13 Nov 12 | Uncategorized
The whole of the UK is riveted by the race to elect police commissioners.
Actually let me rephrase that. The police commissioner elections are to be held this Thursday, to widespread indifference. But these are potentially important positions, so maybe we should be asking questions of the candidates (including John Prescott, pictured).
Here’s one to try for your local candidate: Do you think arresting young people for posting “offensive” content on Facebook and Twitter is an appropriate use of police time and taxpayers money?
In case you don’t know who your local police commissioner candidates are, you can search for them here www.policeelections.com.
Let us know if you get an answer in the comments below, on our Facebook page, or on twitter @indexcensorship.
UPDATE: We’ve had an answer from Rupert Moss-Eccardt, Lib Dem police commissioner candidate for Cambridgeshire
(Hat tip to Bob Farrell on Facebook for the suggestion)
22 Oct 12 | Uncategorized
You know you’ve made it when you’re on the front page of the Sun. By that measure, the time of the troll has truly come, as Britain’s favourite paper has led with the story of the singer Adele being “targeted” by “sick trolls” “threatening” her and saying the star’s baby “should be killed”. Note the fact I had to put almost every word in scare quotes. The Mail ran the same story with the same tone, as did the Independent.
The story “reveals” that some people made jokes about a celebrity and her baby on Twitter. But what none of the quoted tweets appears to do is to “target” Adele. There is an OfficialAdele account, but it’s unclear whether she actually runs it, and it’s not exactly prolific. In any case, not one of the “sick jokes” made by the “vile trolls”, is actually directed at the account. There are just some rubbish jokes, chucked into the ether, and picked up by a journalist desperate for Monday morning copy. As so often happens with red-top stories, we have a celebrity, and a big current talking point — free speech on the web and cyberbullying — conflated into one big nothing.
Trolling can be defined as posting irrelevant, off topic or inflammatory material in order to get a heightened, perhaps irrational response. No wonder tabloid newspapers are so nervous about it — they’ve been sole practitioners for years, and have only just realised they’ve got rivals.
11 Oct 12 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost, News and features, United Kingdom
A man has been sentenced to a total of eight months in prison by a Manchester court for wearing a T-shirt daubed with offensive comments referring the murders of PC Fiona Bone and PC Nicola Hughes.
Barry Thew, of Radcliffe, Greater Manchester admitted to a Section 4A Public Order Offence today (11 October) for wearing the T-shirt, on which he had written the messages ”One less pig; perfect justice” and “killacopforfun.com haha”.
Inspector Bryn Williams, of the Radcliffe Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: “To mock or joke about the tragic events of that morning is morally reprehensible and Thew has rightly been convicted and sentenced for his actions.”
Thew had been reported to police after wearing the article around three-and-a-half hours after the officers were shot dead in Greater Manchester on 2 October.
UPDATE: According to the Manchester Evening News, four months of Thew’s sentence was handed down for breach of a previous suspended sentence
Also this week
08 October 2012 | Man jailed for offensive Facebook comments about missing schoolgirl
09 October 2012 | Yorkshire man sentenced over offensive Twitter comments directed at soldiers
09 Oct 12 | minipost, News and features
Yorkshire man Azhar Ahmed has been given a community order after being found guilty of “sending a grossly offensive communication”. Ahmed, 19, from West Yorkshire wrote on Facebook that “All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL!” This morning at Huddersfield Magistrates’ Court he was fined £300 and ordered to complete 240 hours of community service over a two-year period.
