Sussex Police have arrested ex-Labour defence minister Ivor Caplin, MP for Hove between 1997 and 2005, in Brighton on suspicion of engaging in sexual communication with a child

I'm suggesting they must be scared, because I can't fathom why, for example, the official Labour Party twitter account unfollowed then Labour MP Rosie Duffield years back in reaction to her gender critical posts, while continuing to follow Eric Joyce. I can't see how you could be a Labour MP or Labour staffer and see following Rosie Duffield as a reputational risk while simultaneously being unaware of Eric Joyce's conviction for downloading videos of children being sexually abused.

It is a really poor excuse to say that someone else is managing their SM accounts, because if they are being managed then that person should be much more savvy about SM as that will likely be a main part of their job.

And surely journalists who would've been snooping for about a year, since he was suspended for "undisclosed allegations". There's too much Westminster gossip. I just can't see how no one within Labour would've not known about his SM account, therefore a blind eye was turned yet again.

Yes, but the "haven't dared to" bit, is that just being suggested as the reason, or is there some evidence to suggest that unfollowing would be a problem for them? Cos I don't see why it would be, and surely them simply not being aware, because they don't/can't oversee their SM accounts personally, seems much more likely.

I suspect it’s more a case of them not realising they are following him - either because they follow thousands of people and he is muted, or because they have staff to manage their SM accounts and don’t actually log into it themselves.

I wonder if there are any sort of political social media guidelines about this sort of thing (I suspect now that this has come out there's someone writing one right now if not). Will they be given a list of people to unfollow?

Wes Streeting follows nearly 10k people, for example. If an intern has muted the porn account it might not even occur to him that he is following it.

I thought he’d been hacked. The posts are so bizarre.

A surprising number of Labour MPs and Labour MSPs haven't dared to unfollow former MP Eric Joyce on twitter, and he's already been convicted of downloading child abuse images.

What do they think will happen to them if they do unfollow him?

A surprising number of Labour MPs and Labour MSPs haven't dared to unfollow former MP Eric Joyce on twitter, and he's already been convicted of downloading child abuse images.

This inability to speak out for fear of wrongthink accusations is at the root of much that's happened in the last 20 years.

That is very true, but surely after seeing some of the things he tweeted, other MPs would just quietly unfollow him.

Totally agree.

I haven’t checked veracity but this seems a lot of similar types:

x.com/wolsned/status/1878449933671420223?s=46&t=TMUOZCqGbx3Pv9MjeQqrig

Yes. Well said,

It would be an interesting question to ask Musk - not that any of us would ever get the chance. He seems to be genuinely outraged about the grooming gangs, which is the reaction any decent person would have and fair enough. Does he not think allowing this filth on twitter enables these monsters? In this case, it would seem (allegedly) so. When such awful images are allowed, surely it emboldens abusers. A bit like Wayne Couzens was emboldened when his indecent exposure resulted in no sanction- then he must have thought he could get away with anything. It's well know abusers escalate.

As Venice Allan tweeted, it shows how normalised porn has become in Labour circles.

I actually thought he must have been hacked when I looked at his X feed.

It seems clear that Caplin was running his own Twitter account and either didn't know or brazen enough to repost porn and state what he would like sexually done to him.

Other Labour bigwigs probably don't run their own accounts, BUT their staff should've reported what they say coming out of his account UNLESS they thought this was perfectly acceptable and to raise any concern would be homophobic. Essentially replaying the whole mess with the grooming gangs again.

I think maybe only musk would know if it's possible to follow him and not be aware.

It sounds like the censorship algorithms on twitter were deep and complex and included Shadow banning - which I don't fully understand but I think means you wouldn't show on some/all followers timelines.

Would it be possible to follow him and not have your timeline full of porn? I don’t understand how these high profile accounts could have followed him and not noticed and unfollowed.

That guy got done for looking at tractor porn in the House of Commons, surely there was a risk of being caught with a cock on your screen while scrolling through your work twitter account?

They must have, he’s retweeting stuff all the time and that would show up on their timeline.

Until yesterday and possibly still today but I haven't checked, Rachel still followed him and loads of other MPs. Did they not notice anything amiss in his posts.

The CPS was among his followers.

Problematic for this administration though, as they can hardly point to all the cock on an MP's account as some kind of gotcha about How Simply Awful X Is Now Musk Is At The Helm.

Given the party to which said MP belongs...that's politics, I guess.

The porn/TRA Venn Diagram is often a circle

Yes, you're right. I remember seeing porn under the old regime even at a time they were banning women for saying things like "men can't be women". I don't know whether that's because they had a deliberate policy of allowing porn, or whether they were just failing to pick it up.

Porn has always been on twitter.