Thursday, March 11, 2010 

Social networking refuseniks.

I suspect, although I might be wrong, that I'm one of the few regular bloggers (not to mention also of a certain age) that hasn't also embraced the wonders of Facebook and/or Twitter. There are a few reasons behind this, especially the way that I'm not comfortable with revealing who I actually am, both in terms of my name and in posting photographs, which I loathe taking of myself in any event. I also dislike the whole erosion of privacy which comes with both, regardless of whether you hide behind a false identity or not; nor do I understand why other people would care what I'm doing at any precise moment. For those that have plenty of friends, or even just online friends, and are completely at ease with the past, I'm sure they're great and a wonderful way to keep in touch, I just don't think they'd add anything to the already pristine brilliance of my existence.

Are there then any other social networking refuseniks out there that do pretty much everything else on the net, including blogging, and yet don't get involved with these sites? I'd be genuinely interested to know, or even if you're just a refusenik that doesn't blog, with your reasons why, or just an acknowledgement. And no, I don't want persuading of just how fabulous Facebook and Twitter are. I'm not alone, right?

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3/11/2010 09:53:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 

Scum-watch: What a difference a year makes part two.

Having wished that Jade Goody, described as ghastly and a vile pig-ignorant racist bully that will "hopefully now slither back under the rock from where she crawled", the Sun devotes not one, but two, three, four, five, six articles on her in today's paper, having helpfully been diagnosed as suffering from cancer during the silly season.

The paper's leader takes a remarkably different tone:

JADE Goody has upset some people in her meteoric career as a Big Brother celeb.

None less than a newspaper which decreed that the plebiscite for Jade to be kicked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house was the most important vote since the general election. There's nothing quite like a sense of perspective, is there?

But both critics and fans will wish her well as she arrives home from India to battle the Big C.

First to offer support was co-star Shilpa Shetty who put their “racism” clash aside and offered prayers for Jade’s recovery.


Ah, so the vile pig-ignorant racist is now so rehabilitated that the spat between Shetty and Goody can be described as "racism". Poppadom, anyone?


As The Sun has revealed, Jade’s first fear is not for herself but for her children.

The ex-dental nurse has spent her life beating the odds.

We believe her family will lend her the strength to win this struggle, too.


Indeed, she's succeeded in getting the Sun newspaper to change its mind, which is a very rare event. Isn't it incredible what cancer can do for you?

Elsewhere, we've discussed previously the incredibly strange fact that the Sun tends to big-up MySpace while it prints stories about Facebook which tend to be less positive, and today is no exception. The Sun Online editor has decided that this rather dull story about someone tracing his family through MurdochSpace is worthy of a position only slightly below the main stories. Considering it's not even written by a Sun hack, rather a "Staff Reporter", it's all a rather rum do.

And finally, the award for stinking hypocrisy goes too...

WELL-MEANING parents are wasting good money on so-called multi-vitamins.

It turns out they are little more than sweets with tiny levels of nutrients — and the only healthy thing is the manufacturers’ profits.

They should be thoroughly ashamed of playing on parents’ fears.


The Sun would of course never play on parents' fears:

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8/20/2008 09:58:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, July 28, 2008 

How tabloid journalism works part. 94.

It's the silly season, it's a Sunday, and you haven't got anything approaching a front page story. Do you a: put in the effort and attempt to find a new angle to the problems facing Gordon Brown? b: continue to go on alarmingly about the moral decline in society because a rich man who enjoys being spanked has won a court case or c: turn the most innocuous addition to a social-networking site which just happens to be a rival to the one owned by your own proprietor into a super splash?

There's just no contest if you're a Sun "journalist", is there? I'm not on Facebook as I don't have any friends, but even I know there's a whole plethora of "poke" applications, such as giving one of your friends a virtual sexually transmitted disease, as well as literally dozens of similarly hilarious things. There isn't however at the moment a moral panic about STDs, but there certainly is about knives. "TEENS VIRTUALLY KNIFE EACH OTHER ON INTERNET" still doesn't quite cut the mustard though; no, you have to go the classic tabloid route of getting a quote from an organisation or an individual who has suffered through whatever it is you're railing against. Hence the Scum made a call to the uncle of murdered teenager Robert Knox, and what do you know, he's disgusted by it:

“The stupidity of having this on their site is unbelievable. And they deliberately use the street term ‘shanked’, which is even worse. They are targeting the kids who are on street corners carrying knives.”

Yes, of course "they are" gramps; keep taking the pills. This brilliant quote however gives the paper their headline: ‘Shank’ website is aimed at the kids who carry knives.' And voilà, where there was previously no story, have we now got one for you!

To call this pathetic, shoddy and disingenuous journalism is to put it too lightly. Not even in the wildest of imaginations can anyone begin to claim that this glorifies or is likely to encourage anyone to commit a crime involving a knife; it's nothing more than a joke between friends. It does however serve another agenda, which is the Sun's continuing low-level campaign to run story after story which is either critical of Facebook or an article expressing horror about something that's happened relating to it, while the paper never deigns to mention its humongous conflict of interest. Indeed, when probably the biggest bad news story of them all to do with social networking websites was released last year, involving the number of sex offenders who had profiles on one of them, the Sun strangely didn't run with it. It couldn't have possibly been because the site was MySpace instead of Facebook or Bebo, could it?

Still, perhaps it was worth it for this comment, which is either a quite brilliant piece of satire, or something rather more frightening:

Some of you appear to be missing the point - young people are becoming acclimatised to knife crime as a normal part of life, the more it is treated like a bit of a joke the more it becomes subconsciously acceptable.

