Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts

12 May 2017

'Horseshoe Theory' Is Nonsense – The Far Right And Far Left Have Little In Common

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Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen
Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen (Guillaume Horcajuelo / Frederic Scheiber / EPA)
By Simon Choat, Kingston University

After the first round of the French presidential elections, several liberal commentators condemned the defeated leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon for refusing to endorse the centrist Emmanuel Macron. His decision was portrayed as a failure to oppose the far-right Front National, and it was argued that many of his supporters were likely to vote for Marine Le Pen in the second round. Comparisons were drawn with the US presidential elections and the alleged failure of Bernie Sanders supporters to back Hilary Clinton over Donald Trump. The Conversation

Underlying these claims is a broader and increasingly popular notion that the far left and the far right have more in common than either would like to admit. This is known as the “horseshoe theory”, so called because rather than envisaging the political spectrum as a straight line from communism to fascism, it pictures the spectrum as a horseshoe in which the far left and far right have more in common with each other than they do with the political centre. The theory also underlies many of the attacks on the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who is accused of cosying up to authoritarian and theocratic regimes and fostering antisemitism within his party.


Taken one by one, these claims do not withstand scrutiny. Did Mélenchon give succour to Le Pen? No: he explicitly ruled out supporting Le Pen, and most of his supporters voted for Macron in the second round. Are there antisemites in the Labour Party? Yes: but there are antisemites in every British political party; the difference is that repeated incidents of racism in other parties go unremarked (as does Corbyn’s longstanding record of anti-racist activism).

Fans of the horseshoe theory like to lend their views weight and credibility by pointing to the alleged history of collusion between fascists and communists: the favoured example is the Nazi-Soviet Pact. But – aside from the fact that the Soviet Union played a vital role in defeating the Nazis – it is patently absurd to compare Stalin to present-day leftists like Mélenchon or Corbyn.


Can we instead find convergence between far left and far right at the level of policy? It is true that both attack neoliberal globalisation and its elites. But there is no agreement between far left and far right over who counts as the “elite”, why they are a problem, and how to respond to them. When the billionaire real-estate mogul Donald Trump decries global elites, for example, he is either simply giving his audience what he thinks they want to hear or he is indulging in antisemitic dog-whistling.

For the left, the problem with globalisation is that it has given free rein to capital and entrenched economic and political inequality. The solution is therefore to place constraints on capital and/or to allow people to have the same freedom of movement currently given to capital, goods, and services. They want an alternative globalisation. For the right, the problem with globalisation is that it has corroded supposedly traditional and homogeneous cultural and ethnic communities – their solution is therefore to reverse globalisation, protecting national capital and placing further restrictions on the movement of people.


Donald Trump
Trump and Sanders both attacked globalisation – for different reasons. Michael Vadon, CC BY-SA

Is there a more fundamental, ideological resonance between far left and far right? Again, only in the vaguest sense that both challenge the liberal-democratic status quo. But they do so for very different reasons and with very different aims. When fascists reject liberal individualism, it is in the name of a vision of national unity and ethnic purity rooted in a romanticised past; when communists and socialists do so, it is in the name of international solidarity and the redistribution of wealth.

Given the basic implausibility of the horseshoe theory, why do so many centrist commentators insist on perpetuating it? The likely answer is that it allows those in the centre to discredit the left while disavowing their own complicity with the far right. Historically, it has been “centrist” liberals – in Spain, Chile, Brazil, and in many other countries – who have helped the far right to power, usually because they would rather have had a fascist in power than a socialist.

Today’s fascists have also been facilitated by centrists – and not just, for example, those on the centre-right who have explicitly defended Le Pen. When centrists ape the Islamophobia and immigrant-bashing of the far right, many people begin to think that fascism is legitimate; when they pursue policies which exacerbate economic inequality and hollow out democracy, many begin to think that fascism looks desirable.
If liberals genuinely want to understand and confront the rise of the far right, then rather than smearing the left they should perhaps reflect on their own faults.

