Bill to stamp out 'online echo chambers of hate'

There is apparently a petition to stop this bill!

Stop the Online Forums Bill 2017-18 becoming law.

Thought control by politicians, backed by the main stream media has led to ever more sinister intrusions into people's freedom to criticize public policy and assemble into campaign groups.

By requiring platforms to publish information about closed forums and making Administrators responsible for content is Orwellian and anti-democratic.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/229013

Relating to this, Medium has a piece about the bizarre situation we find ourselves in: Trump Is Turning the Enemies of Civil Liberties into Liberal Heroes: In going after the most egregious violators of American freedoms, the president has forced pundits to rush to their defense

Virtually all of Trump’s specific criticisms are baseless, but he has an uncanny ability to pick targets for his tweet tirades that should be harshly criticized for entirely different reasons. The FISA court has been radically reinterpreting Fourth Amendment law in complete secrecy since the Bush administration. The FBI...has been a civil liberties disaster since its inception and was recently handed increased surveillance authorities under Trump’s watch. The Justice Department has repeatedly tipped the scales against the powerless while shielding the powerful.

Why, then, when Trump tweets something idiotic about the Justice Department, do so many pundits have to say something almost as ridiculous in response, like, “The statute of Justice is blindfolded for a reason, it applies to all without fear nor favor”? Try telling that to 500 children still separated from their immigrant parents because of Justice Department policies,..When Trump criticizes law enforcement or intelligence officials by name, this phenomenon somehow gets worse. His targets are instantly turned into celebrities who must be morally pure, merely because Trump has decided to turn his fire on them on a particular day.

medium.com/s/oversight/trump-is-turning-the-enemies-of-civil-liberties-into-liberal-heroes-dc482dcdad7

There's a danger that people who stand up to oppose this restriction of our liberties might be feted in a similar manner despite their record in other areas.

Via a thoughtful tweeter, Jon Mendel:

twitter.com/JonMendel/status/1039974476119789571

This thread by doctorrow details just how unworkable any such legislation would be.

Everything we do today involves the internet. Everything we do tomorrow will require it. Every problem everyone has involves the internet, and everyone's solution to that problem will eventually look like this: "Can't we just destroy the internet a little to solve my problem?"
Making people understand that the mechanisms for censoring and surveilling the internet for their noble cause will be hijacked by griefers, trolls, dictators, stalkers, harassers, criminals and authoritarians is a long, arduous process we'll have to repeat and repeat.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1039845484431519744.html

RedToothBrush that's quite shocking. I read your post a few times and came to the supposition that some people just must have too many others to interact with, so they have to find a way to cull numbers.
Also, if you were a singer with five million followers/friends and you didn't reply to every question I doubt it'd cost you fans. If you're a local councillor and you don't respond to enquiries via the Twitter you set up then you're in trouble.
I'm not sure how I feel about, for example, the most powerful man in the world being on Twitter. People assume because they can message him, they have a two-way communication but it isn't that at all. He's standing on the beach and the follower is a grain of sand, only noticed if he becomes an irritation.
For celebs it's just tailored advertising really. For politicians it's a very high risk communication strategy. There's so much to go wrong and you still only reach a small percentage of voters anyway. In this case, despite it being terrible judgement on DA's side, it won't make much impact because the story will get buried and the public expects hypocrisy from Abbott already.
Ideally this should be torn apart by political commentators, it's indicative of the echo chambers of all varieties that are so easy to find. But nope. Nothing will happen to her.

This is bloody special.

Adam Wagner @adamwagner1
I stand re-corrected. For some reason, Dianne Abbott has indeed blocked me. I have no idea why, as I have not had any personal dispute with her. She was supportive of my human rights work so sadly I can only assume it is because of what I have said about Labour and antisemitism

Adam Wagner is a human rights lawyer and activist. He is Jewish. But he's always very very measured in what he says.

And yet seemingly blocked by Diane Abbott. Most likely via a mass block programme.

If you have Labour MPs using such tools, how the fuck can they argue about echo Chambers and legislation.

There is no transparency over who is setting up these blocks nor can you tell if you are on a list unless you happen to click on someone.

This is a really poor look.

According to the Guardian Opinion Moderator, the suggestion that transwomen are men is hate speech.

ronically if they ban private groups on FB there will only be places like 4chan, discord servers and hidden chat rooms left, because only those who know how to set up a working VPN will be able to talk freely.

Exactly. I'm aware of closed/secret groups for congenital/genetic health conditions. People don't won't their medical histories to be findable but they do want to discuss them with the other people who understand. These will be the people being deprived of the power of social media by stupidities such as this move.

Ironically if they ban private groups on FB there will only be places like 4chan, discord servers and hidden chat rooms left, because only those who know how to set up a working VPN will be able to talk freely.

This bill is getting love on twitter from:

Jess Phillips, Anna Soubry, Nicky Morgan, David Lammy, Jacob Rees-Moggy, Luiciana Berger, Bob Neill, Ruth Smeeth and Stella Creasey.

I despair.

My profound apologies, arran, I should not have asked... but in these times of madness, one finds oneself doubting even the most secure of things...

Will there be sex segregation in the gulag?

arran the original version, I hope, not the ghastly remake.

Swipe me - having people affect to believe that I have far-right, hate group tendencies and now a MN poster queries which version of The Producers I have in mind.

There are times, Daphne, when one simply wants to turn one's face to the wall and cry.

But yes - as far as I'm concerned, the re-make should have its history erased as it can not be passed off as a ploy to make us appreciate the original even more.

Sorry, better still, "Spa-time for Stalin and Russ-iii-aaa..."

arran the original version, I hope, not the ghastly remake.

Wanders off whistling "springtime for Stalin and Russ-iii--aaa"

(Seriously, those Goldsmiths students remind me of the old Soviet joke about "There is no pravda in izvestia and no izvestia in pravda" - definitely no pravda on the Goldsmiths LGBT twitter feed.)

Not massively shorter, but wondering about

prospectivegulagcandidate

prospectivegulagstudent

Should we be working on our own musical numbers in the style of The Producers?

"Hate will not be tolerated by South Yorkshire Police". Just 'hate' for now? What about rage? And jealousy has always been quite the problematic emotion. Perhaps Sth Yorks police could issue cautions to people suspected of having a feeling but ramp it up to prosecutions for Envy Speech, and Anger Face.

I am inspired to name change too!

Fallingirl I fear that the camp kapos may well turn out to have penises.

Surely that’s a parody account?

arran I think my next name might be SpaDayAtTheGulag.

The idea og gulags for terfs, sounds rather terfy. They are plotting on putting gc women together in a transexclusionary space, which they will have created and sanctioned for us.

Oh Betty I love that!

This:

Long story short, friends, the ideas of TERFs and anti trans bigots literally kill and must be eradicated through reeducation.

This sounds quite a lot like when my high school boyfriend didn’t want me to break up with him so threatened suicide.

If I could tolerate the hag of changing user names, mine would now be:

non-crime hate incident awaiting re-education