We have a group here in Sheffield petitioning to get the Sheffield United's nickname changed from 'the Blades', knife crime should never be associated with fun. Also we want the swords removed from the badge, it's only a matter of time before it progresses from knife crime to sword crime.

Probably even more hilarious though this weekend was the former Archbishop of Canterbury writing in the News of the Screws that the other victim of the Max Mosley judgement was public morality. On the same page as Carey's bilge you can read such enlightening and moral stories as "RONALDO: Blonde had sex with Cristiano in hotel room" and "VICE: Student had sex with 3 men while high on valium." Such reporting is not of course salacious, sensationalist or purely to make money out of other's behaviour, however depraved, but obviously to shame them into altering it.

You can far more effectively make the case that the News of the World for decades has been coarsening the public sphere with its warped sense of what is and isn't newsworthy, or indeed, that its practice of "public interest journalism" has directly led to the celebrity culture which Carey would doubtless decry, but none of this is of any consequence when you're doubtless being paid a hefty sum for only slightly more than 250 words. Perhaps even more humourous than this humbug though is those that have taken it seriously: witness Dave Cole doing such. You have to wonder whether even Carey was pretending to be troubled. The reality is that it is not Mosley, judges or the HRA or ECHR that are "dangerous or socially undermining" as Carey puts it. Dennis Potter never put it better:

I call my cancer Rupert. Because that man Murdoch is the one who, if I had the time (I've got too much writing to do). . . I would shoot the bugger if I could. There is no one person more responsible for the pollution of what was already a fairly polluted press. And the pollution of the press is an important part of the pollution of British political life, and it's an important part of the cynicism and misperception of our own realities that is destroying so much of our political discourse.

The same can be said of the deeply immoral but "moral" Daily Mail, the same Daily Mail that thinks nothing of going after lower-class targets that have just lost their daughters, but which sympathises so deeply when life deals "their people" a bad hand. There is only one freedom in which Murdoch and the Mail truly believe in, and that is the freedom to make money.

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7/28/2008 09:34:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 

Scum-watch: Yet more bad news stories on Facebook.

The Sun's managed to get itself a quite brilliant story today on a "lag" who's managing to use a social networking site via a smuggled mobile phone whilst still in prison, detailing his conversations with his friends and his boasts about he's also got access to cocaine inside.

It's therefore incredibly lucky that Robert “Rug” Abrams, 23, uses Facebook rather than MySpace, as the latter would mean the story couldn't possibly be used, lest it give a bad impression of the quite wonderful Murdoch owned networking site. After all, it's only criminals and prisoners that use Facebook, right?

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5/27/2008 10:43:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 

Scum-watch: More wild rumours, thoughts on why some crimes get more coverage than others, and typical Facebook bashing.

Having spent yesterday speculating wildly and potentially tramuatisingly on the fate of Rosimeiri Boxall, the hacks on the Sun having seemingly decided that it won't do to just attempt readers to sympathise with her fate; no, you can't have open and shut, black and white cases when no one really knows what happened. To alleviate such a objectionable situation, the Sun today publishes yet more rumours, except this time on what Boxall had consumed alcohol wise:

VICAR’S daughter Rosi Boxall downed wine and spirits before she plunged to her death from a window, it was claimed yesterday.

Hostel resident Holly Dowse told how 19-year-old Rosi was drunk by lunchtime after boozing with two teenage pals.

Holly, 17, said the girls were sinking Lambrini — advertised as a sweet wine for "girls who just wanna have fun" — and strong almond liqueur Amaretto.

Holly, who lives in the flat below in Blackheath, South East London, said: "I went upstairs at midday to tell the girls to be quiet.

"They were in the flat with two boys. I could see they had bottles of Lambrini and a bottle of Amaretto.

"One was dancing around in a black corset while the other was being loud and giggling with Rosi. They all seemed well on their way to being drunk even then."


Ah, see, it turns out she was a binge-drinking yob all along! The point of reporting this "fact" seems to be to cast doubt on the initial picture entirely, as after all, if you're drunk and messing around you can quite easily fall out of windows. Is it really too much to ask for the police to be left to investigate what happens without the press publishing such contradictory churnalism? Of course it is.

On an almost related point, there's an interesting letter in the Grauniad today from a bereaved father over the lack of coverage of his son's violent death:

I, too, am puzzled by media reporting of killings (Brothers guilty of running down father-of-two, May 15). My 22-year-old stepson, Tom Easton, was stabbed to death in September 2006 in a recording studio, where he was helping disadvantaged young people develop their talents. Like Jonathan Zito, he was killed by someone with schizophrenia, who has now been committed to Broadmoor. Yet the national media coverage of Tom's death was virtually non-existent. This lack of interest can't be explained away by "black-on-black" killings, or by nasty people doing nasty things to each other, as Professor Peter Cole asserts. Tom was white, middle-class, at work and an innocent victim of a savage attack. As a family who have lost someone in these circumstances, we're certainly not interested in column inches. What we do want is more debate about what must be done to prevent these tragedies, and government action. That debate has been muted, which is why Through Unity, a coalition of families like ours, has been formed. Maybe together our voices will be heard above the din of press sensationalism and celebrity journalism.

Peter Sinclair
Chair, Tom Easton Flavasum Trust

It isn't an exact science working out why some cases make all the headlines and some don't, but it's difficult to dismiss the notion that it is (mostly) about class and race when there's some evidence to suggest that in most cases that is exactly why some are reported so volubly and others not. Jimmy Mizen is a case that provides a number of reasons why his death was so widely covered, and others, often involving either black youths or ethnic minority youths who died in different circumstances haven't: he was white; middle class; he was, in the words of his parents, a perfect son, a good Catholic, and already had an apprenticeship lined up; his parents were telegenic and more than prepared to talk to the media; and, which I also don't doubt was a factor, one of his sisters additionally has down syndrome, always likely to inspire further sympathy.

