Times article about Age of Consent, Stonewall, Alba

[Wandawomble]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/48c9ae6e-9adf-11eb-8da6-6f8eecc82ac3?shareToken=1d6c72638a41d774b21c06787d90f6d3

I know there are other threads about this but a bit of sunlight and all that...

Wow, third article in a row by the same “journalist” on this topic. I don’t think they’ve even bothered to change the photo. Something is going on at The Times.

Today's comments will be pre-moderated too by the looks of it.

Yes, and the new moderation system is almost impossible to navigate. I am meditating on a formal complaint about this series of articles.

I mean, really.

@StandUpStraight

Wow, third article in a row by the same “journalist” on this topic. I don’t think they’ve even bothered to change the photo. Something is going on at The Times.

No, same text in places "It does not mention age of consent." But clearly states laws should be repealed relating to the ability of adolescents to consent to sex. The widespread interpretation of adolescent is transition from childhood to adulthood. This journalist needs to stop digging and stop shilling for Stonewall. No organisation should be above scrutiny. If it was a mistake they should own it. Equally I don't think this relentless coverage will land the way they intend it to with the average voter - go on Mark keep on mentioning that Stonewall signed up to a campaign urging for a change to laws to allow children as young as ten to consent to sex.

Austin Sheridan flounced from AFI to join the Greens on the 18th of March. Less than a month a later he has left the Greens, joined ALBA, flounced from ALBA and joined the Greens. Not a huge loss.

And he was a former SNP councillor.

A professional flouncer!

I also find it concerning that anyone pointing out it's on the face of it pretty awful, rather than being responded to or reassured is just labelled a baddie.

Same here.

Attack is the best form of defence...

@StandUpStraight

Yes, and the new moderation system is almost impossible to navigate. I am meditating on a formal complaint about this series of articles.

Useful link: www.thetimes.co.uk/static/the-times-editorial-complaints/

Thanks tibtom. As the writer is now piling in BTL on this article as well, complaint forthcoming.

Wow, third article in a row by the same “journalist” on this topic. I don’t think they’ve even bothered to change the photo. Something is going on at The Times.

Who is this guy? Does he have form? I can see he is answering the BTL posters while offering nothing to refute what they are saying, just repeating himself.

Yes, and the new moderation system is almost impossible to navigate. I am meditating on a formal complaint about this series of articles

It's making the site unusable for me. I tried to post pointing out that ILGA had had links with NAMBLA and was forbidden even to submit that post and so, later on, I posted suggesting that the journalist needed to look more deeply into the history of ILGA to understand the concerns over consent. After nearly a day in limbo that post was rejected. Either The Times have radically changed their moderation or they're circling the wagons to protect the line being pushed by this journalist in these articles.

nauticant it’s so strange. Yesterday’s moderation was ridiculous in the extreme. But on today’s article comments are getting through quite quickly. I haven’t had any rejected yet whereas yesterday it was taking several attempts. The Sunday Times is always weirdly more censorious, and I do think the Times is generally getting worse in that regard, but it is usually far better than it was yesterday.

I posted a reasonable comment yesterday. After pending for about 14 hours it was rejected. I’ve tried to post a couple of comments today, still pending. I posted a critical comment on the surrogacy article on Sunday which was approved, rejected, approved, rejected. Only positive comments were allowed.

I phoned to complain and they said oh we’re having issues with our algorithms. I said it was difficult to believe that and the problem is your moderators who want to control the narrative. He just said yes I can see that is annoying! I cancelled my subscription.

Yet another person tries to get Mark McLaughlin to think beyond Stonewall = good, critics of Stonewall = evil, but this time by asking an easily understood question that gets to the heart of the matter:

twitter.com/historywoman/status/1382281198031011841

But I'm now looking at my May subcription payment and really wondering whether it's time to cancel.

I would tell them why, if you do.

That latest article

'It signed a women’s rights declaration that seeks the global repeal of “laws limiting legal capacity of adolescents, people with disabilities or other groups to provide consent to sex”, citing laws that impede “bodily autonomy” such as the criminalisation of same-sex intimacy, abortion or HIV non-disclosure. It does not mention age of consent.'

What am I missing? It literally says it right before he says it doesn't :/

luggage I had the exact same experience on the surrogacy article on Sunday, and I emailed them to cancel my subscription, explaining why. I have only today had an email asking me to call as they can’t take written requests for cancellation. The way they treat surrogacy is shockingly biased - they only ever publish fluffy happy families pieces and never look into all of the issues around surrogacy. If you point that out you get deleted.

Janice Turner is really the reason I pay the subscription fee but - terrible to say it - I can read her articles here because they’re always linked with share tokens. I’m just not sure the current standard of general journalism justifies what is quite an expensive sub.

It looks like the publishing of comments under the last two articles has paused, at least for the moment. I wonder whether there's some discussion at The Times about how best to handle this problem.

It's amazing. I can't remember the last time I saw a journalist let off the leash to publish (effectively) the same article 3 times over 4 days to push a clearly disputed narrative and around that to seek to browbeat the readership into acquiescence.

It has been most instructive to watch. I find his replies to comments fascinating. They’re mostly completely disconnected from the content of the comment. I imagine him sitting dead eyed at his laptop and pressing CTRL V over and over.

After a pause there are now about 20 new posts that have been published. Most of them are posts from Mark McLaughlin saying this:

The authors and signatories of the declaration drafted by the Women's Rights Caucus have not called for "the age of consent to be reduced to 10"

This is not good. But is, as StandUpStraight writes, fascinating.

It's amazing. I can't remember the last time I saw a journalist let off the leash to publish (effectively) the same article 3 times over 4 days to push a clearly disputed narrative and around that to seek to browbeat the readership into acquiescence.

It's bizarre.

@nauticant

After a pause there are now about 20 new posts that have been published. Most of them are posts from Mark McLaughlin saying this:

The authors and signatories of the declaration drafted by the Women's Rights Caucus have not called for "the age of consent to be reduced to 10"

This is not good. But is, as StandUpStraight writes, fascinating.

His manic repeating of the same phrases again and again and again instead of answering the questions commentators put to him is disturbing, to me it means he either can't or won't answer. Very few in the comments which have been published are buying what he is selling.