About Today's Contributor:
Simon Choat, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, Kingston University


This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

5 April 2017

Easter Egg Row Is An Undercooked Mess That Feeds English Nationalism

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EPA/Michael Reichel

By David Tollerton, University of Exeter


Some people have dismissed it as a “storm in an egg cup”, but the controversy over Easter eggs has embroiled quintessentially “English” institutions. And unlike most chocolate eggs currently on sale in shops, the story ultimately has rather more inside it than you might imagine. It touches upon issues of fake news, the contested borderlands of secularism and religiosity, and the fluid interplay of state, church and national identity in Brexit Britain.

The Conversation
It started with an article in The Daily Telegraph. This voice of “small c” conservativism (wrongly) accused Cadbury, a venerable confectioner with nearly 200 years of history, and the National Trust, which looks after many of the UK’s finest stately homes, of dropping references to “Easter” from promotional material for their Easter egg hunts and turning a religious festival into a “chocfest”. The article quoted a spokesman for the Church of England saying: “This marketing campaign … highlights the folly in airbrushing faith from Easter.

The events gained momentum with an accusation by the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, the second most senior clerical position in the Church of England, that this amounted to “spitting on the grave” of Cadbury’s founder. One of his descendants would later claim that, as a Quaker, John Cadbury didn’t actually celebrate Easter – but the archbishop’s vivid condemnation had made its mark.


The the UK’s prime minister, Theresa May, who less than a week after triggering Article 50 might have bigger issues to face, declared that:
The stance they [Cadbury and the National Trust] have taken is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t know what they are thinking about frankly. Easter’s very important. It’s important to me.


Predictably, a range of politicians weighed in on the topic, with Nigel Farage declaring that this was part of a battle for Britain’s very soul:


There are a variety of curious features to the story, the first of which is that its central premise, that Cadbury and the National Trust airbrushed out references to Easter, is actually pretty weak. Numerous media commentaries spotted that the word “Easter” is sprinkled liberally across both organisations’ websites. Indeed, if they really were trying to expunge mentions of the Christian festival from their material, they were doing a pretty dire job of it. In the rapid fire age of social media anger and freely-given accusations of “fake news”, this whole affair may seem like a prime candidate for dismissal as a confected nonsense.

Defending the faith
But the controversy intersects with several deep and longstanding tensions. One of these is the question of what is actually meant when Christianity is discussed in England. As several pundits have observed, the religious roots of many Easter traditions are decidedly hazy and, in truth, the precise divisions between pagan inheritance, Christian practice and secular appropriation are all difficult to pin down.

One doesn’t have to spend long pondering the vast disconnect between the number of people who self-identified as Christian in the last census and the number of people who actually go to church to appreciate that religious and secular identities are decidedly fluid.
The Archbishop of York may see the advertising of a chocolate egg hunt as a frontline against secularism to be fought over with passion but, in reality, British society is instead full of tiny and opaque daily skirmishes in which religious language and tradition is expressed or sidelined at varying conscious and unconscious levels.

Dog-whistling
But what is clear is that for some political figures an appeal to visions of Christianity under siege is more irresistible than any chocolate. This is because “Christianity under siege” can become profoundly bound up in ideas of “Britishness under siege”. Nigel Farage’s declaration that “we must defend our Judeo-Christian culture and that means Easter” is of course an obvious case.

Leaving aside the casual alignment of the “Judeo-Christian” with what is, in effect, simply Christian, the intervention maps neatly onto a longstanding UKIP policy of positioning themselves as the defenders of Christian values (see, for instance, their “Valuing Our Christian Heritage” campaign during the 2015 general election).

Traditionalist: John Sentamu, Archbishop of York. PA/John Giles/Pool, CC BY-SA

But Conservative politicians have found fertile ground here, too. In his 2016 Easter address, David Cameron reflected that “we are a Christian country and we are proud of it”, building on a longstanding rhetorical alignment of “Christian values” and “British values”. Given Theresa May’s history of fiercely asserting the importance of “British values”, her firm defence of British Christians who feel marginalised and her mission, in triggering Article 50, to “restore, as we see it, our national self-determination”, the scene is set for a drama in which actors seen to undermine Christian identity are cast as villains of the piece.