As to why Tom Easton didn't receive similar coverage, I do vaguely remember his case, so it wasn't completely ignored or forgotten. Why he didn't receive the same though, although he was white and middle class and filled all the other usual particulars for which cases usually gain coverage, might well be because of what he was doing. Unfortunately, cynicism is hard-set in for good reasons in most hacks, especially those on the right-wing tabloids, and you can bet that some would have thought, if not voiced, that Easton might have been asking for it for working with such hoodlums, or at least he was putting himself in harms way, unlike Mizen who refused to fight.

In a similar way, it's perhaps why Sophie Lancaster's mother hasn't received the overwhelming sympathy or coverage that Helen Newlove did; she happened to a youth worker who believed in compassion, letting live and and forgiving, and despite initial and understandable soul-searching about whether she could continue in such a job, she's decided she will. Contrast that to Newlove: the woman out not for justice, but for apparent vengeance, who gives the kind of quotes the tabloids adore, such as saying how she'd give her husband's killers the lethal injection herself, while demanding that new, deeply authoritarian and illiberal laws be brought in to stop such youths killing in the future. When met with individuals who don't want to pursue a vendetta, or even, God forbid, forgive their tormentors, as Anthony Walker's mother famously did, they don't understand it or consider it worthy of further coverage, except to ask how they possibly could do such a thing. The embittered and angry always make for better copy than the reflective ones who want to move on.

It's obviously clear why some of the apparent "black-on-black" knife crime deaths haven't received hardly any coverage beyond the initial reports; no one cares when "scum" appears to have killed "scum", not even the police, who might for other cases have issued press release after press release, as the Metropolitan police did after the murder of Tom ap Rhys Price, while the death of Balbir Matharu was met with little other than silence, from both press and police themselves, until Ian Blair opened his mouth about it.

We can't place all the blame on journalists, especially when they might well have got the story only for it to be spiked or not used later. Sometimes there generally is no reason why murders receive no coverage, apart from maybe the changing practices of the media, increasingly obsessed with the urban centres while ignoring rural areas. Even if not a particularly heinous murder is committed during a time of slow news or especially the silly season, it's always likely to receive more coverage than it might otherwise do. When cases do receive obviously less coverage because of the race or class of the victim, or as witnessed recently when involving less sympathetic figures such as Fiona MacKeown and the Matthews clan, we ought to speak louder. It is an issue however that does require a lot more study and research for any clear conclusions to be drawn; until then, Peter Sinclair's suggestions are wise ones which ought to acted on. Unfortunately, in the current media climate, it seems unlikely that anything will change.

Speaking of which, here's how the Sun reports the news that "crooks" are turning to social-networking sites to sell their ill-gotten gains:

Naturally, the fact that a certain social networking site owned by the Sun's proprietor is also doubtless home to such activity is nary mentioned.

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5/21/2008 08:30:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, April 25, 2008 

Sex addict in promoting virtual sex shocker!

Continuing with the churnalism theme, you just have to love the family-values Associated Newspapers giving even the slightest space to someone who has something else to sell other than her story of sleeping with 50 different men after setting up a group on Facebook:

A woman says she is a Facebook sex addict and has slept with 50 men she met through the networking site.

Laura Michaels, 23, set up a group called "I Need Sex" on the site.

She invited men to contact her and those whose picture she liked, she met up with.

Within 10 minutes the group had 35 members and soon attracted 100 men, 50 of whom she slept with.

Who knows, Michaels' story might just be true. It surely can't be a coincidence however that there's another Laura Michaels, aged 23, and from Bristol that has an even more personal home page than her one on Facebook, as noted by the increasingly must-read Churner Prize:

I am 23 and I live in Bristol, England. I've always wanted to have my own website, so this is like a dream come true. Not only can I interact with you guys, I can also get down and dirty and let everyone see... which I have to admit is big fun. I have a great Freeview section where you'll be able to get a taste of what my Member's Area offers. You'll find hot pictures, full-length video clips and much, much, more. I hope you enjoy it. Laura xxx

All those desperate to find Michaels and find out if they too can gain access to her drawers, not to mention those behind her more hardcore offerings who doubtless set this train in motion, will be pleased to know that a Google search leads directly to her porn site first and the Metro article second.

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4/25/2008 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, April 17, 2008 

Scum-watch: Cocaine? On my Facebook?

The social networking sites are a boon to lazy, sensationalist tabloid journalists. Want to find a group that advocates something your newspaper doesn't much like? A couple of taps on Farcebook and it's done. Feel the need to scare your readers senseless after a particularly gruesome or out of the ordinary case, such as that of Natasha Collins and Mark Speight? Why look, all your children are on a social networking site boasting about their Colombian marching powder intake! Won't someone please save the children?

TODAY The Sun exposes the potentially deadly Facebook groups that glamorise cocaine abuse.

Parts of the social networking website have effectively become a handbook that have pulled people into drug use.


Proof to back this up? The case studies of a whole two individuals who blame the site for their woes, even though they'd previously used cocaine or other drugs, the whole thing reading like a usual PR sting, asking for stories about cocaine use (with the promise of payment) they can then possibly mould, especially considering this is in the "Real Life" section. The churnalist behind this garbage, Samantha Wostear, then liberally chooses a few quotes from selected Facebook groups for her own evidence:

One dangerous entry declares: “This group is so funny!!! i like kate moss, and i LOVE coke!”

Dangerous? In the sense that whoever wrote it's stupidity is contagious? That's the only way it could possibly thought of as putting anyone other than the author at risk.

