The return of recording 'non-crime' and 'lawful but harmful' legislation

[Signalbox]

It's being reported that Labour are set to change police guidance that limits the recording of NCHI and is planning to 'significantly expand police powers to monitor and make records of supposedly hateful speech'. It's as if Miller v College of policing never happened.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/28/the-dreadful-return-of-the-non-crime-hate-incident/

In addition to this there is talk of the Government reconsidering bringing in 'controversial powers (previously scrapped by the Tories) to force internet companies to remove 'legal but harmful' content'.

https://archive.ph/NYJg5#selection-2369.0-2369.133

Is anyone else at all worried about these developments? There is every chance that these measures will affect those who want to talk openly about sex/gender/women's rights etc. The current Labour Government appear to be going very quickly down a road of censorship, increased surveillance of the public and lack of support for freedom of speech.

What I don't understand is why aren't more labour MPs protesting/rebelling/resigning about this? It's really quite extreme and most labour MPs aren't extreme. I thought

What I don’t understand is how they will get away with it when It’s already been ruled to be unlawful by the courts.

Certainly looks like it. Look out for how this may intersect with/overlap with the Online Safety Act and the RSOH deciding that free speech is a rightwing idea.

They want rid of X, for a start.

I wonder if this is why they are considering lawful but harmful legislation? Put the onus on the tech companies to police “harmful” speech or “disinformation” and then shut them down when they fail to comply.

I think the problem lies in a remarkable decline in people's capacity to consider different 'formulations' about what is going on.

We are exposed to different information. We also have biases that lead us to notice, attend to, and process information/content differently. We therefore come up with different conclusions about what is happening, why it's happening and what needs to happen.

People on the right and the left have been seeking to control the information/ content people can access (including individual expression of views), as opposed to engaging in the substantive arguments being made. Politicians have been able to make a lot of headway through controlling narratives. It is commonplace these days for politicians to tell a story/ hold a line and just repeat it.

When it comes to the left, I think they are heavily influenced by the idea that discussion and critique are used as a mechanism of oppressors to sustain power. However, this idea arises from an incontestable / circular theory - which is why they view it as a fact!

We really need effective systems that hold politicians to account for the proposals and decisions they make. Proper scrutiny needs to be applied so they can't simply control a narrative and drive it forward (with the added bonus that this is what justice looks like).

What infuriates me about 'the left' (which is where I sit politically) is their refusal to accept/admit that they are thwarting justice, democracy and equality.

We did not need to take votes from men to give them to women
We do not need to reduce the quality of education for white kids to improve it for black kids
We do not need to take away single sex facilities for females to provide facilities for trans identifying males
We do not need to remove the expression of thoughts and ideas of one group to enable the thoughts and ideas of another's to be listened to

Politically I think trying to shut down speech comes from the fact that expressing an idea and arguing back against an idea means that idea is in the public's mind.

It was realised some years ago (heard a R4 programme about it) that if you don't want to promote at idea it's best not to discuss it at all. E.g. if you want free transport for all and your opponents don't, it's better for them to talk about fancy cars than saying "free transport isn't viable" because the focus is still on free transport.

Hence politically the left especially try to shut down completely any talk of ideas they hate because to engage means still focusing on the idea.

Ultimately it's a foolish strategy because arguments need to be tested so, however painful, ideas need to be out in the open and all views challenged.

Secretive non-crimes being recorded is terrifying police state behaviour that everyone should fear.

Saw this on twitter yesterday. It's about EU legislation re online harms.

https://x.com/babybeginner/status/1829764439958307206?t=ihXCZNLYnJ0E60VVxmuiEw&s=19
Thread.

Right now people in the EU are not allowed to see a whole lot of content on X. You’ll never know what you’re missing. You won’t see it.

You won’t see people trying to protect disabled women athletes from you know who. I’m not the only one who got this notice. (See screenshot in tweet)

1/You won’t see two male podcasters who stood up for women against a man who demanded (and won) access to women’s showers.

You won’t hear their podcast bc it has been deleted and they were fined €250,000.

No one else will dare speak up for women either.

2/There is no one to speak for disabled women in the EU. There is no one to protect women in the shower.

You won’t hear about offenders going to prison who will be housed with women in November. See @reduxx.