The misfortune for the National Trust and Cadbury (which is now owned by US giant Kraft) was to walk onto the stage at the wrong time – and no doubt they won’t be the last to do so. That the evidence of their misconduct is shaky and the crime’s very theological and sociological coherence is questionable are, in effect, minor details within the greater rhetorical purpose.

The Church of England’s role is more complex, however. The institution has on occasions voiced public unease at the nationalistic and exclusionary potentials of extolling “British values”, and last year’s row between Farage and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby made it plain that UKIP and the Church of England’s understandings of “Christian heritage” are far from harmonised.

But as the egg controversy shows, undercooked and hyperbolic church interventions against organisations deemed to undermine Christian tradition may, intentionally or not, ultimately end up providing a feast for nationalists.

About Today's Contributor:
David Tollerton, Lecturer in Jewish Studies and Contemporary Biblical Cultures, University of Exeter


This article was originally published on The Conversation..

11 February 2017

Katy Perry Honored for Global Sales of 40+ Million Adjusted Albums and 125+ Million Tracks

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(pictured L-R Steve Barnett; Chairman & CEO Capitol Music Group, Katy Perry, Sir Lucian Grainge; Chairman and CEO Universal Music Group)
Today, Capitol Records celebrated Katy Perry's 10-year anniversary with the label and honored her extraordinary accomplishments, which include a cumulative 18+ billion streams alongside worldwide sales of more than 40+ million adjusted albums and 125+ million tracks. 

The global superstar was awarded a plaque recognizing her "singular artistry, astonishing creative vision and extraordinary global popularity within every realm of recorded music." The ceremony took place during Universal Music Group Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge's annual pre-GRAMMY showcase at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles.

Yesterday's release of Katy's new single, "Chained to the Rhythm," set a new Spotify record. With more than three million streams on its first day of release, it marks the best first day of streaming of a single track by a female artist in Spotify history. Katy will perform "Chained to the Rhythm" for the very first time at the 59th Annual GRAMMY Awards, which will air on CBS tomorrow, February 12, at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT.

The lyric video, which already has more than eight million views, can be seen HERE. Katy co-wrote "Chained to the Rhythm" with Max Martin, Sia Furler, Ali Payami and Skip Marley. The latter is featured on the track. 
Billboard proclaimed, "Katy Perry Embraces Her Wokeness -- And It Works…one of music's biggest stars is once again dominating conversations."
Katy made her Capitol Records debut with 2008's One of the Boys after signing to the label in 2007. She cemented her status as a global superstar with the follow-up album, Teenage Dream (2010). PRISM, her 2013 album, debuted at No. 1 on iTunes in 100 countries and has sold more than 12.5 million adjusted albums worldwide. 

With the singles "Firework" and "Dark Horse" each surpassing the 10 million threshold including song sales and streams, Katy is the first female artist to earn two RIAA Digital Single Diamond Awards. She is also the most-followed person globally on Twitter. 

Katy played to a total of two million people on the sold-out, 151-date Prismatic World Tour and headlined the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show, which set a record as the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show ever. 

For additional information on Katy Perry, visit:

SOURCE: Capitol Music Group

Bonus Videos:

7 February 2017

Behind Enemy Lines: Will #Trump's America Become Hostile Territory For Journalists?

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Donald Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski allegedly grabbed former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields as she asked Trump a question at the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida.EPA/Jupiter police handout
By James Rodgers, City, University of London

It was high summer on the edge of Siberia and suddenly there came the hardest question of a tough assignment. I had travelled to Yekaterinburg for a story about the spread of HIV. The city’s location made it a crossroads for the trade in many goods, including heroin. As a result, HIV infection rates were rising frighteningly rapidly among drug users. The trip involved encounters with sources, many of whom were distressed – some of whom who were frankly scary. But it was questions from the journalism students who were with us that really stumped me.