More young Britons have tried cocaine than those in any other European country.

Britain also has the second-highest level of active users in Europe, beaten only by Spain.

One in 25 British schoolchildren aged 15 to 16 admit to having taken cocaine at least once - double the average in Europe.


Ah yes, and this is clearly down to social networking sites rather than its availability and its attractiveness, right? Let's at least try and keep the moral panic at least somewhat sane.

And the cocaine craze sweeping the UK is at risk of being fuelled by the depraved groups that invite Facebook users to share their experiences of drug use and encourage others to experiment.

Graphic images of people snorting cocaine sit next to comments glorifying its use such as: “Nearly all my money goes on beak (cocaine), it’s f***in amazin and i’m helpin out poor little colombians by takin it, ha ha, plus if mossy (Kate Moss) can get away wid it why cant i?”

It was posted on the group If Kate Moss Does Cocaine, It Should Be Legal. This group alone boasts 716 members.

There are said to be 500 groups linked to cocaine appreciation, boasting hundreds of members.

Another group, Cocaine Is The Ruler Of The Brain, posts the message: “Nothing like that ‘high’ feeling to make a person feel goood-ddd and forget about ev-reee-thhhannnggg!!”

And another, Make Poverty History - Cheap Cocaine For Everyone!!!!!, states: “Prices are rocketing to all new highs so we all need to band together to stamp down the price and bring cocaine back to the masses.”


This sort of thing is hardly limited to Facebook - a quick Google search for "cocaine appreciation" pulls up a whole number of forum topics on similar subjects.

Of course, the fact that this article is in the Sun and deals solely with Facebook, which just happens to be MySpace's (prop. R. Murdoch) main rival has obviously nothing to do with the Sun's determination to expose these frightening groups for targeting our children. And, as you might expect, MySpace itself certainly hasn't got any similar groups, has it?

SHABHEADS AND MYSPACE ADDICTS UNITE ! (Public Group)
What is a shabhead, you say? It's another term for speed freak, methhead

Amphetamines, Speed; Dex; Adderall; Dexamphetamine; Bennies; Dexies; Black Beauty; Jollies.. simpler te

THE CHARLOTTE MAFIA (Public Group)
choking bitches and doing cocaine

Sugar Sniffers (Public Group)
in this little group we are addicted to sugar, sweets, candy of any kind, as much as we are to cocaine. nuff said, si?

chemicals are fun! (Public Group)
well this is for everyone who like anything from a ciggerette to crack cocaine... shit why not!>. well as i wish safe usage feel free to bend the bar or reality a bit when u please. and when u do.

cocaine cult (Public Group)
we do Ka-Ka-Ka-heroin

Cocaine Fiends (Public Group)
kjbfkjsdf

Cocaine Cunts (Private Group)
Whore Group

Will someone do me the honours of introducing the pot to the kettle?

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4/17/2008 08:50:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, January 18, 2008 

Scum-watch: Why Facebook is bad for you.

Ignoring the Scum's claims in its leader that Rhys Jones has been forgotten (he hasn't) and that he's already a "footnote to a catalogue of unforgivable street slaughter" when no subsequent case has by any means reached such a critical mass or led to an outbreak of soul-searching as prolonged as his murder did, the Scum is back to its old tricks of promoting the other parts of its empire by omission.

Why Facebook is bad for you is a generic piece written by a university don, and outlines all the usual reasons for why you shouldn't touch the social networking site with a ten-foot bargepole. What the article doesn't mention is that Facebook's main rival MySpace, is of course owned by err, the same person as the Sun is, nor is the site so much as mentioned as being just of much of a security risk as Facebook.

Tom Hodgkinson wrote a far better article for why to avoid Facebook on Monday in the Grauniad, naming 3 of the individuals involved in its creation as reason enough. The reasons to boycott MySpace are summed up in just one much more succinct name: Rupert Murdoch.

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1/18/2008 09:03:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, November 19, 2007 

Send in the lawyers.

Following on from the removing of comments from her blog after she idiotically accused Ben Goldacre of being involved in a "serious breach of parliamentary procedure" for downloading evidence freely available from said committee's website, Nadine Dorries is now threatening to send in the suits against Alex "Recess Monkey" Hilton after he posted a screengrab of her 22-year-old daughter's Facebook profile on his front page (now removed, replaced with this post), a grab which contained the use of one or two racial epithets:

Unfortunately, today’s blog is a rebuttal in defence of my family. As an MP I don’t mind it if people want to take a pop at me – it comes with the territory. However, not my kids.

Every young person I know has a Facebook profile, my daughters are no exception and use it to keep in touch with their friends. Unfortunately Alex Hilton, aka Recess Monkey, had no scruples about trawling through my daughter’s profile in order to damage her reputation.

My daughter’s face book account was the No 1item on his web site for a number of days.

A comment on my daughter’s site had been left by one of her best friends Chido Kawunda. Chido used the ‘N’ word when discussing this year’s Big Brother incident with Charlie.

It has to be said that involving children in political disputes, regardless of the details, is rightly looked down upon. Dorries might have more right to complain however if she hadn't herself liberally splashed photographs of her offspring all over her blog, which just invites snooping. In any case, if Hilton had wanted to especially damage Dorries he would have gone and named the woman in the photograph as Dorries' daughter; he instead asked readers to guess. Oh, and I don't have a Facebook profile, but that might be because I don't have any friends.

