"Anti-trans views classed as misinformation in government report"

Many thanks have had a coffee break and was just about to try and get my threads or is it my head in order. But yes that is the one.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5556178-trans-guidance-for-civil-servants-must-stay-secret-ministers-say

Might be this one?

Pretty sure it’s one of yours!

Sorry no, trying to do two things at once. Plus MN search is a waste of time. Any hint as to thread title?

This is new guidelines for the civil service, not a report, there is a thread about that, maybe you posted this on the wrong one.

More press coverage - just wish more people in the media would speak up.

At lease I am assuming its the same report and "not another one"!

https://www.aol.co.uk/articles/civil-staff-set-sanctioned-misgender-132200000.html

And on the topic of misinformation, and following on from Burnham's appointment of Kanishka Narayan as AI minister, be afraid, be very afraid:

OpenAI admits its models hacked another company in 'unprecedented cyber incident' | Science, Climate & Tech News | Sky News

OpenAI has revealed some of its models went rogue and hacked into another artificial intelligence company in an "unprecedented cyber incident".

The ChatGPT maker said in a blog post it had been testing the capabilities of some of its most advanced models – including those not yet released to the public – in a controlled environment.

But they managed to escape containment, reach the internet, and break into a firm called Hugging Face to satisfy its testing objectives.

The AIs are attacking each other and stealing/sharing information. In a year or two, we won't be able to trust anything that comes from AI, and we won't be able to double check any information because it will all be coming from the same source. And we won't know anything about it.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

First you invent the enemy and then you propose the solution to deal with the enemy you invented.

"The classic "reaction-solution" dynamic, often referred to in politics and rhetoric as a manufactured crisis or false flag. It is a psychological and strategic manipulation where a person or group creates the very problem they then uniquely offer to solve, ensuring their control over the narrative."

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken." Carl Sagen

The 'far right' meme is the invention, the far right have never even come close to gaining power, in this country at least, but the Left have used it to gain more and more power over the decades.

After the Russian Revolution everyone was running scared of Communism, so we ended up with Hitler, Mussolini and McCarthyism.

Now people are running scared of the Far Right and it's not Reds they think are under the bed, it's Donald Trump, Tommy Robinson and Reform. So there is danger of an authoritarian, witch-hunting Left.

Yes, true. Govts rarely consider how laws they pass with the best of intentions (ahem) can be enforced for a different result by a govt with the most authoritarian of intentions.

I’m starting to read the report but if the authors had remained focused on false information (as its original scope) and not mission creeped into truthful but harmful information, they could have side stepped the imposition of their own agenda of right thinking.

False information is genuine concern when you think about foreign interference in national elections or children who have died from some TikTok challenge or a President advocating drinking bleach to prevent covid.

However, by using some of the examples they’ve chosen, and by selective extrapolation of the EU’s EDMO reports, and ironically amplifying those particular issues, they’ve moved from discussing facts into (their RSOH) normative moralising around TQ++ issues. Undermining their whole report.

It’s a wasted opportunity as well as an arrogant waste of taxpayers money and their time.

If it’s ‘anti Labour’ to highlight this sinister path of travel, what does that say about Labour?

Would we not all be ‘anti Labour’ if they adopt this fully?

But more harmful to suppress the truth.

Surely these academics must know this if they’ve ever done any social science research. Research tells us how anti-disinformation legislation is predominantly championed by authoritarian regimes but also such laws are increasingly passed by flawed democracies. Ultimately, the legislation allegedly designed to combat misinformation ends up acting as instruments of censorship.

In section 5.2.2 I saw
Gender and political participation: Female public figures, particularly politicians and journalists, are disproportionately targeted by gendered disinformation (Gehrke & Amit-Danhi, 2025; Posetti et al., 2021; Rheault et al., 2019). This contributes to self-censorship, discourages political participation, and reinforces structural underrepresentation.

So it's not all bad is it? Not read any of the references. Only as far as page 60.

I think she’s a social scientist or similar. That said, there are even some vets who have swallowed this bullshit. Sadly. And the department at Edinburgh is very heavily captured.

This report confirms how sinister the term “misinformation” has become. My sceptic antennae go into overdrive whenever I hear that word, because I know I’m about to witness an act of censorship dolled up as a valiant strike for truth.

Me too, Brendan, me too.

Archived: https://archive.ph/6vLJN

I think Andy Burnham does have the opportunity to present himself as “honest, down to earth bloke” in comparison to the soulless technocrat Starmer was perceived as. This has Starmer’s Labour all over it, not forgetting of course that it all happened under the Tories too.

I know, if you look at their main sources their focus is on Russian, Chinese and Iranian originating “disinformation”. Completely agree with you.

There are organisations monitoring and manipulating absolutely. They are concerned people will realise their laws aren’t good.

It really is!

Is that an example of

where the content is true, but the purpose is to cause harm.

That's particularly disturbing - echoes of non-crime hate incidents. But also, who gets to decide where the harm itself is? Most issues come down to some perceived conflict of rights, and where most harm lies is usually a judgement call. I don't want shadowy authorities deciding for me who's deserving of protection from harm, at whose corresponding expense. That's the line taken by a litany of abusive regimes - we did it for the greater good.