The questions – including the size of my salary – were largely predictable. One was not: “What do you do when the governor does not like a story you have written?

The obvious answer from a Western reporter might have been something about the noble notion of the fourth estate speaking the truth to power. But I knew that such an answer would not work in the lawless Russia of the post-Soviet era. Journalists – especially those who uncovered incompetence or corruption among the powerful – could find themselves in serious, even mortal, danger. So I offered a reply which blended the ideal with a more realistic point about it being important, as a reporter, to manage one’s relationships.

Hostile environment
I was recently reminded of that day. Reuters editor-in-chief Steve Adler sent out a message to staff in which he outlined the challenges of working in countries where the “media is unwelcome and frequently under attack”. The message listed “places such as Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia, nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats”.


His point was that experiences such as these would now prove useful in covering the United States under the presidency of Donald Trump. The administration is still in its first month, but this is hardly the kind of company in which the US would wish to find itself.

My own experience covering international news included being stopped from filming on many occasions in Russia: including even once during a British ministerial visit. The location was a rusting naval dockyard which the minister was visiting to see how funds allocated to make safe ageing nuclear reactors were being spent – and a man in a shiny suit demanded to see what the cameraman I was working with had shot.

On another occasion, a reporting trip to some glasshouses ended in a police station. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, detained my colleagues and me for filming flowers. The year-round rose-growing business was close enough (some 20km, as far as I remember) to a naval base to be off limits to foreigners.

Reporters will need to get used to separating truth from ‘alternative facts’. EPA/Michael Reynolds
Many international journalists could add plenty of anecdotes to that list: being stopped at roadblocks by heavily armed men in plain clothes; having their phones tapped or their equipment confiscated or damaged; being issued with threats – this especially applies to local people helping journalists from beyond its borders. The difference now is that Reuters journalists are being asked to draw on such experiences in a country which sees itself as leading “the free world”.

Dishonest people
Western coverage of the world is not perfect. It frequently provides fuel for its critics, journalists among them. Yet at a time when journalism is under all kinds of political and economic pressures, this is actually a chance for it to shine; to prove its worth.


Repressive governments often criticise the kind of “objective” journalism prized as a model in the Western world. They argue it is not, in fact, objective. State media in countries where dissent is discouraged howl that international news organisations are merely acting at the bidding of other “political demands”.

As a correspondent, I have covered armed conflict, political upheaval and refugee crises – but most of that was outside Western Europe. Now political uncertainty is shaking the Western world and with it come attacks on the media, may of them from the latest occupant of the White House. As Adler’s message to his staff noted: “It’s not every day that a US president calls journalists ‘among the most dishonest human beings on earth’ or that his chief strategist dubs the media ‘the opposition party’.

It is good to see organisations such as Reuters publicly reporting the situation for what it is. Historically, one of the influences which shaped ideas of objective journalism was economic. In capitalist economies, news had to sell – so offering a version of events which could be widely accepted made business sense. In a political and media world increasingly shaped by emotion and belief, this is arguably less important.

Reuters’ statement is valuable in another sense. For journalism is also about recognising era-defining change when it comes. Allies can become adversaries; good governments can give way to bad ones. Confrontation between political power and the press can become repression. When it does, or threatens to, that’s news wherever it happens. Journalists need to report it.

The Conversation
About Today's Contributor:
James Rodgers, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of London

This article was originally published on The Conversation



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2 February 2017

Donald Trump Has Just Been Hit Up in The Song Titled "Illegitimate President" From Del FunkBoy Music

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Donald Trump Has Just Been Hit Up in The Song Titled "Illegitimate President"
On Wednesday, February 1, 2017, the most controversial song since Tupac's Hit'em Up, 'Illegitimate President' was released worldwide by Platinum-selling and award winning music artist, Delray of Del FunkBoy Music, LLC. 