That isn't quite enough for Dorries though:

Alex Hilton attempted to insinuate that the comment was made by my daughter in a derogatory way about black women. This is definitely not the case – ask Chido; and by the way, the issue is now on it’s way to Simon Smith at Schillings , to ask his advise as to whether or not this matter is libel and actionable. http://www.schillings.co.uk/Display.aspx?&MasterId=af8a38df-e12a-48da-953b-d4be1b79d6da&NavigationId=233

Dorries really ought to know better to seek legal advice as her first course of action; and definitely be aware that Schillings are most certainly not the flavour of the "blogosphere" at the moment.


I suppose one wouldn’t expect anything else from the researcher of a Labour MP. It makes you wonder what kind of MP employs a person who spends his day going through Facebook accounts. Is this done on a Parliamentary computer I wonder? One paid for by the tax payer, in the time he should be working, again, paid by the tax payer?

It is not lost on me that he chose to highlight the Facebook account of my 22 year old daughter. However, has he been through the Facebook accounts of all of my girls? One of them is only 15 – and if he has – there’s a word for people like you Alex.

Take me on all you want, but mess with my kids…..

It's too bad then that while Hilton's website is most certainly not state-funded, Dorries' most definitely is. Oh, and then she suggests he might be a paedophile even though Dorries' 15-year-old daughter wasn't invoked until Dorries herself brought her into it. It's also somewhat ironic that despite Dorries making clear that she's ready for anyone to take her on, she removed the comments from her blog at the exact moment that err, others did over her slurring of Ben Goldacre.

Dorries is though of course the blogging doyen of the Tories: her endless anecdotes about her wonderful existence, what knickers she wears and how she'd undergo cosmetic surgery all being highly interesting to the Sir Herbert Gusset alikes all across blogland. Fuck with her and the big boys pile in, as demonstrated over on Iain Dale's. I'd be careful Alex, or Schillings might call on Alisher Usmanov to come and sit on you.

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11/19/2007 06:29:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, November 12, 2007 

Chutzpah.

Via Rhetorically Speaking, the Daily Mail, the paper which aims to keep its readers in a perpetual state of anger and fear, runs an article by Christopher Booker and Richard North promoting their book on scare stories. This could go down in the OED as the new definition of chutzpah. One suspects that the Mail might not have published it had the writers focused on the Mail's vilification of the MMR vaccine, numerous fearmongering articles on immigration, or on Christmas being banned. As it is, the fact that the authors dispute climate change may also have something to do with it finding favour in the Mail editorial room.

Elsewhere in tabloid hell, the Sun picks up on the latest scare story regarding social networking sites. Despite the research applying to all the various social networking sites, can you guess what the Sun chose as the headline? That's right, Facebook ID fraudster fear. MySpace is mentioned in the text, but as usual, there is no qualifier in the text pointing out that the Sun and MurdochSpace share an owner.

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11/12/2007 06:45:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, October 31, 2007 

Scum-watch: Encouraging cynicism and other tales.

Whenever public cynicism in politics is discussed, it's always the politicians themselves that get the majority of the blame. Some of it is quite rightly deserved, whether because of the lack of difference between the main parties, the spin and lies of the Blair era, or inability to almost ever answer a straight question with a straight response.

The media also though has to cop some of the blame. A perfect example of how newspapers wrongly claim that ministers have deliberately misled or lied to the public is today's Sun leader:

LABOUR’S shabby deceit over immigration exploded spectacularly last night as red-faced ministers queued to apologise for “misleading” the nation.

First they claimed 800,000 migrants had come to work in Britain since 1997. Then they admitted the statistics were out by 300,000 — and the real figure was 1.1million.

Now we learn there are at least 1.5million — almost DOUBLE the original estimate of only a few days earlier.


Rather than the wrong figures given by the government being down to simple mistakes, the Sun is claiming that this was a "shabby deceit", with the government's apology for misleading being sneered at. It's worth noting that not even the Conservatives, hardly slow to capitalise on such woeful inaccuracies, have attempted to suggest that the government deliberately fiddled the figures. In addition to this, the 1.5 million figure now being liberally bandied (originally put into the mix by the Tories) about is similarly misleading, as it includes the children of those who previously emigrated, as well as those who have gone on to take British citizenship.

But why should we be surprised? Labour tried to tell us only 13,000 migrants would come to Britain from eight new EU states.

The true figure was nearer 500,000.


The government's prediction was based on the other European nations not imposing limits like we have now on the Romanians and Bulgarians, when they in fact did. As a result, only Britain, Ireland and Sweden fully opened their borders, resulting in the vast numbers we've seen.

Fiddling figures is a Labour trademark. They fiddle public spending estimates, exam results, NHS targets, prison numbers, you name it.

Just how do you "fiddle" exam results or prison numbers? It isn't possible. The Sun is simply talking rubbish.

 The government’s embarrassment is all the greater because this shambles was unveiled not by the Tories but by Frank Field, one of Labour’s most respected MPs.

Frank Field is about as respected as the Tory turncoats are. The poor mite has never got over being dumped out on his backside after his welfare reforms were rejected by Brown back during Labour's first term, and he's beared a grudge ever since, something he freely admits. He's since dedicated his time to proving he was right all along, whilst failing miserably.

Gordon Brown must be thanking his lucky stars he scrapped the election which he had planned for tomorrow.

But with our population forecast to grow by 5million in nine years, immigration will still be the issue haunting Labour whenever polling day finally rolls round.


Possibly, especially when the biggest selling newspaper in the country tells its readers that the politicians are lying to them when they most certainly weren't.

Elsewhere today in the Scum, the Sun's readers are being told how marvellous they are as usual:

BRITAIN’S top security boss last night praised readers of The Sun for helping fight the war on terror.

Admiral Lord Alan West, former head of the Navy, revealed there had been a superb response to an appeal to be his “eyes and ears”.

He had called on our millions of readers to assist the security services by reporting suspicious movements and people.

