This
page is entirely dedicated to
the Richard Bacon documentary
"The Anti-Social Network".
A long winded set of Fallacious
Arguments broadcast on BBC Three
as though they were a serious
factual documentary. It
also covers the effects of The
Communications Act 2003 Section
127 - Improper use of public
electronic communications
network (sections 1 and 2) and
the mysterious Michael
Fitzpatrick who along with
the Daily Mail has been running
a political campaign in favour
of harsher penalties for
internet trolls for some
time. It's a long article
covering in detail everything
Richard's documentary skipped
over interspersed with a few
random rants so here's an index
Strange, is it not? that
of the myriads who Before us pass'd the door
of Darkness through Not one returns to tell
us of the Road, Which to discover we must
travel too.
For
the uninitiated ..."The
Anti-Social Network" was a
documentary about how
the internet needs to be policed
more by the police in which (what for want of a
better phrase) "media
personality" Richard Bacon tells
us that internet Trolls are bad
and goes on a hunt to find his
own troll.
The only problem is that by the
end of it it wasn't just the
internet troll that hated
Richard Bacon I did too - if
that isn't a hate crime. I
felt a violent dislike of this
seemingly nice man. I did
not understand quite why.
Okay,
call me Mr Cynic but
immediately I watched this
program I suspected that in
many places I was being told
half truths or half
stories. So I set about
to try to build up a better
picture.
It was clear Richard was a
victim but I felt that by
juxtaposing the behaviour of his
own personal critics with that
of the criminally convicted
Richard had used a combination
of selective observation,
selective reading, non
sequiturs, digression,
misdirection, fast talking,
straw men and special
pleading to reach a biased
conclusion. It
takes quite a lot of mendacity
to state that...
"As
a broadcaster, a bit of
abuse comes with the
territory, andin no way am
I comparing what I was
exposed to with the
shocking levels of abuse
directed at the grieving
families I met"
That said some
things he said made a lot of
sense and yet... I felt a
lot of what he said seemed to be
misdirection. I also
wondered how it got to be
commissioned - did Richard want
to do a documentary on his troll
or did the BBC look for someone
trolled to do a documentary
...or was it somewhere in
between? While Richard had
some genuine complaints I
couldn't help feeling that
investigating himself was
leading to a lack of
objectivity?
So out of curiosity I slowed the
documentary down and went
through it frame by frame to
study the arguements and the
evidence on the screens
that otherwise you can only
see for microseconds... to see
if I could see another side to
the stories...
Loser. Hate. Stupid.
And such words fill the screen
before a young lady by the name
of Charlie informs us that "James
says I should got fuck myself
because no one else will".
Someone else says "Ben said I'm
a wierd loser and should go die"
and someone else says "Alex
says everyone hates me and I
should leave school."
We are also informed by someone
called Jenna
that "Jodi thinks I dont fit
in and that I'm (in quotes)
'fat-tastic'".
No one suggests that any of the
above might actually be accurate
critiques of the said persons or
that some of them might have
prompted the above responses by
knowingly antagonising
anyone. And none of this
is ever contextualised.
But remember this is a modern
documentary. Fast cutting
and immediate shock tactics are
required to grab the audience
from the first frame as this is
BBC3 and they cannot be expected
to have any attention span.
Mr Richard Bacon then introduces
himself with
"Hello,
I'm Richard and Dick Bacon
Boom thinks I'm a (lady's
most private parts) and
wants me to die".
Being the BBC the word (lady's
most private parts) is redacted
even though this is going out
after the watershed.
Richard
then informs us that
in the last couple of
years there's been a
massive explosion in
online
This
is, of course, reductive
fallacy. Richard
provides no empirical evidence
to show that in the last couple
of years the internet has become
more or less vituperative or
hatefilled than it ever
was. Although it is, of
course, possible that it has
...but Richard has not shown
this. So might I suggest
the more logical analysis that
the problem is not that the
Internet is and more hatefilled
and spiteful
than it used to be...
I stole this off Google
like their cars steal
unsecured wifi
...there are just more people on
it! for whom being trolled is
and trolling is a new and
exiting experience.
However, let's move on...
Richard further informs us as if
it were Gospel that "Bullies
and Trolls use fake identities
on social networking sites to
torment, harass and abuse and
they do it the coward's
way. They are hiding
behind a keyboard. Their
annonymity means there's
no boundaries".
Of course as these German people
have discovered being anonymous
or wearing a mask can give one
more licence to be ...shall we
say ... unusual. But as we
shall see the charge of anonymity
in trolls is actually a bit of
a generalisation.
Throughout the documentary Richard
seeks to confuse his anonymous
troll who he keeps
trying to get banned from
different online communications
platforms
only for him to pop up on
another one with all
other online trolls -
some of whom are annonymous and
some of whom are not. We
shall examine the morality of
anonymity in writing later but
for the moment let's push on...
suffice to say Jane Austen, the
Bronte sisters, George Orwell,
Charles Dickens, George Eliot,
Lewis Carroll, Voltaire, Pablo
Neruda, Daniel Defoe, Joseph
Conrad and Brian Damage all
write under or actually are
pseudonyms. People who
feel that it is somehow more
sensible to say things to
people's face rather than
indirectly are, in my view, a
bit mentally retarded or have
never actually said anything.
Ironically most of the data for
this documentary was compiled by
a troll hunter (or Witchfinder
General depending on your
point of view) using fake
IDs. But let's move on...
As the screen intercuts between
the Daily Mail
messageboard, Facebook and
Twitter deliberately confusing
multiple communication platforms
as though they all suffer the
same problems Richard now adds
that
"I've
spent the last 3 months in the
virtual world on the hunt for
Britain's haters". (all
Richard's statements will be
in purple)
At this point we see our first
screenshot of Richard's nasty
troll Mr
Dick Bacon Boom (all Dick Bacon
Boom's statements will be
in blue).
However much of the
screenshot is too blurred to
read and several presumably
naughty words have been redacted
with fuzziness although we can
see...
Dick Bacon Boom : I'm
not a violent man generally
but when I see Richard Bacon I
want to stamp on his head.
This
is a statement of fantasy
violence. Or is it an
incitement to violence against
the person of Richard?
This is at the nub of Richard's
legitimate complaint.
Richard then informs us that
only he's found nasty videos
that mock the dead and that he's
talked to grieving families
devastated by horrific images
and messages posted about their
loved ones and as if to affirm the
consequant we move
directly from Richard's troll to
someone saying that
"That's
my son there. They've no
right. No right and the
internet should be able to
stop them from doing that".
Accompanied by an online photo
of a child who's eyes have been
crudely paintshopped red
We then cut back to a screenshot
of Mr Dick Bacon Boom's
twitter feed as if to insinuate
they are one and the same and
the issues are the same. Mr
Dick Bacon Boom is
actually saying the slightly
less revolting...
Dick
Bacon Boom :Most people can work
and listen to the radio at the
same time, dumbass (Richard's
show goes out during the
working day)
Dick Bacon Boom :If you're near
Victoria Sq in Birmingham PLEASE
go and throw something at Dick
Bacon (22nd Dec)
Dick
Bacon Boom : DIck Bacon is
SOOOO pleased with the intros
in the Chart the Week ... dont
think he realises he sounds
even more like Alan Partridge
(17th Dec)
...although it does
contain at least one
statement that could be
construed as an ...
"incitement
to violence"
Incitement to violence is
the real nub of Richard's
complaints against Dick
Bacon Boom. What
constitutes an expression of
anger and what actually
constitutes an incitement to
violence has been a problem
since ... Henry II
"accidentally" incited a lot
of Knights to kill Beckett
by shouting "who will rid be
of this turbulent priest?"
When
does a statement of desire
become an actual incitement to
violence? Does a continual
stream of statements of desire
become more than one individual
one? Or is one
enough? Most people feel
like killing someone else from
time to time - it would be a bit
absurd for this never to be
articulated? ... or to try and
criminally convict everyone who
articulates it in public.
For example if I was to say I
want to kill Noel
Edmunds (which I dont as
he hasn't dropped any of my
relatives off a crane) does that
mean that I actually want to
kill him or is it an emotional
expression of
frustration...? What if I
just wish him to come to
accidental harm or wished an
ovarian cyst on someone in the
manner of Doug
Stanhope when he cant win
an argument with Allison
Pearson (famous for her
witty articles on how
to prevent too many oriental
people going to Oxford and
Cambridge which are in no
way racist and ignorant of the
fact that it is overseas
students who financially
subsidise the UK ones)?
If saying that you want to kill
someone or you want harm to come
to someone or you want someone
to die is now illegal a lot of
comedians are going to have to
change their sets? But is
it? And does that apply
universally over stage, page,
TV, film and the internet?
Well, as we shall see there are
actually completely different
laws for different
communication platforms.