The song calls into question Donald Trump's legitimacy as president. Within its lyrics, Delray has cleverly woven a tale of Donald Trump's hypocrisies.  
From Trump's lack of military service to his claim of voter fraud, this song embodies everything that is wrong with Trump being the President of the United States:

Thank you, thank you for your applause, 
We got a illegitimate president y'all…. 
….he like to grab women by their vagina 
Without their permission, please just listen… 
Liar liar pants on fire Mr. Birther of fake news but now it's coming for you… 
"Illegitimate President"

"When he got drafted he was scared to fight
He said he had a splint heel(coward)
but got the nerve to talk about soldiers who suffered for real 
from post traumatic stress syndrome…
he even said that the system was rigged 
but now that he's president, 
forget about that please
Corruption-ruption what's your function he
got some new tricks and we love those nude pics… 
He even encouraged the Russians to hack his own government 
and stood behind the podium lovin it…
"Illegitimate President"


With a hip beat and a sound that can rock a club, the words have the most impact.  This song is well worth a listen to, as it stands for truth and what is wrong with Donald Trump.  Whether a supporter or not, Delray's song is well researched and cannot be denied.  

While so much current music has no message, nor does it make us to think intellectually, this song will definitely strike a chord in everyone. 


Delray has been named co-writer next to some of the biggest names in hip-hop history like Tupac, Eminem, Dr. Dre, 50 CentMelle Mel and The Game.

The Video:


SOURCE: Del FunkBoy Music, LLC


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24 January 2017

#SpicerFacts: How The White House's Relationship With The press Will Play Out

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Click here to see Tweet on Twitter
By Jon Herbert, Keele University

Journalists would have anticipated the first press conference of the Trump presidency with some trepidation. Not only had his briefing at Trump Tower as president-elect been something of a shambles as Trump excoriated some journalists and ignored others, but the whole election campaign had been traumatic for many. Reporters had been submitted to ritual humiliation at Trump rallies, ushered through baying crowds to be labelled “liars” and “disgusting” by a candidate who did not seem overly burdened by the concept of truth himself.

But campaigning is different from governing. Journalists, who had endured a storm of criticism from Trump’s transition team, were hoping for a transformation of campaign Trump into a more presidential Trump – or perhaps a press liaison operation sympathetic to the press’ needs.

The first press “briefing” from White House press secretary Sean Spicer, delivered the day after Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States made it clear that this transformation has not happened. In a six-minute tirade, Spicer told journalists why their coverage of the inauguration had been wrong, told them what they should be reporting and left the stage with no opportunities for questions and answers.

Any impression that a mutual trust might be nurtured between presidency and media – or even that a deal for mutual benefit might be negotiated – was shattered. Journalists’ worst fears, articulated widely and openly during the transition, are now realised and both sides are now digging in for an extended battle.

Written out
From Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency at the turn of the 20th century onward, presidents have traditionally nurtured a relationship with journalists. Franklin Roosevelt held briefings in the Oval Office and Jack Kennedy traded on his own journalistic experiences in talking to the press. The relationship was symbiotic and mutually beneficial; presidencies broadcast their messages to the public and the media had stories and pictures to run.

But the relationship has soured since the 1970s – and the Trump presidency may come to represent the logical conclusion of a half-century’s development in presidential relations with the media.
The disillusionment of the media with the presidency is well-documented. The Watergate scandal and misinformation over the Vietnam War caused journalists to examine their assumptions about the trustworthiness of the country’s commander-in-chief.

But the media still needs the presidency. The presidency, on the other hand has long struggled to wriggle free of the media’s grasp. Frustrated by increasingly negative coverage from mainstream outlets, presidents pull away from the media over their term, offering fewer press conferences as their term develops. Obama’s administration built a reputation for unusual levels of secrecy due to its refusal to release information in response to press requests. Worse, administration threats to prosecute journalists for not revealing their sources permanently tarnished Obama’s standing with the media and generated many hostile stories.
During George W. Bush’s administration, journalist Ryan Lizza offered the term “pressless presidency” to capture the Bush team’s assessment of the press, not as a Fourth Estate with a legitimate role to check governmental and presidential power, but as just another interest group to be serviced.

