In my latest Spectator column, I’ve tried to work out what it is Sir Keir Starmer is threatening to do when he talks about amending the Online Safety Act 2023. Whatever it is, it isn’t good, not least because the Act is draconian enough without needing to be ‘toughened up’.
Are the Act’s critics claiming the duties it imposes on companies to remove illegal content – stirring up racial hatred, for instance, or inciting people to commit crimes – are being ignored because the penalties aren’t severe enough? That would be an odd thing to argue since Ofcom, which has been given the job of enforcing the new rules, is still consulting about these duties and they won’t come into force until next year. When they do, failure to comply could result in a fine of up to 10% of annual global turnover – which for Facebook would be more than £10 billion – and jail sentences for “senior managers”. Isn’t that draconian enough?
Or do they mean that one of the criminal offences created by the Act – the section 179 false communications offence, which came into force in January – applies only to disinformation, not misinformation? Last week, Cheshire police arrested a 55-year-old woman for wrongly identifying the Southport attacker as a Muslim asylum seeker, and kept her in custody for 36 hours before releasing her pending further investigation. I’m in touch with that woman, who’s a member of the Free Speech Union, and while she may be guilty of spreading misinformation, it would be hard to charge her with the ‘s179’ offence, because one of its tests is that ‘the message conveys information the person knows to be false’ and this wasn’t the case here. In her tweet, she added ‘if this is true’ and when she discovered it wasn’t, she deleted it. I’d be amazed if she’s charged, but if she is the Free Speech Union will pay for her defence.
Does Sir Keir want to broaden that offence to catch people guilty of spreading dangerous misinformation? If so, would that include the public health officials who, in 2021, overstated the efficacy of the Covid vaccines and downplayed the harms? What about the BBC, which got several things wrong in its reporting of an explosion in the car park of Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital on 17 October, overestimating the number of casualties and wrongly blaming an Israeli airstrike? No doubt that wasn’t deliberate – misinformation, not disinformation – but the report certainly caused harm, contributing to the cancellation of a peace summit between Joe Biden and various Arab leaders.
Worth reading in full.
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Censorship is the hallmark of totalitarianism’s and fascism’s. You live in a dream world Neo, if you believe that b.s. about your ‘thriving democracy’ and ‘freedom’. The Rona fascism put that lie to rest. Now they are just carrying on where they left off. Criticising Muzzies, non-Whites, the queer fascists, the mentally ill tranny’s etc is a crime. So too will be criticising ‘climate change’, ‘vaccines’, plandemics, government policy, MPs, or the government itself. Sir Kneeling and friends will broaden censorship until reality is expunged and made optional.
They will likely push Monkey bollox and Bird bollox next and if you rightly state that flying viruses don’t exist and virology is a load of sheep shyte, undoubtedly you will be labelled a terrorist and imprisoned.
Yes – it’s what he is… evil.
I like the subtle change of name but as requested yesterday I think pictures of Starmer should be limited to the kneeling one and one with him wearing a muzzle as those are the most accurate.
I will second that motion with pleasure.
YES. ————-Starmer, Miliband and Reeves will make everything WORSE. They have an extremely severe dose of “Let’s not let a good crisis go to waste” syndrome. Combine this with a huge majority which means they are a virtual dictatorship, then all our freedoms will be trampled into the ground. All of their pet projects such as Multiculturalism, Mass Immigration, Net Zero, Race, Gender and Diversity Marxism will be very well protected by this act, while people not interfering with government agenda’s will be free to run around with knives stabbing ech other and burgling houses because they are not attempting to interfere with their dogma.
Sir Kier works for the Globalist Oligarchs, not the British people. Neil Oliver & Whitney Webb delve into the background of the Western Globalists…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skoNAt-ey3I
To rephrase the question: will Starmer try to increase censorship, gain more power and tighten control? Of course he will. Why wouldn’t he? What else would he want?
He will acquire exactly as much power as Britain will allow him to acquire, which, judging by the general compliance of the population shown during the Covid crisis, will be a lot. Aided by the media and the judiciary he will see very little pushback.
He is following Lenin’s strategy: “You probe [with bayonets]: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.”
Apart from a few brave individuals and organizations (such as the Daily Sceptic), he’ll mostly find mush.
Yes of course because this system is reaching a critical point where it has become hard for even the most gullible to take it seriously. They have no option but to push harder even if their efforts make the situation even more obvious. They know they are going down. It is simply a matter of keeping the charade going on for as long as possible so that they can get away with most of the spoils.