I
have to say that it was a
probably a bit dumb of me but I
didn't realise this until I
investigated it.
Gentle readers of the Pear
Shaped Comedy Club website
all being passive and
thoughtful souls are
probably not aware but the
well known common law
offense of incitement to
violence does not any more
actually exist. It was
abolished on 1 October 2008
when Part 2 of the Serious
Crime Act 2007 came into
force, replacing it with
three new statutory offences
of encouraging or assisting
crime. This sort of
merged the offence of
assisting in crime with the
offense of incitement to
crime - although you may
wish to consult someone who
knows what they're actually
talking about.
These kind of offenses are
known legally as "Inchoate
offences" - or illegal
acts yet to be committed
... in short "thought
crimes". In order for
an inchoate offence to be
committed there must be an
Actus reus and a Mens
rea.
Actus res is
the Latin term for the "guilty
act" Mens rea is
the Latin term for the "guilty
mind"
In short the
writer must intend harm in
their mind and this
must be capable of resulting
in a physical manifestation
of criminal activity.
So it is possible that Dick
Bacon Boom may be able to
claim that although he has
imagined someone throwing
things at Richard Bacon an
actual crime has not been
committed because he didn't
seriously say this with the
intention of anyone throwing
things at Richard Bacon.
The term "Actus Res" was
coined by Sir
Edward Coke who is
best remembered for his
witty and much neglected
epigram "actus
non facit reum nisi mens
sit rea" which in
English means...
...deciding which
exhortations to violence are
emotional outbursts and
which are intended to cause
harm to the person being
attacked in this way and
whether, indeed, there is a
difference between saying
you wish harm to come to
someone, saying you wish
people to harm someone and
actually harming them
yourself is an extremely
subjective and grey
area. It
was recently the subject of
the infamous Robin
Hood airport case in
which the "cream" of the
twitterati ...
....asserted that Paul
Chambers should not be
fined because his actions
created no realistic threat
to security or the general
public and there was no Mens
Rea. Although one
could make a convincing
argument for fining him on
the grounds of him being a
stupid man who wasted a lot
of public money through
sheer thoughtlessness.
Stephen Fry was first in
line to say he would be
willing to go to prison for
"banter". Of course Mr
Chambers who was
fined, lost two jobs, was
banned from flying and
received a criminal
conviction for the
"flippant" tweet is a middle
class pillar of the
community and as such his
"freedom of speech" is
probably easier to be seen
to be defending than that of
some of the more ...erm ...
underclassy and bigoted
featured on this page.
A decontextualised
bland woman then states that
she would seek information
and advice from the police
authority but not about
what.
Richard informs us that a
couple of years ago a new word
entered our vocabulary
"trolling".
Actually the earliest actual use
of the word in the context of
the internet that the OED could
find was 1992. That said I
had my first email account in
1996 and no one was on it except
my boss which was a bit
dull. Suffice to say that
Richard's implicit assertion
that trolling is a phenomenon a
mere couple of years old is a
bit inaccurate and move on... (here's another definition I
found floating round the
internet ether)
Richard then tells us that the
sole purpose of trolling is
to antagonise and attack
everyone from grieving
families to people in the
public eye.
This is of course a straw
man. Richard has
caricatured people who use the
internet to criticise public
figures and people who use the
internet to insult the memories
of grieving families as one and
the same as if there were no
range of differing motivations
or circumstances surrounding
individual cases. He has
also conflated his critic/troll
with the most vicious, spiteful,
malevolent and criminal cases he
could dig up. And,
of course, he's insinuated that
every troll is out to provoke
for its own sake. Whereas
actually they may be trying to
say something or there may be a
grey area where they are doing
both.......?
We then move to a shot of
Richard in his studio where he
informs us that:
I've had a troll for 2
years. He first appeared
when I began introducing a new
show on Radio 5 live.
From the off he made it clear
he hated the show and he hated
me and that's fine you expect
criticism in my line of work
and you know that some people
aren't going to like what you
dobut
this guy was particularly
obsessive".
This is Richard Bacon's
frequent refrain. I
can take criticism but not
continually and from one
person. He
may have a point.
Continual harassment is hard
to defend. But it all
becomes a bit blurred when,
like Richard Bacon, you are
both a person and a
product.
There's no doubt there are
problems when one is both...
for example ...I was once
banned from posting under my
own name on the Money
Saving Expert forums
on the grounds that since I
have a public profile it
must be a form advertising
for me to post under my own
name. Yes, bizarrely
there are websites which
insist as a matter of course
their posters are anonymous
which is clearly very
responsible and
logical. Maybe Richard
has a point here... Given
Dick Bacon Boom so clearly
hates his show why does he
listen to it... What kind of
person continually endures a
show they so clearly hate by
choice?
Well,
Richard's show is on
during the day so it could
be someone at work
...or...?
Of course it has to be
pointed out too that Richard
Bacon is not exactly
inoffensive or unopinionated
himself either.
Another screenshot of Bick Bacon
Boom's twitter account reveals
this:
Dick Bacon
Boom :Fantastic Dick Bacon
Boom clip
http://audioboo.fm/boos/323312-bacon.
I think this link was to an
audio clip of Richard Bacon's
standup routine (performed for
charity?).
Actually the link has been
removed but following back to
the source of the link I did
find another... by (presumably)
the same poster who seemed to
have a genuine? problem /
complaint about this item poking
fun at Paul Daniel's
misfortune...
...in this clip Richard Bacon
does an item called "what is
your tenuous connection to a
news story?" which is won by
Paul at "Ideas Sound and Vision"
who's company specialises in
home automation and quoted Paul
and Debbie for a multi room
music and home automation
system. A quote he
rejected as a rip off*...
"Perhaps now 'a finger
down' he's regretting the
decision not to have his
lights turn on and off
automatically"
Tasteful.
It seems Richard Bacon himself
likes a good old fashioned sick
joke at the expense of the
recently injured... Also he
seems to have rather extreme
views about older people as
demonstrated in this article
about the Archers....
where he describes the program
as "'Boring, aimless and
listened to only by those who
wish to appear superior.”
Richard has by my count
1,425,319 followers ...it surely
shouldn't be too hard to find
one who really doesn't like him
if you want to. Richard is
according to the Independent
...if not the 2nd most
followed... the "second
most influential person on
twitter in the UK" ...and
uses the site to assiduously
market himself to the
public. Fair enough -
that's what it is for - but a
large plank of Bacon's argument
revolves around the premise that
his interaction with his troll
is all one way.
It also undermines another plank
of his argument that is - that
celebrity baiting is
wrong. I mean, this is the
same Richard Bacon who's been
harassing Britney
Spears for years by
insinuating that he married
her on the Big Breakfast
in 2002 every time he wants to
cash in on her fame? But that
doesn't matter as Britney does
not suffer from any mental
illness and is clearly not
emotionally vulnerable.
Mr Bacon then bemoans that he
has come home to find a barrage
of abuse mainly on
twitter.
"He'd
always post under a made up
nickname and currently calls
himself DICK BACON BOOM!"
Of
course this may be partly
because Mr Bacon has had Mr
Dick Bacon Boom's previous
accounts deleted. Richard claims in his promotional
material for the show
that he came accross his troll
when googling his own name and
that then his troll "took to
twitter". However, what
he doesn't say is that his
troll took to twitter after he
had persuaded tumblr to delete
his blog. This puts a
slightly different complexion
on things and may go some way
to explain (if not excuse) the
escalation of anger. Of
course it is also only an
inference that these are all
the same people from their
prose style. An
inference is not a fact.
That said they probably are
the same person. But
maybe there is more than one
Baconhater.
Richard's troll feels that he
has been censored for daring
to criticise Mr Bacon.
Mr Bacon also insinuates that
his troll "was
fantasising about my death,
daydreaming about me dying in a
plane crash, and expressing his
hope that my body would be
mangled in a car wreck".
We shall be examining these
claims individually. Mr
Bacon also insinuates that
these comments were on the
blog whereas actually they
seem to have been on the
twitter account.
Of course it is possible that Mr
Bacon did not deserve the level
of vituperation his troll aimed
at him but there is a strong
historical tradition of
reviewers and critics carrying
on near personal vendettas
against the subjects of their
articles.
For example Dorothy Parker had a
long standing and extremely
vituperative artistic vendetta
against the superficially
inoffensive AA Milne.