The holy grail now for an administration is to bypass the hard questions and unforgiving judgements of the Washington media to reach the people directly. Each new technology seems to offer this potential. Obama attempted to bypass the Washington press corps through use of Reddit and YouTube, while Trump has done more than most to cut loose while calculating that he can use other means to communicate – Twitter being his favourite medium.

US vs them
Instead of working with the media, Trump has made it integral to his core message: his anti-establishment status. Trump’s rhetoric relies upon simple oppositions – and the media has been particularly important in this. In Trump’s populist rhetoric the media have become part of giant conspiracy of politicians, business and media working against the interests of the American people. And the press makes an excellent target – public trust in the media has dropped precipitously.

Declining trust in the news media. Gallup, CC BY

Usually there is something of a “honeymoon period” as the two sides develop their relationships and work out a basis of cooperation. Both the incoming administration and the media usually focus on appointments and leading policy proposals. But instead of trying to build that relationship for mutual advantage early on, Trump’s team is launching a full frontal assault on the media’s credibility. The Trump team is “pressless” from the start.

Not only is Trump to be pressless, then, but the logic of this position extends to discrediting the media as a competitor in setting the agenda or even describing reality. When Spicer highlights the delayed nomination of Mike Pompeo as CIA director and tells the press: “That’s what you guys should be writing and covering,” the attempt to control what is considered news is obvious. But this position extends to portraying the media as a malevolent force. Accusing the media of “dishonesty” allows the administration to claim a new role.

To quote Spicer: “We’re going to hold the press accountable as well.” The administration has appointed itself the guardian of truth against the evildoers of the press. Theatrical denials of the media’s legitimacy suit the administration very well: much as Trump’s tweets have done before, Spicer’s press briefing made the tension between the media and the new administration the main news story. The administration portrays itself as the insurgency against the establishment. As long as the media continue to run the conflict stories, Trump will remain happy to trigger them.

High-risk strategy
But this approach carries substantial risks. As a rocky transition focused on Putin’s influence over the election and Trump’s conflicts of interest proved, the new administration has not found a way to control the media agenda. Trump’s familiar campaign technique of picking fights over Twitter has served to distract from the worst stories but has not refocused attention on the presidency’s priorities.

The stories in each policy area are of uncertainty and confusion around the administration’s direction and the overall image of Trump’s presidency has been damaged from the start.


So far, the media has expressed substantial doubt that the Trump administration has a clear direction or clarity over priorities, a claim reinforced by Trump’s own tendency to make bold, incredible and contradictory statements. Attacking the press is a serious – and unforced – error that will generate negative coverage. Trump and Spicer’s calculation, that the new president’s support can endure a relentless stream of negative stories, is an extraordinary gamble. It relies on Trump’s supporters resisting the influence of negative media coverage, while the administration communicates with them directly.

Without doubt, there is much to suggest that some partisans will remain loyal to their president amid media criticism. News accessed only through selective social media “bubbles is likely to reinforce this effect. However, experience suggests that Republicans will not be blindly loyal. As Nixon and George W. Bush discovered, Republicans can turn on their own.

As the administration’s credibility falls, the same rhetoric from Trump blaming media demons for Americans’ perceived plight will sound less like a promise of conflict, victory and transformation and more like excuse-making in the face of under-achievement. Trump attacks on those merely trying to report on his presidency will come to look like the product of a paranoid mindset.

The Conversation
About Today's Contributor:
Jon Herbert, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Director of Learning and Teaching, Keele University

This article was originally published on The Conversation



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3 January 2017

UK: Where Press Regulation Is Concerned, We're Already Being Fed 'Post-Truth' Journalism

by
SamJonah
By Brian Cathcart, Kingston University

The Times newspaper greeted the start of 2017 by warning: “The freedom of the press is under direct and immediate threat.” Its Murdoch stablemate, The Sun, went further by identifying the “sinister zealots behind regulators [who] want to destroy the popular press”. The Daily Mail, meanwhile, urged its readers to: “Act NOW if you want to help defend the right to read a website like MailOnline.”

