Dear God, the frightful buggers are at it again

This ill-thought out, incomplete and premature response to the April 2019 consultation was rushed out today by DCMS mandarins ahead of Nicky Morgan's replacement tomorrow. The timing is desperate.

I'll post tomorrow again about this, but as a catch-up reminder, here was where we were in April of last year -

Tuesday 9th April 2019

Censorship and Repression - May's Ceauscescu moves 

A leader desperately clinging onto power and fearful of the whispers of the people will inevitably enact repressive measures to restrict free speech - and it's therefore no surprise that the doomed May has gone down the Ceauscescu path with proposals contained in the Online Harms White Paper for widespread government censorship of the internet.

She is supported by her sinister Grand Vizier Sajid Javid and by Labour's Noncefinder General, Tom Watson - whose credulity in giving his support to criminal fantasists who flung accusations of paedo assault against the wholly innocent matches only his deep Socialist support of any measures that restrict free speech and repress democratic freedom.

The way they're going to do it is this. First they establish their ability to impose swingeing penalties on the online service providers - Facebook, Twitter, Google (the host of this blog). Then they task these firms with implementing government censorship requirements or risk even greater penalties. For blogs such as this, the duty will not be simply to remove censored content when notified but to act proactively to identify those blogs likely to offend the government and close them down in advance. With MPs whining like babies about people being rude about them, you can be sure they'll include censorship of political criticism in a government-imposed list of censored blog content including (Chapter 7)

Guidance to companies to outline what activity and material constitutes hateful content, including that which is a hate crime, or where not necessarily illegal, content that may directly or indirectly cause harm to other users – for example, in some cases of bullying, or offensive material. (my underlining)

In other words, anyone the government wants can now become a 'protected group' under censorship law - including MPs, the patrician establishment, the betrayer civil service, scum corporate globalists, mutton-headed Whitehall dags and plod chiefs, the EU capos ..

Neither will blogs be able to remind readers for example of Yvette Cooper's home flipping or her mendacious pledge to house migrants in one of her homes -

Being harassed online can be upsetting and frightening, and online harassment can amount to a criminal offence. Far too many people, from public figures to schoolchildren, have experienced this kind of behaviour.

Yep - non-criminal, wholly lawful  'harassment' of public figures will also cause Google to censor blogs under May's Ceaucescu Law . Take a look at this - it may be the last time you see it

And finally, the Ministry of Truth will come to life as the government decides what information and informed comment can be published on this blog

(Information) can harm us in many different ways, encouraging us to make decisions that could damage our health, undermining our respect and tolerance for each other and confusing our understanding of what is happening in the wider world. It can also damage our trust in our democratic institutions, including Parliament

Oh boy - so it's blogs that damage our trust in Parliament - not Parliament's betrayal of democracy or corrupt MPs as I previously described  them as denizens of Dante's eighth malbolge  - pimps, seducers, flatterers dipped in shit, liars, fornicators, barrators, perjurers, corrupt office-holders, half-wit frauds and peculators. And I can name at least three of each. And have candid photos of one (widely circulated on the net) who importuned another pervert to shit on him.

As even the 'Daily Remain' comments

Tory MP and former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, writing at the weekend, was completely justified in warning that the proposals risk dragging Britain into a 'draconian censorship regime' more akin to China, Russia or North Korea. No other Western democratic state has countenanced similarly far-reaching controls.

Government censorship of blogs, FB and Twitter will be wide ranging, using the government's own tame Ministry of Truth agencies including the BBC - and even forcing GFT to push BBC pro-government propaganda onto users;

• The steps companies should take in their terms of service to make clear what constitutes disinformation, the expectations they have of users, and the penalties for violating those terms of service.
• Steps that companies should take in relation to users who deliberately misrepresent their identity to spread and strengthen disinformation.
• Making content which has been disputed by reputable fact-checking services less visible to users.
• Using fact-checking services, particularly during election periods.
• Promoting authoritative news sources.
• Promoting diverse news content, countering the ‘echo chamber’ in which people are only exposed to information which reinforces their existing views.

May, Javid and the Red Tories have truly become globalist dags and tools of the Socialists. The Noncefinder General and his Marxist capo must be rubbing their hands with glee.

OK, I suggest any readers with any interest in freedom investigate using Tor and Signal.If this repressive authoritarian shite becomes law, we're going underground.

EU gearing up to implement Press Censorship

Like all anti-democratic authoritarian regimes, the EU can't stand criticism. A robust democracy such as our own makes space for savage satire, popular contempt, the slings and barbs of insult, the razor-pens of cruel cartoonists and the dagger-words of writers. The discomfort of our politicians and others who place themselves in positions of power over us is the price they pay for the nation's long-term political stability, the engagement of voters with politics and a healthy democracy. Hence, as I've examined below, Britain's lack of criminal penalties for defamation or abuse of politicians and State officials. 

However the EU, in the words of one of our finest comedy writers, don't like it up 'em. And they're gearing-up to censor it. 

First Věra Jourová, the unelected EU official in charge of Justice, indicated that the EU had plans for press regulation to deal with an impertinent press and media. Then, Herr Tusk complained about a 'lack of respect' by the British press for unelected EU officials (in this country, chum, respect must be earned). And finally, yesterday, Herr Juncker himself chipped in with “The British press is such that I will not miss it. It is, in part so, that they do not respect the human rights of political actors at all. Press freedom also has its limits … One should not bring people in privacy in distress.”. 