As Christopher Milne was still a
child at that time satirising AA
Milne could be construed by Ms
Parker's critics as "bullying
children". To complicate matters
Christopher Robin Milne actually
was bullied as a result of
having his childhood put so
firmly in the public domain and
wrote about these experiences in
"The Enchanted Places" ISBN
978-0-14-003449-3 ...complicated
One also has to wonder how
particularly vituperative
reviewers of the more recent
past would get on in this brave
new world - for example Victor
Lewis-Smith who seemed to not
exactly be on jolly terms with
most of the rest of the world
and in particularly not jolly
about Esther
Rantzen. To prove my
thesis here's a piece of fantasy
violence from a
Lewis-Smith TV review of the
early 1990s published in the
London Evening Standard then
under the direct editorial
control of Associated Newspapers
(who also publish the Daily
Mail):
"I suspect that
American Universities offer
PhD courses on Selling your
book on This Morning, because
some US pseudo-psychologist
pops up on the show every
other day. Book number
three was by a Californian
couple - grinning like
glassy-eyed Scientologists -
who gave great advice on
bringing up baby. Their
own looked utterly miserable
and made a noise resembling a
Harrier Jump jet with faulty
gaskets, so they were
obviously experts. Spend
every waking and sleeping
moment with your baby, they
said and never smack
them.
All right, no smacking
babies then, but how about
child psychologists?"
These reviews were so popular
they were republished in the
volume "Inside the Magic
Rectangle" (ISBN-10:
0575061197). The
reproduction of this piece of
fantasy violence on the internet
rather than in a book or
newspaper is a possible
violation of the Communications
Act 2003 section 127. It
is clearly an incitement to hit
all child psychologists and
cannot be disguised as
wit?
While I'm cogitating on it
wasn't Richard Bacon actually on
the late night TV review program
of Mr Lewis-Smith's called "the
Vicious Circle" (a reference to
Dorothy Parker who's prose style
Lewis-Smith clearly aimed to
emulate) the sole purpose of
which was to be a TV program
criticising TV in the most
acerbic way? A difficult
trick to pull off without
turning into an ouroboros unless
you are Harry Hill.
The most entertaining writing in
the world is seldom the most
fair or balanced. Of
course these days anyone can be
a critic and there are entire
websites devoted to nothing
else ... so why pick on
Dick Bacon Boom as particularly
nasty?
We then cut to a messageboard
where we read
i-hate-richard-bacon
why he's a **** reason 442
"So,
a more formal welcome to the
show". That's his
catchphrase. Or it's
what he's desperately trying
to make his catchphrase.
May had "next up, The Mighty
Drive" at the end of the
show. So Bacon (or his
producer) thought "fuck we
need a catchphrase, but let's
not put it at the end of the
show, let's put it at the
start". Brilliant work
you silly little *** but what
the fuck does it mean, for
God's sake?"
I have to admit to some
ignorance as to what either of
them mean. We now cut to a
Facebook page with a picture of
Richard Bacon entitled "I
hate Richard Bacon"
who's words were
indistinguishable apart from the
following ... not all of which
are fully legible ....on a
screengrab I did pick up...
Richard Bacon shot a
man in R? just to watch him
die? (July 31)
This Z list ejit recons
there are too many disabled
parking bays at supermarkets
and stores... yeah should have
bays removed with a big Z in
them for him and others of the
lucky but talentless (October
21)
"These are some of
the older tweets he sent me"
intones Richard Bacon. "These are from the early
days".
These tweets are also made indistinguishable.
Looking
at two adjactent tweets one is
marked 9th of Feb and the next
adjactent 29th of March which
I make an interval of at least
48 days - hardly sustained
vituperation. We
cant really read either very
well but one says (some gaps
where text is unreadable or
redacted).
Mr Bacon reads Dick Bacon Boom:
"...is
making a ...Peter Sissons
right now .... also ... did I
mention that I fucking hate
Richard Bacon and that he
should go fuck himself."
Mr Bacon fails to add "and
get off the air."
On a scale of 1 to ****
how much of a **** is Richard
Bacon
This is a reference to
Peter Sissions being
interviewed about his autobiography
in which he makes vociferous
statements about
institutional media bias at
the BBC. So there is a
political issue at stake
here. These comments
are not quite simply a
personal attack on Richard
Bacon (although there is
that too).
Fuck I was hoping to
get back from my hols to find
Dick Bacon either sacked or
dead. Neither it
seems SAD FACE!
BOOM!
Richard, forever the soul of
tolerance, informs us (despite
the fact it obviously did bother
him) that
The fact he was posting
rude, crude and violent
messages day after day month
after month didn't
particularly bother me at
first. When you're a
broadcaster having people hate
you goes with the territory
...
We see another fleeting glimpse
of Dick Bacon Boom's twitter
feed which actually reads
@Beer_Pizza_Club wake
up and remember what you do
for a living
@bbc5live please get
rid of cock ache
@richardbacon are you
on drugs with my radio?
...you're sounding...
Richard Bacon then scrolls back
down the page till we arrive at
the Peter Sissons comment.
Suggesting that perhaps the
volume of comments isn't as
vociferous or large as Mr Bacon
seems to opine. Even taking Mr
Bacon's statement that over the
3 month period of the
documentary his troll wrote 255
vituperative tweets that's still
less than 7,500 words or 625
words a week (so the equivalent
of half a newspaper article
every week).
Also at this
point I had begun to wonder (as
Richard only seems to at the end
of the documentary) if this
critic is truly an ordinary
member of the public or someone
Richard knows. Is this
someone trying to settle a
professional score or a jealous
fellow professional. I
know hard to imagine that anyone
in entertainment could be bitchy
but according to Broadacast
magaine...
...The first ten-part
series of Richard Bacon's Beer
and Pizza Club averaged an
audience of 121,600 (0.58%) on
Wednesday nights at 10pm – less
than half the 2010 slot
average of
245,400 (1.25%). Could
this be someone trying to run a
legitimate political campaign
against rubbish TV and radio?
The" are you on drugs
with my radio?" comment
is, of course, a reference to
the infamous Blue
Peter incident.
...but increasingly his
posts became more personal,
more strange. He
fantasised about my dying in a
plane crash and my body being
mangled in a car wreck.
One
day I actually got into a
conversation with him as well
on twitter which was a mistake
...and he just sent me a load
of abuse ...I'm trying to
rationalise now ... Erm ....
My wife tried to rationalise
with him at one point when he
tweeted her to look at this
fan site and she opened it and
there was all this horrible
stuff including fanticising at
my death. She tried to
rationalise with him as well.
We then see a fleeting glimpse
of a screengrab again which when
you freeze frame it actually
reads
Oh and
he also had my blog
--hate-richard-bacon tmblr
taken down. Even
though he says he embrases
criticism cos it means he
isn't bland.
...and he just sent her
a load of horrible personal
abuse
At the top of the twitter page
we can just see
any Dick in my ears
that ....
Richard? PS I
hope your plane crashes.
And at the bottom is a link to
the now deleted audio clip.
Given the volume of vituperative
material why is it Mr Bacon
keeps showing the same few
tweets?
These tweets are dated 29th of
March. A whole year before
the documentary.
Furthermore it
is obvious that far from
abstractly fanticising about
Mr Bacon's death in a plane
crash as Mr Bacon seems to
insinuate his critic is simply
commenting on one of Mr
Bacon's comments that he is
going somewhere on a plane...?
Mr Bacon now
says that Mr Dick Bacon Boom
also knows a lot about his
wife. Insinuating that Mr
Bacon keeps some kind of iron
curtain or veil between his
public and private life. I
found this a particularly
surreal claim given that a quick
flit through the pictures on Mr
Bacon's twitter feed reveals a
great deal of his personal
life. I dont know if his
wife is on there as I did not
find Mr Bacon's personal and
professional life sufficiently
stimulating to persevere but I
did find several pictures of his
children as babies with very
little effort.
(Mr
Bacon's offspring with his
identity protected)
Slightly irresponsible behaviour
I thought for a man who claims
to be persecuted by potentially
violent weirdos.
Still that's his own choice.
I never say what my
mother's twitter address is
and he found that out.
Well, it's quite easy to find
out who Mr Bacon's wife is
(Rebecca McFarlane marketing
manager of Capital FM) as their
marriage was featured in the
Daily Mail. And it didn't
take me long to find out that
Richard's dad was a solicitor
and that
richard bacon@richardpbacon
Have
taken my parents' dog to the
Whitby Regatta Prettiest Lady
Dog competition. Who needs St
Tropez? (I
do).
So it's not like he isn't
putting his entire extended
family into the public
domain.
Putting
your family and photos of them
squarely in the public domain
then claiming that your
relatives have been threatened
or your children bullied
because someone dared to
comment on an image of them
you publicised is a media
profile raising technique
known as doing aDom
Jolly.... the
faded TV prankster who pioneered
the technique of forcing your
sprogs down other people's
throats on the internet then
calling people weirdos when they
dare to satirise you for
it. Children are very
useful to celebrities as they
can be used to say things
one wouldn't say and/or
promote all kinds of stuff and
no one can slag them off because
that is "bullying children" -
much the accusation Dorothy
Parker had to endure when she
reviewed The
House at Pooh Corner...
and she wrote under a
"pseudonym" ...