Free speech in Britain – which has been a beacon of human rights since 1689 – is clearly under threat. Or is it? It depends who you believe.

Anyone attempting to follow the progress of press regulation in the UK can be forgiven some bewilderment – and also some impatience. Matters generally thought to have been sorted out after the Leveson Inquiry seem suddenly to be surfacing again, and the public is being asked to take an urgent interest in something called Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. This provides for costs in defamation cases and mandates that judges can direct newspapers to pay both sides’ costs even if they win a libel case.

Make no mistake: the bewilderment and impatience have been deliberately engineered by the corporate press – by which I mean the Murdoch, Mail, Mirror, Express and Telegraph papers – whose objective is to sabotage all change, including changes already passed into law by parliament. With this objective in mind, these newspapers have engaged in a rampage of misinformation.

MPs are considering forcing newspapers to pay celebs and politicians who sue – even if cases are thrown out”, declared a recent editorial in The Sun, beneath a headline about protecting the free press and keeping investigative journalism alive. Similar messages have even been rammed home to the employees of these companies in internal emails.
These publications are desperate to give a veneer of legitimacy to the work of their political allies who are trying to bury the Leveson reforms and with them the second part of the Leveson Inquiry (which deals with criminality rather than regulation). Having stalled both of these measures at the behest of the press, ministers have launched a consultation about the next step – the implementation of Section 40 – and the papers are going all out for the option of complete abandonment.

Blurring the truth
Despite The Sun’s rhetoric, MPs are not actually involved in implementing Section 40 for the good reason that the Crime and Courts Act was passed into law with the support of every party in 2013. Section 40 is not about celebrities and politicians – on the contrary, what it chiefly does is to give every citizen a historic new right of access to affordable justice in cases of libel and unjustified intrusion.

If the government will only put Section 40 into operation, we will see the end of the age-old British scandal by which only the very rich or the very lucky get to uphold their rights against libellers and those who violate our privacy rights.

But it is precisely because it gives us all that right that the corporate papers and their friends are fighting it. They are terrified by the idea that ordinary people might suddenly be able to sue them and get damages.

As with most post-truth news, there is a germ of truth in what The Sun claims and it is this: if someone wants to exercise the right to affordable justice through arbitration and a newspaper refuses to cooperate, so forcing them to take the far more expensive route of court proceedings, then the judge will have the option of making the newspaper pay both sides’ costs even if the paper wins.

Far from being outrageous, as The Sun and others suggest, this is absolutely fair. What would be unfair would be to leave editors with the power to pick and choose which claimants can use cheap arbitration. All experience tells us that they would push the rich into arbitration, thus saving money, and push the rest of us towards the courts knowing we can’t afford it and so would abandon our cases.

This has nothing to do with rich celebs – who have long been among the privileged few able to afford to sue. Instead it is about empowering people who, in the absence of Section 40, are left powerless.

No state control
The Sun’s comments are self-serving. By banging on about “state-backed regulation”, corporate papers aim to smear “recognised regulation” as set out under the Royal Charter of 2013 with the taint of censorship.

Powerful voices. Lenscap Photography

Recognised regulation is regulation that meets the basic standards of independence and effectiveness set out in the Leveson Report as necessary to uphold standards and protect the public from abuse.

The test is applied by the Press Recognition Panel, which although a public body enjoys unprecedented and unique independence from ministerial or political influence – and one of the criteria it applies is that a regulator must have no power “to prevent the publication of any material, by anyone, at any time”.

So far from representing a step towards state control, the charter system has freedom of expression at its heart – and no one has been able to show any way in which it could inhibit public interest journalism. There are no rational grounds for any responsible news publisher to object to regulation under the charter.