It’s amazing isn’t it? Starmer has been PM for less time than Liz Truss and he couldn’t have made a bigger pig’s ear of things if he tried. I mean, we all knew it would go to shit but six weeks in now and can anyone see anything getting any better? But what can you do? It’s what happens when you let women enter politics.
Argh, crap! Still can’t get that ‘logic’ to work..
”A 61-year-old English man has been jailed for 18 months in relation to an anti-migration protest-turned-riot in London in which he was filmed shouting, “Who the f*** is Allah?”
Despite not being accused of engaging in any actual violent actions himself, David Spring, of Longfellow Road in Sutton, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for comments he made during a Downing Street anti-mass migration protest that descended into a riot in the wake of the Southport mass stabbing that left three young girls dead.
Spring, a 61-year-old former train driver, pleaded guilty to “violent disorder” after the court was shown footage of him making “threatening gestures” towards police and chanting, “Who the f*** is Allah?”
The local Sutton & Croydon Guardian newspaper reports that upon his arrest on August 8th, Spring told officers: “I didn’t go up to London to riot. I went to complain about people put up in hotels.”
The decision has sparked widespread debate in the UK, with many on social media claiming that Spring’s sentence demonstrated that there are backdoor “blasphemy laws” against Islam in Britain.
Former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney described the decision to jail Spring as “jackboot justice,” lamenting: “We’ve gone from #TwoTierJustice to de facto blasphemy laws in less than a week!”
“18 months prison for an offensive chant? Except if it’s ‘Nazi scum, off our streets!’ to war veterans or “From the river to sea” to Jews,” Daubney noted.
Spring’s imprisonment for a speech crime comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces calls of hypocrisy over his government’s hardline approach to the riots, with over 1,000 arrests, some of whom were not even involved in actual rioting but were nonetheless arrested over posts on social media. This week, resurfaced comments from Starmer’s time as the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2013 showed that he had previously argued against launching too many criminal investigations over social media posts, warning that it would have a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech.”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/08/15/blasphemy-laws-non-violent-man-jailed-for-18-months-after-chanting-who-the-f-is-allah-during-england-riot/
We wake it for granted now that we have this enclave that will be with us forever. The most important thing to note about the British agenda right now is its speed. A few weeks and look at how they have shut down dissent. A few weeks more they will codify everything into law. And then the life of wearing pink dungarees begins. They will leave you alone but not for long even if you wear the dungarees. Perhaps Orson Welles described it best in The Lady of Shanghai. He talked about the shark feeding frenz. They might be attracted by blood and eat all of the flesh in their area. They become taken with bloodlust. They start attacking each other in the hope of more blood, In the final stage they start biting at their own stomachs in their ravenousness.until they rip themselves apart.
You didn’t fight the good fight. You behaved in a crass and jovial manner and now you will pay. You will see prison sentences go sky high. The working class were portrayed by all previous governments as the scum of the earth so they don’t even need to try ti tamper with that. If you are a working class nationalist them you really are toast the parameters have already been set. And they will extend outwards, for example Alistair Campbell calling for the arrest of Douglas Murray.
The “reporting”, aka Lies,from the BBC was very obviously deliberate. It was the typical Socialist / Leftie nutcase set of lies. Joining the FSU looks increasingly important to me. Two-Tier hates people like me.
Perhaps an FSU “card” will become the equivalent of Abbott and Lammy’s Race Card – never leave home without it.
He does not deserve the Sir and I will never use it.
Keir Stammerer is the best I can manage, but I’m not feeling charitable lately. Keir Jong Un
My view is that no ‘honours’ are earned, so ‘Lord’ and ‘Lady’, are also out – sorry Mr Sugar, can I still be on your show?
Neither do the judiciary deserve M’Lud. I already have contempt for court so I’d best not let them test me on this as I’m not built for prison.
Oh come on Toby. You know that misinformation and disinformation (ie blatant lies) by the Government’s approved communicators is permissible.
It’s only “ordinary people” who express non-PC, right wing views, who will ever be targeted.
If he could, in true Communist fashion, Keir Stalin would build a Gulag for these people.
Above all his every action is to impress one religious group,why?
This fool must be stopped. People should demand their right to free speech. One man will not dictate to anyone! Let’s put a stop to this now. Write to your mp today.