One wonders
too if this is the same Dom
Jolly who appeared on Britain's
Funniest Comedy Characters stating
that he'd have liked to have
done his large mobile phone
gag at a funeral but "we
couldn't find anyone who was
up for it"
Some more screenshots read
Still got this one
though ****** fucker
@richardpbacon had my
other accounts suspended
@dickpbacon and
@richardppbacon WHAT A
PUSSY! Can't take a
joke, Richard?
@riachrdpbacon is
making a massive twat of
himself infront of Peter
Sissions now on 5 live what
*****
...as soon as he
started to draw my family into
his hatreds I asked twitter to
take down his accounts but he
just created another account
under a different name
Of course
the great thing about twitter
in particular is that it is
designed specifically to only
show half of a conversation at
a time
(apologies to anyone who
fully understands the internal
mathematical and psychological
logic of twitter already you may
skip this
bit but I've left it in
because, well, it did my head in
for ages).
I used to
think this was unintentional but
since I've started to actually
use twitter I've realised that
it is actually the reverse - the
entire point in twitter is it
allows people to actually talk
to themselves while imagining
they're engaged in a
conversation. But the
actual conversations on twitter
are extremely hard (sometimes
impossible) to see. This
is a genius piece of
psychology.
Basically what has been done in
the invention of twitter is to
take the concept of a blog and
turn it into a "micro
blog". The limitation of
the thread system of a php or
other internet forums was the
incovienience of having to
follow an argument and the
tendency of people to go off
topic... by limiting the number
of letters in any particular
post twitter removes the need
for threads or topics and
replaces them with a web of
interconnectivity instead -
removing the inconvenience of
actually having to read other
people's thoughts... This makes
twitter an extremely powerful
promotional tool as it relies
much more on interaction and
emotion than logic or
discussion. It's not that
many communication platforms that
are so powerful that
journalists write to you out
of the blue to ask you why
you're NOT
on it...?
The
reason I was asked why I'm not
on twitter is politicians seem
to love it ...for
exactly the above explained
reasons.
It allows them to communicate
with a lot of people while
concealing or obscuring any
actual conversations.
For example if you look at my MP
(Gavin Barwell)'s twitter
profile you will see something
this.
Gavin seems to be answering a
lot of questions. Jolly
good that's what MPs are
supposed to do... but we cannot
follow any particular
conversation without clicking on
a specific "View Conversation"
tab. This means that only
the highly motivated can follow
any conversation on
twitter.
Actually in this small snippet
we can see 3 conversations going
on. One about football,
one about the closure of the
Warehouse Theatre and one about
the editor of Inside Croydon
calling George Osborne a ponce
and to what extent this is
homophobia or political rough
and tumble. Gavin likes a
good row and these frequently
disolve into outright insults
and even into veiled
threats when he's very
cross but he's yet to be
prosecuted or cautioned under
section 127.
In order to actually follow a
conversation you have to hit on
a tab and then you can see...
...an actual conversation in
which Mr Barwell purports that
the Council had been bailing out
the Warehouse Theatre for years
when actually they've only been
financially supporting it for 6
months (long
story). The point is
simply it's extremely hard to
find and follow conversations on
twitter, particularly old ones
and particularly ones where
accounts have been
deleted.
Ideal then for politicians and
personalities who want to be
seen saying things but not
neccessarilly to be remembered
for saying them. It
also allows one to opt in and
out of a lot of different
conversations at random
without seeming rude... this
saves one the inconvenience of
telling someone they are a bore
or having to admit that you've
said something that's
twaddle.
Combining this phenomenon with
the retweet facility
means that most people end up
actually reading half a
conversation - the half that
is most retweeted.
And the half most likely to be
most retweeted will be the half
written by the person with the
most followers. Indeed,
I've noticed that if a
particular tweet is retweeted
>50 times it seems to become
actually disconnected from the
conversation thread that spawned
it. I'm not sure how this
works technically but the point
is...
It's
an ideal platform for
decontextualising quotes
since some effort has to be
indulged in to study and
actually understand the actual
patterns of interaction on more
than one or two interacting
twitter feeds. The entire
point of twitter is that is not
just a connection of mini-blogs
but a matrix allowing for
"trending" and
"re-tweeting" (literal
repetition of what someone else
has just said for people who
dont want the inconvenience of
generating original thoughts)...
all this may seem obvious to you
but it wasn't to me till I
actually forced myself to start
using the thing so apologies for
being stupid.
(the re-tweet - the
ideal mechanism for people
who want to be seen saying
original stuff but dont want the
inconvenience of generating
original thoughts)
On the other hand having fans of
one's content is extremely
flattering ... and that's the
point. Of course the
retweeting mechanism allows
multiple people to be drawn
rapidly and in great numbers to
any controversial conversation
of comment. The re-tweet
facility combined with the
decontextualised nature of any
particular re-tweet makes
twitter an ideal platform for
the generation of mass
hysteria
and witch
hunting.
Allowing everyone to come
together in a frenzy of
censorious hate againts those
stupid enough to say the wrong
thing loudly. To the
tactless twitter is like having
your own personal Greek chorus.
These Greek Choruses are a
particularly useful mechanism
for generating more
traffic. In, for example,
an old fashioned PHP forum users
must click on a thread that
interests them and make some
effort to follow a particular
conversation before entering
into a pre-existing
conversation. On the
twitter main timeline which each
user sees when logging on ...one
sees
all
tweets of people one is
following in real time the most re-tweeted
decontextualised comments by
people one is not following someone someone else one
is following if they are
retweeted
The retweeted comments and
replies are often the
middle of conversations rather
than the beginning or the end
meaning it is much less likely
for anyone to follow a
conversation. On twitter
there is no topic - just a
sprouting tree of interconnected
individual conversations.
The only logical solution to
this situation of being confused
by everyone else's
interconnectivity is to do an Adam Bloom and follow
no one! We now
cut to a screenshot of a Daily
Mail article about Georgia
Varley the young girl who
unfortunately fell under a
train. I'm not sure why
but it seems from the inquest
that Georgia had been to a party
with some friends to celebrate
an 18th birthday. She then
attempted to get back on the
train while it was moving out
the station and fell down a gap
and was killed.
Immediately her RIP site was set
up on Facebook it was "deluged"
with sarcastic comments.
An mighty rumpus ensued with the
Daily Mail running articles on
the trolls. Who could make
comedy out of such a tragic
situation? Imagine daring
to suggest that her high heels
might be to blame? And
what function could satirising
this accident fulfill?
Well, at least one person -
Christopher McGee, 45, the train
guard is being charged with the
manslaughter, by gross
negligence for what appears to
be a woman who was drunk falling
under a train that was already
moving? Maybe he is at
fault but I've got to say - does
this usually happen every time
someone falls under a
train? Is not the outbreak
of sentimenatality over the
death this young girl in danger
of causing an innocent man to be
scapegoated? Also it has
to be said that while Ms
Varley's parents have had a
horrific thing happen to them
they do come out with exactly
the kind of bland comments about
how their daughter was
particularly fun loving that
comedians have been satirising
for years. Still, maybe
she was and funerals aren't the
time for total veracity?
Also it takes I would have
thought an extreme quirk of fate
or a particularly unusual
circumstance to fall under a
train that's already moving now
they all have sliding doors ...
how exactly was she trying to
get back on? Short of
hanging on the outside like
Harold Lloyd? That is not
a joke. I would never
write any on such a serious
topic.
Swept up by the maelstrom of
hysteria MP Steve Rotheram is
pursuing changes in the law to
propose harsher penalties for
those who post sarcastic and
nasty messages online. Anyway... call
me Mr Conspiracy theorist but is
it not just possible that the
Associated Newspapers knew when
they put the Georgia Varley
story in their national paper
that Georgia Varley's RIP page
might be subject to the same
kind of attacks as happened to
the Natasha MacBryde
RIP site and the three others
which Sean Duffy had
trolled? Was the Daily
Mail consciously or
subconsciously "feeding the
trolls" by putting so many
articles about teenage deaths
into the national newspapers? in
order to further their campaign
for more internet
censorship? Okay here's
the thing...
In their
original article on Georgia
Varley the Daily Mail doesnt
just inform
people about her death. They
actually plug her RIP page
its self (above
is the screengrab from the
original article). Was this
not
bound to lead to Ms Varley's
RIP page being trolled given
they were already engaged in
an anti-trolling campaign?