Yet the propaganda continues. The papers that hold the megaphone of mass communication are all shouting the same words together and, at the same time, refusing even a hint of balance in their reporting.

Despite all of this, there is something you can do. Hacked Off is helping coordinate responses to the government consultation, which closes on January 10. There at least you cannot be drowned out by the megaphone.

The Conversation
About Today's Contributor:
Brian Cathcart, Professor of Journalism, Kingston University


This article was originally published on The Conversation.

17 December 2016

Tell Colleges: Don't Let Milo Yiannopoulos Harass Your Students [Petition]

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Alt-Right's poster boy, Milo Yiannopoulos - image via Wikipedia
The following is an email I've received from Media Matters earlier on... as the subject of that email is Milo (I have written a post about the deluded Breitbart/alt-right's poster boy, quite a while ago), I definitely have no problem whatsoever sharing it on here.

Stay safe!

Loup Dargent

The Email:
Harassment is not a part of the marketplace of ideas. Campuses need to be places where ideas can be debated vigorously, and sometimes that debate will become uncomfortable or controversial. But when discussion devolves into outright harassment of students, it is time to draw a line.

When failed tech entrepreneur and Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos spoke at a Wisconsin university in December, he used the opportunity to harass a transgender woman. According to a local report, Yiannopoulos "named and showed a picture of the student to his audience, and accused the student of being a man trying to find his way into women's bathrooms." Yiannopoulos added "The way you know he's failed is I can still bang him."1


Yiannopoulos is defined by his harassment. He is a champion of the "alt-right," a coalition of white supremacists and misogynists that have consistently used online platforms to organize harassment.

In October, the Anti-Defamation League found a drastic uptick in anti-Semitic tweets sent to journalists.2 A conservative writer connected them to the "alt-right" and Yiannopoulos personally.3 Twitter banned Yiannopoulos in July for what the organization described as "participating in or inciting targeted abuse of individuals."4 The ban was widely understood as a reaction to the harassment campaign Yiannopoulos led against African-American actress Leslie Jones.5 This approach can be traced back to "Gamergate," where conspiracy theorists engaged in sustained harassment of women, including directing threats of violence against them.6 Yiannopoulos was a key figure in that as well.7

>> Tell Colleges: Don't Let Milo Yiannopoulos Harass Your Students
Colleges are rightfully reluctant to ban speakers based on their viewpoint. But they should not shy from taking a stand against people with a lengthy track record of harassment, especially those who have demonstrated a willingness to target and harass students.

Campuses have a simple way to prevent Yiannopoulos from harassing students on campus: They should require him to contractually agree to avoid such behavior before they permit him to speak on campus. If Yiannopoulos is truly interested in participating in an exchange of ideas, he should have no trouble agreeing to this. Campuses would also be doing their due diligence to protect their status as an open forum.

It's time to draw a line, and we need you to add your voice.

Erin Fitzgerald
LGBT Program Director, Media Matters

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[1] Herzog, Karen. (2016, December 15). Breitbart writer targets transgender UWM student Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
[2] ADL's Task Force on Harassment and Journalism. (2016, October 19). ADL Report: Anti-Semitic Targeting Of Journalists During The 2016 Presidential Campaign Anti-Defamation League.
[3] Pesca, Mike. (2016, November 23). The Alt-Right Is Using Trump Slate.
[4] Ohlheiser, Abby. (2016, July 21). Just how offensive did Milo Yiannopoulos have to be to get banned from Twitter? The Washington Post.
[5] Singal, Jesse. (2016, November 4). Twitter Exile Has Not Been Good for Milo’s Brand New York.
[6] Jeong, Sarah. (2016, December 14). If we took ‘Gamergate’ harassment seriously, ‘Pizzagate’ might never have happened The Washington Post.
[7] Biddle, Sam. (2014, October 20). The D-List Right-Wingers Who've Turned Gamergate Into Their Loser Army Gawker.

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