And your tip-offs may have provided vital information in the constant battle to smash al-Qaeda plots and avert atrocities similar to the 7/7 bombings in London.


Of course. Perhaps their tip-offs might have helped towards only 1 in 400 searches under the Terrorism Act resulting in an arrest. In all there were 44,543 stops under the notorious section 44, a 34% rise over the previous year.

The interview is mostly the usual amount of garbage about the terrorist threat, with West now claiming it will take 30 years to combat the "terrorists intent on mass slaughter." He also says:

“We need to go to the root of it. Having English-speaking Imams in this country is extremely important.

“We are getting more and more Muslim youngsters who all speak English. Yet in some mosques, services given by radical Islamists are not in English.


As yesterday's rather good Policy Exchange report (PDF) (for a right-wing thinktank) made clear, the notion that extremism is all the fault of Imams, especially those who give their sermons in languages other than English is deeply misguided. The only reason the government is so concerned about those who don't speak English is that it means they can't easily monitor exactly what is being said. Abu Hamza gave his sermons in English. Sheikh Faisal gave them in English. Those caught in Channel 4's Undercover Mosque programme spoke English. Invariably, those involved in extremism tend to be able to speak good English, are decently educated and from a middle-class or stable background, while they come under the influence of extremism through their own research or discovery, not through listening to the speaker at the local mosque.

This however is the most hilarious statement in the whole piece:

We have wonderful civil liberties, something The Sun drives home all the time.

How true. This would be the same Sun that called those who opposed 90 days without charge "traitors", the same Sun which routinely ridicules the "civil liberties brigade", the one that supports ID cards, every police request for more powers and supports the notion of zero tolerance. Those wonderful civil liberties are no thanks to anything the Sun has ever done.

Moving on, here's a story to keep an eye on:

A SCHOOL was yesterday accused of MAKING teachers dress up as Asians for a day – to celebrate a Muslim festival.

Kids at the 257-pupil primary have also been told to don ethnic garb even though most are Christians.

The morning assembly will be open to all parents – but dads are BARRED from a women-only party in the afternoon because Muslim husbands object to wives mixing with other men.

Just two members of staff – a part-time teacher and a teaching assistant – are Muslim.

...

Sally Bloomer, head of Rufford primary school in Lye, West Midlands, insisted: “I have not heard of any complaints.

“It’s all part of a diversity project to promote multi-culturalism.”


The only other place this story seems to have spread to is the Mail, which illustrates the point with a photograph of a woman in a niqab, so the accuracy or otherwise of the report is currently up in the air. Might know more once it does become more widely reported.

Finally, the Sun treats its readers to another thinly veiled attack on Facebook:

A RANDY geek on the helpline at Tesco’s cheap internet access arm sent a saucy photo to a shocked mum – after using her personal details to track her down on Facebook. Furious Tania Roberts, 24, received the snap of technician Jamie Piper wearing only a green towel just moments after he dealt with her query. Fuming mum-of-two Tania – who complained to his bosses – last night claimed she was living in fear in case he was a stalker. She said: “I’m terrified of this nutcase coming round to my house.

All, naturally, without any mention that the Sun's owner also owns Facebook's rival, MySpace. As one of the wags in the comments says:

Oh dear. This sort of thing would never happen on MySpace!

P.S. Heather Mills this morning attacked the media over the withering coverage she's received. Whether she mentioned that the Sun calls her "Mucca" after it "exposed" the fact she had taken part in a sex manual I don't know, but she might have mentioned the same newspaper is currently running a sordid competition encouraging the women of Britain to get their tits out for a woefully small prize. The Sun's response to her claims:

When someone rightly accuses you of disgusting journalism, make sure you select a grab with the person responsible with her mouth wide open.

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10/31/2007 07:53:00 PM | | | links to this post

Saturday, October 27, 2007 

Mail in trying to prove its own prejudices shocker.

Why is Gordon Brown so reluctant to be a liberal, asks Martin Kettle in today's Grauniad. The obvious answer is because he isn't one. If he was, he would have seen to it that his original soundbite, tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime would have meant exactly that, rather than only the former. He would have opposed all the dilutions of civil liberties we suffered under Blair, and would now abandon identity cards while opposing any further extension of pre-charge detention under which "terrorist suspects" can be held, instead of standing firm by both.

The other though is that he simply can't afford to be, at least not when his biggest friend and supporter, appointed to a panel to investigate whether the 30-year-rule on the release of documents should be abolished, so loathes liberalism, especially any sign that it might exist at the BBC. As Mellomeh points out in the comments of yesterday's post, Paul Dacre's Mail has lazily taken ConservativeHome's own solipsistic search for their own prejudices at the BBC and more or less published it word for word, with a few other examples of alleged bias at the corporation. CH's survey of course doesn't note whether the employees that describe themselves as "liberal" actually work in either the BBC's news or current affairs sections, where their "self-perpetuating institutional bias" as Samuel Coates describes it would be most influential, but that would be expecting too much.

You do however have to love the Mail's last paragraph:

But a well-placed insider said that staff who were Facebook members were likely to be warned to remove their political views from their profiles in the wake of the row.

Would this well-placed insider happen to be of the Mail's own creation? Surely not.

Most of the comments are the usual bag of bilious outrage:

Sory to say it but I stopped trusting the BBC long ago. They are an arm of Nu labour! - John Stretton, Albrighton, nr Wolverhampton

Yes, of course they are. That's why the BBC and "Nu Labour" went to war over Andrew Gilligan's reporting of the WMD lies, not to mention the countless other examples of where the BBC has been highly critical of government projects/policies.

Nothing new here. The BBC and The Guardian are the two cornerstones of Political Correctness in our blighted country...