16
Feb 2011 - Daily Mail
runs article about Natasha
MacBryde's suicide - in this
article her parents divorce
and trolling are blamed for
her death ...as time goes on
less and less emphasis will
be put on her parents
divorce and more and more on
the fact she is
bullied. Fair enough I
suppose but is this
objective
26
Feb 2011 - Daily Mail
runs article about Natasha
MacBryde's RIP
Facebook page being trolled 22
July 2011 - Daily Mail
runs article about Natasha
MacBryde's RIP Facebook page
being trolled
14
September 2011 - Daily
Mail runs article about Sean
Duffy being jalled for
Natasha MacBryde trolling
24
October 2011 - Daily
Mail runs article about
Georgia Varley's accident
including above tribute site
plug
26
October 2011 - Daily
Mail runs article about
Georgia Varley's RIP
Facebook page being trolled
Okay it is fair enough to
say that mentioning the
Natasha MacBryde RIP
Facebook page in the 16th of
Feb the Daily Mail would not
perhaps have expected that
this might result in it
being targeted by trolls but
its it really plausible that
when putting a direct
screengrab of Georgia
Varley's RIP Facebook page
up on the 24th of Oct they
did not suspect that it
might suffer the same
fate? Of course you
could say why shouldn't they
plug an RIP page? But
then I could ask why
shouldn't I be able to leave
my car unattended with the
keys in the ignition.
Even with the best will in
the world putting a direct
screengrab of Georgia
Varley's Facebook RIP page
in a national newspaper does
seem (with hindsight) a bit
silly?
Also if the
Daily Mail is running
a political campaign
to blame suicides on
Facebook and social
media (which to be
fair they may be to
blame for) in order to
bring in more internet
censorship is it right
that RIP pages that
are flooded with
sentimental messages
from people
unquestioning of their
agenda should be
immune from
satire?
Even if they're right it's
surely not healthy for any
opinion to go unquestioned
and ...well, you cant slag
off the Daily Mail on its
own comments page.
Personally I'm not even
allowed to post on the Daily
Mail comments sections - I'm
not sure why but I believe
that they have Martin Lewis
syndrome - they believe that
anything I say under my own
name is a form of promotion
for myself and the
club. Or maybe they
just censor anyone who
criticises them?
To be fair... Sean
Duffy had actually
trolled 4 dead
teenagers tribute
sites and may well
have trolled them all
anyway...
...as explained in the
Channel 4 video...
...so ... you
cant say what Sean Duffy
said online.
(this
video also features Dr Emma
Short telling us
simultaneously that
trolls
are antisocial but form
a community without
spotting any oxymorons -
see below - as well
as criticism of Facebook)
by the way if you cant
view it click here
and or
use another browser that
isn't 64-bit Windows
Explorer
...and all this could be a
fluke or a mad conspiracy
theory I'm concocting
but ...A cynical
person might cogitate about
the fact that perhaps
plugging Ms Varley's death
was designed to encourage
trolls flock to Ms Varley's
RIP page? What other
function does the original
article about her falling
under a train have...? It's
hardly national news?
Or is it? Who defines
news? Also
you can generate quite a lot
of traffic by Facebook
referral. If a lot of
people visit these RIP pages
and they contain links to
the Daily Mail that will
cross promote their
site? Think I'm being
cynical? Well, one
page on this site cross
promoted cleverly on
Facebook generated over 500
hits in a day. Is
there an element of the
commercialisation of grief
here? Anyway...
perhaps that's a little
fanciful but... the
Daily Mail its self points
out Ms Varley's death
follows on from the Natasha
MacBryde case and
points out
similarities. Natasha
MacBryde also died
underneath a train.
Natasha MacBryde's death was
suicide not an
accident. And the
parents blamed the suicide
specifically on social
media. They
said in a statement: “The
family believes that the
anonymous postings on the
‘Formspring’ social
networking website were a
significant contributor to
the events on Sunday,
February 13, and we seek
to understand the
motivation of those who
choose to send spiteful
and vindictive messages to
their peers."
Natasha
MacBryde's mother also said
that she came home from
school crying : “She
said she hated school, she
hated her teachers and
didn’t have any friends
and hated her friends.” So clearly the
problem was not just
social media
platforms. Social
media platforms were just
a tool to expedite the
bullying with. Okay
perhaps that's like saying
guns dont kill people
...people kill people
...but it doesn't follow
automatically that if a
tool is used to commit a
crime it automatically
becomes sensible to
completely outlaw the use
of that tool?
Another similarity between
Nastasha MacBryde and
Georgia Varley's stories is
that they are both white
female girls who were just
old enough to use
Facebook. At the
moment one must be 13 before
setting up a Facebook
account - is that too
young? And who should
bare responsibility for
monitering Facebook, the
parents or Facebook?
There are political angles
to these stories but how do
you deicde what is political
criticism and what is just
mindless bullying. It
may be a clear-ish line in
this case but what about in,
for example, the Horatio
Chapple case? Indeed,
is there much of a
difference between
politics and mindless
bullying?
Erm ... okay maybe that's a
conspiracy theory too far but...
there is other legislation Sean
Duffy could have been convicted
under which is not platform
specific ...for
example....?
Protection
from Harassment Act 1997:
This Act is relevant for
incidents that have happened
repeatedly (i.e. on more that
two occasions). Section 1
prohibits behaviour amounting to
harassment of another. Section
2 provides a criminal offence
and section 3 provides a civil
remedy for breach of the
prohibition on harassment in
section 1. Section 4 provides
a more serious offence of
someone causing another person
to fear, on at least two
occasions, that violence will
be used against them5. A civil
court may grant an injunction
to restrain a person from
conduct which amounts to
harassment and, following
conviction of an offence under
section 2 or 4, restraining
orders are available to
protect the victim of the
offence.
or the
Malicious
Communications Act 1988:
Section 1 makes it an offence
to send an indecent, grossly
offensive or threatening
letter, electronic
communication or other article
to another personwith
the intention that it should
cause them distress or anxiety.
So why do we need
internet
specific
legislation? Why
is there a divide
between the way the
internet and the printed
media is managed? I have
to admit I find it curious that,
even though a death might be
sudden and that of a young
person, so many people have this
strange desire as soon as a
loved one dies to go into
promotion? I
suppose it may have something to
do with the fact that no one has
a physical grave any more
because everyone is cremated -
thus being sarcastic on a
tribute page is almost
psychologically akin to grave
desecration? But then
again just because your relative
has died would you take out a
poster with your phone number on
and ask people you didn't know
to ring up and make you feel
better? While not excusing
the bullying behaviour of the
trolls it does seem to me that
there may be some element of
putting temptation in people's
way here - although one could
excuse this as innocence ...I
suppose... ?
Socially ...marriage and
death are, of course, the two
promotional events most
"ordinary" people outside
entertainment do... who was it
said marriage is a funeral as
which one can smell one's own
flowers... ?
The ultimate
in grief tourism? - Princess
Diana's flowers
Anyway, a tribute site... that
is promoting? Maybe it
just doesnt occur to these
people who've suddenly gone into
promotion to try and deal with
their and other people's grief
that this might enter them into
a world that comedians and
promoters have to put up with
all the time... being unfairly
slagged off, being randomly
insulted and dealing with
mentalists ...? Indeed one
might put forward the hypothesis
that this is actually just the
result of the brave new world
where every idiot can go into
promotion...? In the old
days when everything had to be
done by telephone, leaflet and
footwork promotion was much more
difficult.
Of course
when some comedians physically
die they often go on to have
much better careers than they
did when they were alive?
From a promoter / agent's point
of view the dead make excellent
clients. The dont moan
about money, they dont moan that
you should be getting them
better gigs and they let you
keep not just 15% but 100% of
what you make out of them.
Indeed watching the success John Fleming has made out of
promoting the Malcolm Hardee
Awards and tribute gigs I've
sometimes considered that I'm
simply wasting my time promoting
the living and should broaden my
operation in order to take on
more corpses.
I sent
my Soul through the
Invisible,
Some
letter of that After-life to
spell:
And by
and by my Soul return'd to
me,
And
answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n
and Hell :"
When Mr Hardee had one or two or
three or four tribute gigs that
was just about understandable
... but sometimes one does feel
Mr Hardee has now done more gigs
since he died than he did when
he was alive. To be fair
Mr Fleming did know Mr Hardee
very well having ghost written
his autobiography and the
money from the Hardee tribute
gigs did go to his family but I
still feel slightly cynical
about this whole operation ...
particularly when Mr Fleming
stars writing about how great
Bernard Manning was when he was
alive?