And there you have it. Press freedom has its limits - and those limits include taking the piss out of unelected EU officials. The EU has the power. And will use it to limit what the press says about them. I expect it's this sort of thing from the Sun that angers them;

Or perhaps these sort of headlines, disrespecting Herr Juncker's 'sciatica' -

But those unelected EU officials should take care. Every regime in history that censored what its people wrote and said about it fell. Just thank God that from March next year their nasty repressive little laws and corrupt courts hold no sway in Britain.

Edit
====
Jean Quatremer has much more on Drunker's 'sciatica' in the Speccie

Tommy Robinson

Regular readers will know that I've long been at odds with campaigners whose targets are Muslims in general rather than Islamists, or whose targets are Muslims rather than the absurdity of the Islamic faith. All British citizens conforming to law, who can pass Cameron's test, are entitled to peaceful enjoyment of their lives, homes and streets without threat, harassment or violence, irrespective of their faith. 

Robinson now has an extensive entry on Wikipedia that details his past extreme right wing activities, and his damascene moment with Quilliam that apparently changed him from bigoted street thug to campaigner for democracy. I'm not questioning or belittling this - just stating it as a fact. It's the reason that until now he's never been mentioned on this blog - he's been outside my interest.

However, I did watch the events yesterday at Speakers Corner with interest. It was rightly understood as a free speech event. It was very well attended, and tens of thousands more followed it on live feeds or on Twitter. It was peaceful. It was a protest against what seems to be a concerted silencing of right wing voices by both the State and social media - culminating in the refusal of entry to the UK by three European right-wingers. Robinson read a speech by Martin Sellner, one of the excluded activists. It was not a good speech, certainly not worth quoting. Brits are motivated more by 1688 and the Chartists than fantasies of being Aryan knights. It didn't matter; very few heard it, either live or on the feeds. The speech wasn't the point. 

I'm still not a fan of Mr Robinson. But free speech is under serious threat, and groups such as Martin Scriblerus are important because they offer individual bloggers who may be suddenly silenced a resilience. What has been happening with increasing frequency on You Tube and Twitter may soon come to Blogger, and even innocent and peace-affirming voices such as mine are under threat, perhaps just for mentioning Tommy Robinson's name. I'm still not a fan of Mr Robinson, but if yesterday was a case of a bad man doing a good thing, then so be it. In defence of free speech our enemy's enemy is our friend.  

The right to insult

In 2008 when visiting an agricultural show, the then President of the Fifth Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, was refused a handshake by a French farmer. Rather than just shrugging inwardly and passing on, the foul-mouthed little head of State snarled back "Casse toi, pauv’ con". I wish my quadrilingual nephew were here to check my translation - the closest I can suggest is something like "Fuck you, dickhead".

It might have ended there had not M Herve Eon, some six months later, held up a placard bearing these same words on the route of a presidential procession in Laval. Eon was arrested by plain clothes police and charged and convicted of insulting the president, under a French law of 1881 that also criminalises insulting hordes of other establishment members, including foreign heads of state. After refusing to apologise to Sarkozy to reduce his penalty, Eon managed to get this appealed at the ECHR - and though the ECHR would doubtless have dearly loved to have upheld such penalties against lèse-majesté, the court felt obliged to avoid international ridicule by declaring that M.Eon's declaration had been satirical, and was therefore permitted.

In France it takes a whole bench of judges to tell the difference between an insult and satire. And satire itself is seemingly only protected when it not too vicious or biting; cartoon or distorted images of protected fat cats can all too easily be termed insulting.

France of course is seeking only to implement fully the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), effective from 1976. Luckily it already has an earlier 1881 law that does so. The ICCPR is an appalling piece of treaty-making; as is often the way with such things, it authorises suppression of free speech to a greater degree than it protects freedom of expression. In particular article 19 (3);

The exercise of the [right to freedom of expression] carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
(b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

And there you have it. Governments may freely introduce laws to protect the reputations of others from insult. And you can be sure that the 'others' that many governments will have in mind are not us ordinary folk but those for whom reputation is vital - such as ministers, politicians and members of the establishment.  

The EU has taken the lead in seeking to implement across the EU its own interpretation of the international convention, to which all 27 are signatories. Many EU nations can already lock their citizens up for insulting politicians - but thank God the UK is not amongst them:-

M. Herve Eon was also fortunate in that France only fines those that insult its establishment figures, rather than locks them up. The fines, though, can be up to €45,000 - on a scale greater than anything the UK's summary courts can impose for a whole host of serious criminal acts. In Austria one also has to be careful what one writes and says - 

Now one can begin to understand the sort of legal changes that Yvette Cooper and others of her parliamentary cohort are seeking, and why they are so keen to adopt the EU standards on the criminalisation of insult. We must all fight this with every fibre of fortitude; British politics has always been a robust and forthright process, where political insults are freely traded and politicians expected to have thick skins. 

Provided that my frequent reminders to Mz Cooper of her pledge to house a migrant - a pledge that neither she, Lily Allen nor any of the fatuous virtue signallers have fulfilled - can remain as satire, provided that I never descend into encouraging violence, harassment or intimidation (which I absolutely counsel and extort against - whether directed at politicians, migrants or any persons). So here again is that clip from the Telegraph on the 'flipping' of Mz Cooper's two homes, either of which is doubtless capacious enough to accommodate a migrant or two -