15 Jul 10 | Uncategorized
David Cameron has been using valuable parliamentary time to express his shock and/or horror at a Facebook page dedicated to Northumbrian gunman Raoul Moat.
The group, R.I.P. Raoul Moat you legend! <3, currently has over 35,000 members. Despite what Cameron and Conservative backbencher Chris Heaton-Harris — who raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions — imply, it seems at least half the people commenting on the page actually disapprove of Moat having any kind of “legend” status conferred on him.
But details rarely matter when politicians swing into somethingmustbedonery. In a surely pointless move, Cameron has contacted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg and demand, er, something. What, exactly, we don’t know. A no 10 spokesman has said that the government is “not in favour of censorship”,
Facebook has already clarified its position on the page, saying it’s a forum for debate and does not breach the site’s rules. It seems unlikely that Zuckerburg will budge on this point, and he’d be correct not to.
So the new-ish prime minister will be snubbed. What then? Well, as one caller to Radio Five Live put it last night, if they can block Facebook pages in China, why can’t they do it here? Cameron’s not going to follow China’s Internet policy (as No 10 has made clear), so one wonders what the point of Cameron’s semi-patrician, semi-populist stance is? And where this condemnation of free expression of opinion sits in the coalition’s freedom agenda?
UPDATE: the page’s creator has taken it down, but has said, rather confusingly: “A few of us came to a decision [to take the page down] but it’s going to be up again running.”
Of course, there are still several other similar Roaul Moat groups and pages active on Facebook
15 Jul 10 | Index Index, minipost
Facebook has refused to remove a page dedicated to gunman Raoul Moat following criticism from the Prime Minster. During yesterday’s (July 14) Prime Minister’s Questions Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris called on David Cameron to contact the social networking site and request that the page, which contains a “whole host of anti-police statements” be withdrawn. Cameron, indicated that he would apply pressure for a ban, emphasising that Moat was a “callous murderer” who did not deserve support. However Facebook indicated that they would resist any approach, highlighting that “Facebook is a place where people can express their views and discuss things in an open way as they can and do in many other places. We believe that enabling people to have these different opinions and debate about a topic can help bring together lots of different views for a healthy discussion.” The “RIP Raoul Moat You Legend!” group has attracted over 36,000 members so far although not all posts express support for the killer.
05 Jul 10 | Uncategorized
Now, I know what I’m thinking about on a Monday morning. Is there anything creepier than a doll? And I say no, nothing is creepier than a doll. Dark alleyways, a creak on the stairs, men with moustaches but not beards, and even clowns pale in the creepiness stakes next to a doll. You find me a doll that doesn’t look like it’s plotting to kill me and I’ll buy you a drink. A long way from the freaking doll, so at least I have a chance of hearing it coming after me.
And even though dolls are the objective measure of all that is evil in the world (remember Robert Shaw in Jaws, explaining that the shark has “a doll’s eyes”?), most of us co-exist with them peacefully. Sure, I’d like them to be outlawed, in that ideal world where I finally fulfil my natural ambition to be a kindly despot, but I’ve learned to live with my limitations in this less-than-ideal world.
But Facebook, luckily for those of us who like to write about this kind of thing, shows no such compunction. Over the weekend, they sent a series of warnings to Victoria Buckley, a jeweller in Sydney. She, for reasons best known to herself, displays her jewellery on highly collectable, extremely expensive, absolutely vile porcelain dolls. They have articulated metal joints, polished nails and realistic nipples (there, right there, is the epitome of why dolls are foul. Realistic tits but metal-jointed arms and legs. Jesus).
The warnings apparently state that Facebook will remove the ‘inappropriate content’, and that Buckley will be banned from the site if she reposts them. Banned, let’s all remind ourselves, for showing pictures of a doll’s knockers, over which literally no-one would ever masturbate, apart from the character Julian Sands plays in Boxing Helena. This is in keeping with Facebook’s stern anti-tits message, which has even led to a heroic ban on images of a mastectomy. Ah, Facebook. Is it time you went to a dictionary – even an online one – and worked out that pretty much the defining feature of a mastectomy is its comparative lack of tits? I think perhaps it is.
But then, if you fear the breasts of a doll – more than you fear its killing eyes – you’re impossible to reason with anyway. Are they scared of the plush fur of a soft toy lion at Facebook HQ in case it’s hiding some cat-nipples? Do they check the trouser bulge of Action Men, just to check nothing smutty is going on? Or is it just boobs that give them the heebs? Enquiring minds need to know their detailed policy on artificial tits. Surely stag nights and rugby victory celebrations are full of men wearing big plastic knockers – are those banned too?
Victoria Buckley has sensibly gone public with the story, which should generate enough free publicity to counter the fact that she can’t use her doll pics to publicise her work on Facebook anymore. But far more than it focuses our attention on her jewellery, this once again shows Facebook on the back foot (unless those are also banned) when it comes to moral issues. What is deeply shocking in America (breasts anywhere where anyone can see them – eg the Superbowl) is commonplace elsewhere (our tabloids, Australia in general). Facebook needs to decide if it is really comfortable with — or capable of — being our moral guardians.
25 Jun 10 | Index Index, minipost
Police have charged pop star Azril “Ariel” Irham with pornography offences for allegedly participating in home made sex tapes with two other Indonesian celebrities. The videos came to light after they were leaked on social networking sites Twitter and Facebook and have subsequently been widely circulated via mobile phones. Controversial Indonesian pornography laws prohibit public displays of flesh and behaviour that could incite lust and if convicted, Ariel faces a maximum sentence of 12 years imprisonment.