Bernard of course was famous for
his various attempts to be as
racist as possible while
taunting the establishment that
they couldn't prosecute him for
incitement to racial hatred
without making him a far right
martyr. With an act
pre-dating the 1976 race
relations act and the Public
Order Act 1986 that made
incitement to racial hatred an
arrestable offence Bernard
buried racist jokes in what
could otherwise be innocuous
sets and built himself a jolly
little far right following when
his TV career went into
decline. One of Bernard's
favourite jokes being. Bernard
Manning: “I see we’ve got a
black fella in tonight. Where
are you from, son?” Keith
Palmer: “London.” Bernard
Manning: “Where are you from
before that? I think he thinks
he’s English. Just because a
donkey’s born in a stable, it
doesn’t make it a horse.” Etc
etc This
is a lift from a transcript by Arnold Brown. It is
often attributed to Bernard but
actually it is a steal from
Arthur Wellesley 8th Duke of
Wellington. I’m not saying
Arthur was right wing in case
his relatives try to convict me
for RIP trolling under the 2003
Communications Act but I’m sure
in his heart that he really
wanted the Great Reform Act of
1932 passed and that the
protests, refusal to pay taxes,
run on the banks, and
£1½ million in gold
that was withdrawn from the Bank
of England were in no way his
responsibility. I’m also sure he
wouldn’t have minded Bernard
borrowing his jokes cus of the
way he told ‘em.
A well
worn fiction that Bernard
Manning was just an anarchist
who’d turn on anything was
perpetrated by the promoters who
while despising Bernard
personally knew that his
particular brand of spite sold a
lot of tickets to his race hate
followers. Bernard’s
signature “joke” and pops up
repetitively -including in
the infamous transcript of the
World in Action Documentary "Black and Blue".
Devotees of racist bullying will
remember how in 1995, a group of
police officers arranged a
comedy night fund raiser with
Bernard Manning – an event that
was taped by secretly a
television crew for World In
Action. Of course as TV
producers wouldn't touch him and
the only way to see his act was
live Bernard's publicity machine
could keep purporting the
fiction that if you hadn't seen
him how could you know he was
racist? A brilliant
conceit that meant that no
matter how many people returned
from the Embassy Club to tell
one how wonderfully racist
Bernard was and no matter how
many people knew that Bernard’s
act was racist if you wanted to
see his act was racist you had
to give him money - you didn't,
of course, the nature of his act
was well documented. I
will not satirise how after his
death the Daily
Mail ran a sentimental article
by his son denying in teeth of
all the evidence that Bernard
was racist even though he
clearly said he was on national
television more than once. That
would be RIP trolling.
The
legislation against incitement
to racial hatred was widened in
2005 to include incitement to
religious hatred (this allowed
the blasphemy laws which
previously only protected the
Church of England to be
abolished) and was aimed at
trying to resolve the problem
that if you cant openly bash
people's race you can transmute
that hate onto their religion
(and call yourself the
EDL). There was a campaign
against this widening of the
legislation but it was
unfortunately unsuccessful...
...
hardly a surprise - it was run
by Mr Bean.
There was a further
attempt at widening of
anti-hate legislation in 2009
when an attempt was made to bolt
on homophobia to the category of
hate crimes but this was aborted
when religious lobby groups
pointed out that it would
probably make a lot of Vatican
documents about intrinsic moral
evil illegal.
My plans to further branch out
into the promotion of the dead
went downhill a bit recently
when Harry Deansway beat me to
putting on a Ray
Presto memorial gig.
So just for the record the sole
purpose of every Pear Shaped
comedy night from now on is
purely the memorial of the
memory of Ray Presto...
...I suspect John Fleming is
setting up the Ray Presto Awards
as I type. Of course
another great thing about the
dead is that your can't
libel them. That's
good because otherwise the BBC
wouldn't be able to keep pumping
out factually inaccurate
biographies of dead
comedians. Or can you
libel the dead? Joseph
Stalin's grandson
seems to give it a good go in
any jurisdiction he can find
that will let him.
Of course Ms Varley's RIP page
probably wouldn't have that many
hits... unless it hadn't been
plugged in the Daily
Mail in the first
place...? Perhaps their
promotion of it might have
generated an unusual volume of
interest ...and one has to
wonder why this is news...?
apart from the fact that
Associated Newspapers own lots
of local papers too and were
looking for something to fill
their national paper with? With
upwards of 4000 suicides
(let alone all premature
deaths) in the UK every
year (that's 11 for every
day) how do Associated
Newspapers decide which of
them are worthy of
promotion from their
network of local papers
into the column inches of
their national paper?
One could also argue that it
shouldn't matter ...and indeed I
would ...but responsibility in
journalism seems to be in
fashion at the moment for some
reason. Not
that that makes making jokes
about such things
okay. But...
if there is to be
legislation, perhaps our
potentates can consider how long
it should be before any
particular kind of tragedy can
be added to time to make
comedy?
One might be able to defend sick
jokes about the recently dead in
a comedy club setting on the
grounds that the statistical
likelihood of the victim's
relatives being in is rather
slim, that people are warned
before they come about the
nature of the material and that
the under 18s can be excluded
(not true of Facebook where the
lower age limit is 13).
However, online anyone can read
what anyone says about them - in
fact the whole world can.
And it is that that moves such
comments from the grey area of
commentary into the grey area of
harassment...?
On the whole most professional
comics aren't out to "troll"
dead people and, well, there's
not much comedy to be mined
from most of these stories but
strange situations do
sometimes happen by pure
fluke... I remember once Viz
had a front page depicting
Princess Diana as
Frankenstine's monster.
It had been on the newsagent's
shelf less than a week before
Diana actually died resulting
in the impression that the
magazine had been designed
specifically to mock her dead
corpse. Nothing could be
further from the truth but it
didn't stop them recieving a
sackfull of death
threats. Or to give
another example Alexei Sayle
describes on this
blog post how an
innocent surreal sketch about
a man who was decapitated in a
freak accident having his head
replaced by an NHS chess piece
had to be pulled the day
before transmission when a
freak decapitation happened in
real life and received massive
press coverage. Are we
now going to have to prove
when we talk about deaths that
they're not based on the
deaths of anyone real?
So anyway Sean Duffy (a slightly
sad individual with asperger's
syndrome who was the son of a
"BBC comedy writer who worked
with Terry Wogan?")
become the first person in the
UK to be convicted under the The
Communications Act 2003 -
Improper use of public
electronic communications
network (sections 1 and 2) which
states that...
127
Improper use of public
electronic communications
network
A
case can be made that one can
say potentially offensive things
online IF
the primary purpose of the
writing is NOT to cause
annoyance, inconvenience or
needless anxiety. So one
can make an argument that
offensive material is still
allowed online so long as the
offensiveness is a secondary
byproduct of a meaningful
discourse - who is to arbitrate
meaningful? is another matter
but clearly Sean Duffy's random
attacks on bereaved parents were
probably not particularly
"meaningful" ... at least in the
eyes of the law.
More
importantly however,
gentle readers will note
that TV and Radio
broadcasters are
completely exempted from
this legislation
- being regulated by Offcom and
the Press Complaints Commission
... both rather toothless
ombudsmans with the maximum
penalties of a naughty fine and
a slap on the wrist for a public
broadcaster.
This explains why Jan Moir can
amass 30,000 complaints for her
factually incorrect article on
Stephen Gately
but it isn't a criminal act it's
a regulatory matter because it
is on paper. Although one
could argue that the online
article is still subject to The
Communications Act 2003 while
the paper version was totally
legal. One can immediately
see now that the print media has
a vested political interest in
promoting more political
censorship online. After
all if anyone can now say
ill-informed bigoted things that
can be read by anyone ...what's
the point in the Jan Moir and
her ilk?
It
seems to me according to an
analysis I worked out on the
back of a fag packet that when
the government legislated they
decided that online
communication is to be treated
like a group telephone
conversation whereas those
of us who mouth off in the
papers or on stage are clearly
not engaged in the same kind of
activity and/or are allowed a
bit more dramatic licence...?
One conceptual problem that I
could indentify was that in the
past there used to be a divide
between content and
advertising. This is no
longer so clear. For
example, is this page content
(i.e. my opinions) or is it
advertising (i.e. an
advertisement designed to sell
tickets and generate web
traffic)? What's the
difference you may ask?
Well, according to the
Advertising Standards Agency a
lot. According to the ASA
advertisements are supposed to
be impartial. This is
because of the laws designed to
limit the volume of
advertisement space political
parties can buy to stop ordinary
people being priced out of
democracy as they are in the USA
...being unable to afford to
stand for government etc.
And also to protect
consumers. Further
advertisements since they are in
public spaces where they cannot
be avoided are meant to adhere
to standards of taste not
required of the content of the
material they're advertising.
As
usual
the political class have
completely exempted
themselves from
advertising rules on taste
and accuracy on the
grounds that their
particular brand of hatred
is necessary for "free
speech".
But this exemption does
not extend to all lobby groups.