How many other posts are you not seeing?

https://x.com/MeganKPSS/status/1830030807580176894?t=07zLRvxJM8ZpfJxE4iERPQ&s=19

I know you won't see this but it's that @skyera1n. He got @cavakaggyreborn suspended. He got @blake_sara64710 and @LouiseWSSalford all suspended under some EU law/ reporting under the X law enforcement whatever that is

Yes that is why I've started looking on X (not participating just reading). This was triggered by KS after the riots blaming X and me wondering what the govt is trying to hide/why they don't like X. I am extremely cynical and Zuckerberg saying that the US govt pressured FB to censor Covid related posts (many of which turned out to be true) has confirmed this. I am very worried about Kamala getting in as she also hates X and will ban it which will lead to a domino effect including the UK. As a small c Conservative (not tory) I disagree that the right are as authoritarian as the left and actually believe this govt is far left. But I do believe freedom will prevail.

Really? I was unaware of this. That’s really scary. So if we were still in the EU would this apply to us?

It’s interesting but I was listening to a podcast the other day where they had a representative of Big Brother Watch being interviewed. She was saying that the surveillance methods that the state have employed since the riots this summer are actually banned in the EU but commonly used in countries such as China. I had a moment of thinking that the EU would have offered us a degree of protection against quite a scary use of state surveillance. But then you see shit like this and it dawns on you that we are screwed if we’re in and screwed if we’re out.

Konstantin Kisin did a 30 minute piece on the Triggernometry podcast a couple of weeks ago that suggests that fear of the far right is overblown and there is very little evidence of the risk being more than localised periods of rioting in line with what we see with other groups.

There's a compelling argument that it wouldn't take much for something similar to Nazi Germany to happen again and we must learn from the past. However, there is a compelling argument that democracy cannot be achieved if discussion about some ideologies are banned.

Suggested that Brazil plans to fine anyone using a VPN to access X, thousands of dollars a day.

Well duh. Far right is a meaningless term used by Starmer and his msm lackeys to cover anyone worried about illegal immigration from dangerous countries and anyone who thinks women can't have a penis. The only people who have fear of the "far right" are people who believe everything they hear on the BBC and other channels (I don't have a TV licence so doesn't affect me). They will be using nchis against any of these far right people who disagree with them. Communism 101.

The Dangerous Speech project (a team of experts on how speech leads to violence. We use our research to advise internet companies, governments, and civil society on how to anticipate, minimize, and respond to harmful discourse in ways that prevent violence while also protecting freedom of expression.) Has just produced this as part of work on US election.

https://dangerousspeech.org/new-report-identifies-key-themes-in-dangerous-speech-targeting-trans-people-in-the-u-s/

As the 2024 United States election approaches, speech that can move people toward accepting violence – dangerous speech – is flourishing, and with it, a growing possibility of intergroup violence. Transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people have become primary targets of such speech. Influential politicians, media figures, and religious leaders are falsely portraying transgender people as threats to children, cisgender women, families, traditional values, and public safety.

From the Times a new report from Chief Inspector of constabulary

https://www.thetimes.com/article/3873bb2c-9a27-4803-bbe6-bd1a3fb9719b?shareToken=119b55b371a7371667cd84fd859f34be

The police are recording too many hate crime incidents and getting involved in disputes that include “hurt feelings”, the police watchdog has warned in a new report.
Officers are having to take action that “may appear to contradict common sense” and there is a culture of “if in doubt, record a crime”, Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, has said.
A sample review of 120 cases of non-crime incidents and hate crimes found that 30 should not have been recorded at all. The report examined whether the police are too politically correct.

This is great timing. Haven't read it yet but from X
https://x.com/STranswidows/status/1833448157448966292?t=IRruxaq-Xnh6S-wdmGFgTg&s=19

"His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services said increasingly complicated equality rules mean some contested beliefs have the same legal protection as established protected characteristics". Finally catching up with the truth!! Thank you @AndyCookeHMCI @Independent (for once living up to its name!) @MargaretDavisPA @zeno001 "Equality laws leave police facing ‘major dilemmas’, watchdog finds" independent.co.uk/news/uk/id-car…

"Quoting former minister for women and equalities @KemiBadenoch , he added: “She said: ‘The law is no longer clear. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the law is now a mess because of changing times’. We agree.”
As well as greater clarity in how the Equality Act applies for police, he will call for the Government to update equality guidance for all public bodies, and look at potential changes that could be made to the law.
Police chiefs should also draw up national practical guidance for officers that is reviewed annually, Mr Cooke will say". @EHRC @SexMattersOrg @WomensRightsNet @SafeSchools_UK

I can see Labour muddying the waters even further - by implememnting their proposal for Misogyny as a hate crime, but without also clarifying what constitutes a woman in the first place. So we could end up with Gender ( identity) being protected, but not Sex.