Those less than 400,000 Grauniad readers sure have a strangehold over Britain, completely unlike the tabloids.

Like the others who have passed comment, I am not surprised by this, it has beeen so obvious in the content of the news and current affairs programs, what does supprise me is that the staff who register on Facebook are so blatent about it. Perhaps thier HR department will look at it and take it into consideration when the axe starts to fall on the overmanning dross. - Mike Woods, Colchester

That would be discrimination, wouldn't it Mr Woods? Oh, shit, I'm being politically correct.
And why are there 10,000+ BBC employees on Facebook anyway? Do these people not have enough work to do? They are paid with public money and I expect value for it. - David G, Carshalton, Surrey

How dare BBC employees have a private life?! I demand they be at their desks 24 hours a day!

For once, the voice of reason comes last:

It is simply that facebook is a young persons phenomena and most people are more liberal in their views when younger and become more conservative with age. Older and probably more influential employees of the BBC won't be on Facebook. - Sara, Cornwall, UK

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10/27/2007 08:45:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, September 21, 2007 

Scum-watch: More Facebook pervs.

Just a quick one today, although if you want a good giggle at how abysmal Sun journalism can be, you can have a look at the hilariously bad faux-conversation between Jon Gaunt and Lorraine Kelly over the McCanns which plumbs new depths of stating the obvious and filling space.

Anyway:
Cop is gun-mad Facebook perv

A COP has quit after his web profile on Facebook exposed him as a gun-toting pervert.

Fellow officers were stunned when they logged on to the social networking site to see 29-year-old Simon Purcell proudly brandishing an MI6 semi-automatic rifle.

The police community support officer went on to list his hobbies as “making sex toys for all the ladies” and “spying on doggers”. Other interests included “women, masturbation, any order I don’t mind.” Among his favourite films he put simply: “Porn”.


All very well of course, although the officer himself claims that "a friend" set-up the profile and put up the series of "perverted" claims.

Strange though when you consider that the other most popular social-networking site, MySpace, recently admitted that over 30,000 sex offenders with profiles had been discovered only months after it had last removed a previous load. The Sun, uniquely among the British press, failed to report it. Naturally, the fact that MySpace is owned by a certain R. Murdoch had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

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9/21/2007 11:20:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, August 07, 2007 

Scum-watch: 1 compared to 29,000.

Remember how the Scum comprehensively failed to report on the news that MySpace (prop. R Murdoch) was found to be teeming with sex offenders, with 29,000 having their profiles deleted? Well, it finally got round today to reporting on how one man had used a social networking site for his perverted needs:

A SEX beast was jailed indefinitely yesterday for abusing two girls he met on the Facebook website.

Jonathan Percy, 29, posed as a 15-year-old to groom the girls, aged 12 and 13, then plied them with alcopops and took them to a wood for sex.

Percy, of Mannington, Dorset — jailed in 2003 for a similar offence — pleaded guilty at Bournemouth Crown Court.

He must serve at least three years before he is eligible for parole, and was banned from using a computer.


Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that this also didn't involve MySpace. Surprising, huh? The article itself is followed by the usual array of user comments about castration involving two bricks, etc, and about the length of the sentence, even though Percy has been jailed under an IPP. Judging by how the prison system currently can't cope with the number being given the new indeterminate sentences, with the courses that those sentenced under them have to complete before even being considered for release being hopelessly oversubscribed, with those unable to get on them likely to have to stay inside long after their tariff has passed, it seems unlikely that he'll be out within 3 years, even if he's no longer considered a danger to the public, something also doubtful, as it's his second offence.

Elsewhere, the Scum is having yet another go at Malloch Brown, Brown's appointment as foreign minister, who you might remember as being the man who gave Fox News a tongue-lashing and as result is person non grata in the Murdoch press:

TROUBLESOME foreign minister Mark Malloch-Brown wants Brussels to take Britain’s seat at the UN top table — and the sooner the better.

Downing Street insists this is a personal viewpoint, not policy.

But Malloch-Brown is no junior upstart who has not learned to guard his tongue.

He is one of Gordon Brown’s closest friends whose pungent views were known before he was catapulted into the Lords and ministerial rank.

He is a vain and arrogant man, accustomed to speaking as if he were in charge of British policy, not Foreign Secretary David Miliband.


Just one problem with all this: Malloch-Brown's comments on the EU taking a permanent security council seat were made last October, while he was still deputy security-general. Are he and Brown really so close? Not according to this Grauniad profile, which doesn't even mention his relationship to the new prime minister. Notice how the Scum leader also makes it look as though Malloch-Brown had made his comments now, rather than nearly over a year ago.

So while we condemn Malloch-Brown’s outburst, we must thank him for blowing the gaffe.

Gordon Brown is now exposed as the fervent pro-European it seems he has always been. Indeed there is not a sceptical bone in his Government’s body.


Please stop! It hurts! Could this fervent pro-European Brown be the same one that stopped Blair from taking the UK into the Euro with the five economic tests? The same one that went on the warpath when Blair acquiesced with Sarkozy's apparent attempt to water down the free-market aspects of the reform treaty? The same Brown that holidayed every summer in the United States, and had by far the most links with other politicos in that country? The same Brown that Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission last year challenged to set out his true priorities over Europe, because he and others feared that Brown was a natural Atlanticist because he rarely bothered turning up for EU meetings? The same Brown with a reputation for being highly suspicious towards Europe? The Scum isn't usually either this disingenuous or obtuse when it comes to politics, making one wonder whether the usual leader writer is away. Either way, the conclusion is the same as usual:

That, more than anything else, makes it essential for him to deliver the referendum he promised.