Confused? Well, the point
is that the legislation did used
to sort of work when adversting
was simply posters and TV and
radio adverts. And then
the internet came along and
pages like this could be created
which are unsure whether they
are advertising or content
because they fall vaguely into
the catergory of
freebie/both? Alan Davies
free podcast is content ... but
does being free also make it
advertising and therefore
subject to ASA rules? Who
knows? I dont.
The opacity of these rules has
resulted in the Festival
Fringe Society worrying
themselves to death over exactly
what
is and is not allowed in
the grown up world of being
professionally childish.
The Malcolm Hardee awards (see
above) even contain a special
award for most "cunning
publicity stunt".
Last year won by the man who put
stickers of penises on other
people's posters. Many
posters at the Fringe, of
course, would simply never make
it onto the high street as Reginald
D Hunter found out.
So why do
we need internet
specific
legislation? Why is
there a divide between the
way the internet and the
printed media is managed?
Intellectually
all this might be more
defensible if everyone had a
moratorium on hateful comments
immediately after they died but
in the time honoured traditions
of believing that victimhood
always makes everything someone
says logical I happened across
this on the front page of the
metro the other night.
In other words if you're a
victim and you hate the right
person that's okay. Again
the paper version of this story
was not illegal under the
Communications Act 2003 but my
photographic reproduction of it
may be. Dr Jim Swire,
whose daughter Flora was killed
in the bombing and who has been
a spokesman for UK Families
Flight 103, which represented
British relatives, has said that
he believes Megrahi is innocent
but Susan Cohen clearly thinks
he is guilty and hates him in
language Sean Duffy might
use. Okay, this is an
extreme situation but does that
mean Susan isnt engaged in hate
crime? Practically
everything seems to be a hate
crime these days. And I
see a lot of hate about the
media. So clearly the
problem isn't that we hate but
who we hate. Twitter with
its retweeting positive feedback
loops is particularly good at
whipping up disproportionate
storms of vicious hate against
people who often have done
little more than be a trifle
tactless or silly. Or as
Winston Smith would say...
The
horrible thing about the
Two
Minutes Hate was
not that one was obliged
to act a part, but, on
the contrary, that it
was impossible to avoid
joining in. Within
thirty seconds any
pretence was always
unnecessary. A hideous
ecstasy of fear and
vindictiveness, a desire
to kill, to torture, to
smash faces in with a
sledge-hammer, seemed to
flow through the whole
group of people like an
electric current,
turning one even against
one's will into a
grimacing, screaming
lunatic. And yet the
rage that one felt was
an abstract, undirected
emotion which could be
switched from one object
to another like the
flame of a blowlamp.
Probably just quoting that is a
breach of the Communications Act
2003... it's at this point that
the defenders of censorship will
say that they dont care as long
as they receive justice.
And ...erm ...maybe they've got
a point. As I tried to find out
more about the problem I was
alarmed to learn how many more
people suffer anonymous abuse
on line
A story of national importance
about how when little Mix singer
Jessy turned to the camera on X
factor and said she'd been
bullied online her Facebook page
generated over 7,000
likes and more than 300
comments. But, of
course, that's not why anyone
says they've been bullied ...to
generate web traffic. That
is just a byproduct.
According to a new
survey over a quarter of under
17 year olds have experienced
cyber bullying.
Cut back to Georgia Varley
Most disturbing of all
are the reports of grieving
families being targeted by
trolls.
Police
contacted the star after the
stalker, who brands himself
'Twitter's first killer',
bombarded her with shocking
messages threatening to mutilate
and kill the CBB contender
because of her
affair with brother-in-law
Ryan Giggs.
Of course the ire felt by people
towards Ms Giggs might just have
something to do with the 2011
privacy injunction case.
That said one might agree with
Mr Bacon and the Daily Mail that
harassing celebrities on twitter
while simultaneously calling
yourself a "killer" might be
taking things a bit
far...? However, it has to
be noted too that Giggs did
consider using legal action
against "individual
twitter users". We
are still technically only
allowed to refer to him as
CTB. Not that that
makes any if this moral.
"In 2003
she received
more than 700
threatening letters in
one year to
addresses near her home in
Chelsea, and to the office
of her British record
company, EMI in
Hammersmith, both in west
London. The letters, which
all bore a West Country
postmark, started as
ordinary fan mail but
become increasingly
aggressive. In one the
writer, who was never
identified, threatened to
kill the Aussie star and
perform depraved sex acts
on her." AND "The
singer's management later said
the letters "were of
an annoying nature" rather
than being dangerous.
"There
have been no death threats but
letters of an annoying nature
have been reported to the
police and are being
investigated," her spokesman
said at the time. The
situation has simply been
blown out of proportion. I
spoke to her this morning ...
she is her usual self,
absolutely fine and happy as
ever." No arrests were ever
made."
Humm...
either Kylie is playing this
down or her PR team are
playing it up.
...and more seriously there
are lots of kids now who are
bullied online awfully.
And you get grieving families
who set up tribute sites on
Facebook to a relative of
theirs who has died and often
those sites will be flooded
with the most vile and
disgusting abuse...
This
is a particularly interesting
and surreal story of how someone
"infiltrated" the Hillsborough
survivor's website. Rather
than flaming the posters or
posting inflammatory comments
this particular "troll"
expressed great sympathy for the
victims of the disaster.
They even got into an online
relationship with one of the
Hillsborough victims and under
various identities claimed
variously to be going to donate
290,000 euros and then that one
of them was "going to a football
match again for the first
time"... However, whenever it
came near to anyone actually
meeting one of these individuals
in person that "person" would
mysteriously have been found to
have contracted a fatal illness
and die...? While
extremely childish behaviour
...it surely isn't a crime just
to pretend to be someone
else? And if lying in
relationships is going to become
a criminal offense I think
Jeremy Kyle may be made
redundant ... Although the use
of a financial hook might take
this into the category of
fraud.
By the way dont
worry we wont be satirising any
Hillsborough
victims. I have no
intention of ending up as
vilified as ear eating comedian
Alan Davies ...
I want to
live. Unfortunately we
cannot support their sensible,
tactful and long standing
campaign for Kevlin MacKenzie
and David Duckenfield to be
brought to justice and the sham
of an inquest to be re-opened as
that would probably breach the
2003 Communications Act as being
classed as some kind of
harassment. The Cabinet
papers have never been
released. However, even
though the Liverpool fans have a
laudable political aim to their
commemorations it has to be said
that all large public
commemorations of death are
political. And it is
possible to use the emotion
surrounding a mass loss of life
to conceal a political
truth. For example...
...when the Monument to the
Great Fire of London was erected
1671-1677 it seemed a rather
nice and thoughtful
commemoration of the great
disaster with no particular
political significance.
However, by 1681
a political scapegoat had
already been found and the words
"but Popish frenzy, which
wrought such horrors, is not
yet quenched" had been
added to the end of the
inscription. The words
were chiselled out in 1830 when
Catholic Emancipation came
along...
Fires
and man made disasters are always good
for a scapegoat and a witch hunt
or two and
even the odd war.
A more
modern and controversial example
of a dubious political message
being cloaked in grief might be
the links between Israeli
politics and the "Holocaust
memorial industry" suggested in
Norman G. Finkelstein's "The
Holocaust Industry: Reflections
on the Exploitation of Jewish
Suffering". I'm not an
expert on this topic but I
believe his main bones of
contention are two known frauds,
that of "The Painted Bird" by
Polish writer Jerzy Kosinski and
"Fragments" by Binjamin
Wilkomirski, and how they were
defended by people even after
they'd been exposed. I
mean, I do understand that
Holocaust was a terrible thing
but perhaps things have gone a
bit far when you cant
buy this on ebay any more...
I will leave our gentle readers
to cogitate on the fact that the
title sequence that was altered
in the 20th century to included
swastika flags because footage
of real soldiers fighting was
considered too controversial is
in the 21st century arguably
even more controversial than
using real archive footage from
the war would've been.
Of course Adolf Hitler himself
played the
I've-suffered-in-the-first-world-war-so-what-I-say-must-be-logical
card in Mein Kampf as early as
1923 - the book is even called
"my struggle".
Grieving
relatives can be particularly
prone to the promotion of
dubious fictions that sound
plausible but are palpably
(gentleman's most private parts)
to pursue their own political
ends. The most well known
example being that of the Deaths
of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed
in circumstances that are to
this day still unexplained
beyond "unlawful killing by
person or persons
unknown". At the time of
the funeral Earl Spencer gave a
very moving oration about how
the press and the media had
hunted her to death which turned
into a political campaign for
more privacy laws...
... unfortunately it turned out
that the press did not seem to
be to blame and that Earl
Spenser's words contain not one
iota of actual evidence or
truth. Meanwhile Mr Al
Fayed would have us believe that
it was an MI5/6 conspiracy...
and the Royal Family would have
us ask as few questions as
possible and got the BFFC to
refuse a certificate to Victor
Lewis-Smith, Paul Sparks and
Keith Allen's documentary on the
grounds that if it isn't
censored in the UK Prince
Phillip might have to sue for
libel which is something that is
beneath the Royal Family.
