelty and candour, unlike the more occultated version from the pro-Pal types
The gist of what the ambassador was saying was the Hamas is not part of the PA. It never has been. Hamas never supported the Oslo Accords. The ambassador's view, and that of the PA and its constituent parts such as the PLO, he said, was that the two state solution as outlined by the Oslo Accords is the only viable solution.
Hamas are extremists. Their position is no Jews in Palestine, but if the ambassador was speaking the truth than the view of the non-extremist Palestinian leadership is still the two state solution is the only resolution.
In another podcast they spoke to a centrist Israeli, again for an hour, who is a fierce critic of Netanyahu but who was also, understandably, rocked to the core by the Hamas attacks. He despaired of Israel's actions over the past few years and, IIRC, too couldn't see any resolution beyond the two state solution.
The problem, sadly, is that the extremists in both sides are in control and the Oslo proposals seem a million miles away. And each side is becoming ever more extreme as they slaughter each other, and the cycle continues.
It's a tragedy for innocent people on both sides. Both sides are, at the same time, victims and guilty of crimes, which can be difficult to recognise and assimilate, I think.
EDIT: OH IT'S ONLY TAXATION FFS GET A GRIP
"I have found a tweet that appals me." Really? What was the probability of that? 😀
I do not, if I had a quibble, see the equivalence between Netanyahu and Hamas but if I was a West Bank Arab I would be looking at the settlements I might think differently.
It sounded like both "sides" saw Hamas as the problem - so did they venture a solution in the here and now wrt them rather than more broadly advocating a currently impossible "Two State solution"?
The really sinister backdrop to this, is that a second similar offence will take a live YT channel off air for three months in the run up to the election. It’s been seen as mainstream media channels trying to shut down independent media at a critical time.
The freelance and offshore content moderators should really be banned. There’s thousands of people in the Philippines and India who get to spend their days watching snuff movies and child porn, for a couple of dollars an hour. Facebook’s contractor has a few in the US, paid little more than minimum wage, with little counselling, and no counselling at all once you quit - which they all do, after only a few months.
You really are a clown sometimes.
The advantage of this imperfect couplet is that it can be read both ways: Palestine is going to take all the land from the Jordan to the Med, or, Palestine is gonna get it in terms of bombs
But if I was aiming for the latter my personal choice would be:
“From the river to the Tophet
Gaza Strip is gonna cop it”
Which has the bonus of a clever reference, if I say so myself
The gist of what the ambassador was saying was the Hamas is not part of the PA. It never has been. The ambassador's view, and that of the PA and its constituent parts he said, was that the two state solution as outlined by the Oslo Accords is the only viable solution. He, understandable I think both sides see the extremists, on both sides, as the problem.
And no, sadly, neither of them saw a solution in the here and now. Both were very downbeat.
In retrospect, Indyref was remarkably well behaved. Politics feels much dirtier nowadays.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1716370301817167994
Oscar winner shares photo of sculpture, modelled on his Gladiator strongman Maximus, made for chocolate festival in Malta
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/oct/23/russell-crowe-chocolate-statue-gladiator
We should not allow them to take offensive action including credible threats of violence.
Offending people or upsetting people is not a threat of violence.
It is legitimate though rude.
If a far right group marched through London demanding a “crusade” against black people or an African country they’d be in HMP Wormwood Scrubs within 20 minutes
Then Facebook came along, and he took to it enthusiastically. First of all his posts were mainly about bikes, but then he started to post increasingly far-right political stuff. In the end it was full on Hitler was right, send them all home stuff, and at that point our friendship was finished.
It was quite sad really. He always seemed a pleasant bloke when we were young. He wasn't the brightest of people, but I enjoyed our friendship over a shared interest. It's like his mind was poisoned by social media.
I have no idea where the line is though. It's unacceptable that the Jewish community have to put up with this hostile environment, but I don't want people arrested for saying stuff either (unless it plainly calls for physical violence).
You are an imbecile. The Ottoman Empire imported millions of black slaves, but made sure the men were completely castrated first. This is why there are so few black people in ex Ottoman lands, despite the huge slave trade. So on that basis alone it was far worse than any European empire
It also went around the Balkans seizing and stealing Christian children for centuries
(Ottoman Turkish: دوشیرمه, romanized: devşirme, lit. 'collecting', usually translated as "child levy"[a] or "blood tax"[b])[3] was the Ottoman practice of forcibly recruiting soldiers and bureaucrats from among the children of their Balkan Christian subjects and forcibly converting them to Islam.[4][5][6]
I know it’s great that you’re a fresh new voice on PB and all that, but you are also insultingly stupid and execrably misinformed and you need to go away and do an awful lot of reading