And give ALL sides the chance to add their voices to this crucial debate.


Yawn.

Finally, deport 'em all:

FOURTEEN foreign criminals are still loose after breaking out of a centre where they were “awaiting deportation”.

Why were they waiting?

Having abused our hospitality by committing serious crimes, they should have had their bags packed as they completed their sentences.


The most "serious crime" any of them had committed was robbery. As other reports suggested that some of those being held at the centre were in limbo, with at least one having spent a year at the detention centre, it's hard not to fault them for taking the opportunity to leg it once it had arose.

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8/07/2007 08:07:00 PM | | | links to this post

 

Stating the obvious.

From today's Grauniad letters page:

Facebook should immediately terminate all BNP-related pages and groups from its site, which is used by millions of young people of all backgrounds (Firms pull Facebook ads, August 3). The pages are in clear breach of the Facebook users' terms and conditions, as they contain racist and Islamophobic material. We welcome the action by Vodafone, First Direct and other advertisers which pulled their advertising from Facebook.
Gemma Tumelty
National Union of Students
Denis Fernando
Unite Against Fascism
Milena Buyum
National Assembly Against Racism
Lee Billingham
Love Music Hate Racism

Christ, the BNP page contains racist and Islamophobic material? There I was thinking that it would be promoting how all of us can live together in harmony without resorting to basing our prejudices on the colour of each other's skin. Whatever next? cumfiesta.com celebrating the unique festival where participants compete to see who can ejaculate the most, rather than showcasing this week's video where another naive, misguided teenager gets paid for debasing both herself and those who've paid to watch it? goatse.cz giving advice on what to do if you suffer an anal prolapse rather than just presenting a photograph of a man demonstrating exactly what happens?

Has it ever possibly occurred to the idiots in charge of these decent if at times counter-productive groups that the very fact that the British National Party has such material on its Facebook page is likely to make those who visit it without much knowledge of the party come to their own conclusions? They'd rather reach straight for the ban hammer instead of exposing that information for what it is, a pack of knuckle-dragging lies. The not getting it just doesn't seem to end.

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8/07/2007 07:48:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, August 03, 2007 

The Facebook fascists and those adverts.

Reading the news stories about major firms pulling their advertising from Facebook because it happens to appear on the British National Party's profile, just as it does on everyone else's, I was instantly reminded of Oliver Burkeman's amusing piece on silly season stories in yesterday's Grauniad:

August 18

New website is latest online sensation

A brightly coloured new website has become enormously popular with teenagers because it allows them to perform a fairly mundane aspect of their lives - such as discussing music, or shouting abuse at others - via the internet. The website has 230 million members in Britain alone, but some critics are worried that it could be used by bad people. It was designed by some Americans, and is estimated to be worth approximately £1bn. Celebrity members include David Miliband.


It really is a complete non-story and a typical overreaction by advertising firms/companies scared shitless that somehow the fact that their annoying banner ads appear on a profile advocating a legitimate if despicable political party will make the average idiot browsing Facebook think that they support them. It's condescending and ignorant by all measures - assuming that you can't work out that the ads are across the site rather than on just one page, and imbecilic on the behalf of the companies themselves - surely they realised that like on all of these sites that dip into the nether region of hell which is the human psyche, there are some profiles that are bound to be offensive or distasteful to some individual somewhere?

In fact, to be fair to them, it isn't entirely their fault. This is one of the only regions where the allegations of political correctness could possibly be considered plausible, based on the activities of a good number of the organisations opposed to the likes of the BNP. Rather than wanting to engage, challenge them and expose their lies, they instead try to institute a sort of boycott, denying them the right to both speak and be heard, in some cases almost pretending that they don't even exist. This is just the sort of contempt for the "average" person that the BNP loves to focus on; like some of those who support the actions of the takfiri jihadis, they thrive on a sense of false victimhood, claiming their right to freedom of expression is being denied by the liberal elite. It's complete and utter nonsense, as reading almost any tabloid will quickly expose you to just the sort of hate and misinformation which the BNP preaches, but it also has a ring of truth to it. The perfect example of how not to go about tackling the BNP was made by those who decided to protest outside the theatre where the "BNP ballerina" Simone Clarke performed back in January, when she hadn't done anything whatsoever to promote the party other than defending herself in an interview after she was exposed as a member. Shouting empty slogans against a misguided woman's political beliefs was little short of cowardly, not to say counter-productive.

Advertisers and companies are notoriously fickle when it comes to any possibility that their precious little brand might be affected by a controversy, and Vodafone may have a point when they say they don't want to support any political party, but it's still grandstanding over something incredibly petty. If I could be bothered enough to sign up to Facebook, I could probably find profiles representing things far more potentially offensive than a racist political party in a matter of minutes, doubtless with the same adverts appearing on those pages as on those of the profiles of middle class young people and aging politicos desperate to get down with the kids that infest the site.

In any case, do people really still browse the internet without an ad blocker? The other day mine stopped working for some reason and the sheer offensiveness of the deluge of ads which swamp you upon visiting almost any site is enough to make you want to extract your own teeth with a pair of rusty pliers than have to put up with them for more than a matter of seconds. If you're using Firefox and don't have an adblocking extension, go and install Adblock Plus and then subscribe to the EasyList and EasyElement filter sets, and you'll be unlikely to see the vast majority of ads ever again.

As for the British National Party, doubtless they'll again be delighted with getting yet more publicity because their views are regarded as beyond the pale. They indeed are, but you don't fight back against them by acting as if everyone who thinks they might have a point is an idiot. The more people think they are being victimised purely because of their political views, the more they'll be able to recruit from the similarly disaffected.

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8/03/2007 07:04:00 PM | | | links to this post

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