What actually happened to the
infamous white Fiat Uno we will
never know...? But all
these parties seem to be
pursuing their own political
campaigns and agendas with great
vigor and little common sense.
I wont even touch on the McCann
case and the effect of
media saturation coverage on the
investigations of crimes
themselves ...suffice to say
that not since the Lindbergh
kidnapping case has so much
money been raised and spent to
so little avail in actually
solving a child abduction
case. Actually that's not
really fair as the Lindbergh
case was actually solved.
Well, sort of ... although Mr
Hauptmann who went to the
electric chair for it almost
certainly did it and certainly
was a blackmailer in receipt of
the blackmail money ...it is
impossible to prove him the sole
author of the ransom notes since
such was the interest in the
case whipped up by John Condon
and they Daily News's unofficial
investigations that souvenir
ransom notes were soon available
all over New York for $5 each.
There is a reason fiction is
littered with characters who
think that because they have
suffered all their ideas have
become sensible....
After a bit of trouble
in her personal life
Miss Havisham decided that
since a man had made her
suffer
it was logical that all men
should suffer.
All memorials whether good or
bad have a political dimension -
therefore should they be immune
from political satire? My
personal bugbear is the
reintroduction of Armistice
Day. Younger readers may
not recall how in 1939, the
two-minute silence was moved to
the Sunday nearest to 11
November in order not to
interfere with wartime
production should 11 November
fall on a weekday. It stayed
there for over 50 years.. Then
when we started fighting wars
again the Royal British Legion
wanted Armistice Day back again
meaning that instead of 2
minutes silence we now have
4. I think very soon the
RBL will be trying for 6, then 8
then 10... it's too
much. A sinister
political objective of promoting
war? Anyway ... I'm
wandering off the point. The
tribalistic world of football...
...also supplied one of the most
famous cases of a conviction
commonly believed to be under
the 2003 Communications
Act... but which was not
actually ... that of Liam
Stacy.... who tweeted that
Fabrice Muamba had fallen over
apparently dead in slightly
tactless terms before getting
embroiled in an online racist
row. This
link contains a thread
which analyses the legislation
under which Liam was convicted
and comes to the conclusion that
the law makes
"many
online opinions
illegal".
Thanks to whoever recorded
Liam's thread to youtube we can
build up a slightly more
detailed picture of what exactly
happened during this incident -
but as usual (via the wonder of
twitter) only one
decontextualised side of the
conversation is shown. And
since Liam's account has since
been deleted we cannot tell to
what extent he himself was
provoked or not..
As far as I can understand Mr
Stacey's downfall was not that
he typed something tasteless but
that he was retweeted by a
football player to his 200,000
odd followers (the original
tweet was sent only to Mr
Stacey's own approximately 500
followers). That said it
would have shown up in a name
search for anyone searching more
info on what had happened to the
injured player - which would
have been likely to happen to
anyone "live tweeting" the
match. Live tweeting is a
big thing - indeed, I've even
seen people live tweet Question
Time. When confronted by a
hail of angry replies Mr Stacey
responded by attacking his
detractors with racial
slurs. This pushed his
crime from a potential public
order offense to a racially
aggravated public order
offense. By using racist
language in his reply Mr Stacey
had shown his mind to be
guilty. Mind you that's
probably because it was.
In this tweet
on the police investigation
Mr Collymore refers to an
incident a few months
earlier when racist tweeter
Joshua
Cryer was convicted
under section 127 but "got
off" with 2 years community
service ...
Veronica Jordan,
prosecuting, argued Cryer had
not just "acted stupidly on
the spur of the moment" like
Mr Stacey ...and that his
behaviour was " not
impulsive. He has done
this up to seven times
over a period of days.
That does not smack of
impulsive behaviour. He
was intending to insult
and abuse."
Never-the-less, the Judge
concluded this behaviour was
not particularly racist (see
below)?!
Collymore (who
thinks the public should
forgive him now for his self
confessed youthful mistake
of assaulting Ulrika
Jonsson)frequently
states that people who point out
that locking up morons like Liam
Stacy for one mistake rather
than a sustained pattern of
behaviour is not sensible (or postulate that they
should be shown compassion if
they show remorse as it simply
isn't feasible to lock up
absolutely everyone who is
retarded) are wet
liberals who "dont know what
it's like".
Fair
point - I'm not really entitled
to an opinion on black issues
... my job is simply to carry a
Sainsburys shopping bag round
Poundland.
And to be fair he does raise an
interesting theory that people
feel free to use racist language
on twitter that has long been
banned from the football
terraces... And this
article sheds some light on the
scale
of the problem.
As
to Liam Stacey ... Victoria
Coren over at the Guardian
did go through the tortuous
process of trying to
glue Liam Stacey’s and his
victims' and tormentors'
timelines back together (I
have to admit that even I gave
up due to boredom) and
points out that Liam didn't
tweet any particular person more
than once.
Although it is, of course,
possible he and others deleted
tweets.
However
the fact remains that Liam
Stacey was sent to jail
(according to a High Court
judge) for 8 messages (so a
maximum of 1,120 characters) or
approx 186 words (okay 50% of
them were racial slurs) within a
2 hour period.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17562016 “Not
just the footballer’s family,
not just the footballing
world, but the whole
world
were literally praying for
Muamba’s life. Your comments
aggravated this situation”
said District
Judge John Charles
displaying the objectivity of
Judge Jeffreys at the end of a
long day down the Bloody Assizes
While
at the appeal…"You
received responses which were
extremely critical but you did
not desist - instead
you posted eight messages
which were extremely abusive
and insulting."said
Mr Justice Wyn Williams
displaying all the open
mindedness of Judge Roger
Bullingham towards a defending
barrister.
Contrast
this with Joshua Cryer who was
not jailed for tweeting one
person (Stan Collymore)
specifically clearly unprovoked
racist abuse seven
times over a period of DAYS and
“got off” with community service
and it doesn't seem quite
proportionate.
Does it matter if the law is
proportionate as long as racist
RIP trolling scum end up in jail
I hear you cry?
Fair enough, what does confidence
in the justice system
matter in the grand scheme of
things?
Of course if Liam had had a
better brief he might not have pleaded
guilty in the first place.
Liam was convicted under section
4A of the Public Order Act 1986
- Not section 127 of the
Communications Act 2003.
A good lawyer
might have told him that a
breach of the Communications Act
2003 is a much lesser
offence? than Incitement to
Racial hatred under the Public
Order Act 1986 which
can land you in prison not just
for days but for years
...and would have known from the
charge sheet that the
establishment were seeking a
custodial sentence...?
It
has to be said that if he’d just
hit Collymore (Common Assault up
to ABH) he’d probably have got
off with a fine for a first
offence or a
slap on the wrist… (pun
intended) which says a lot about
changing attitudes to verbal and
physical violence.
Only GBH and assaults on the
police carry automatic custodial
sentences...?
Sticks and stones may break my
bones but you wont automatically
go to prison for it underLord
Justice Leveson’s new
sentencing guidelines...?
Yes,
that Lord Justice Leveson
Disgusting
and tasteless as Liam’s comments
were personally I do not think
they actually constitute incitement
to Racial Hatred. In my
view to cross the line into
incitement you must be
not just hating yourself but
clearly actively soliciting
others to hate. The
difference between harassment
and incitement may be subtle but
it is also important.
Then again this is probably why,
like Horace “Never Plead Guilty”
Rumpole, I’m never going to be a
judge. I mean
call me wet but I do think that
there is a difference between
Liam’s ill advised comments and
say those of Trevor
Hannington and Michael Heaton
…though who knows … maybe Liam
has Nazi flags on his walls at
home too…?
Still,
how is the country supposed to
save public money by encouraging
the guilty to
throw themselves on the mercy of
the courts when
the quality of mercy is not
strained but droppeth like a
brick from the Post Office
tower.
The
answer to why Joshua Cryer was
not sent to prison is that as a
posh law student with a decent
brief he probably knew
how
to play the system better.
The Newcastle student was
charged on January 7 with two
public order offences, after
the complaint was passed on to
Northumbria Police.
However, on January 23,
one of the charges was
withdrawn.
Presumably he was changed under
Public Order Act 1986 and the
Communications Act 2003 then but
managed to get the more serious
one dropped.
After wasting money clogging up
the legal system by pleading not
guilty he
then plead guilty at the hearing
proper when he realised he
couldn’t get off …but unlike
Stacey gets a lenient sentence …
how
does that work?
District
Judge Stephen Earl with a
trusting naivety reminiciant of
the late Mr Justice Cantley
remarked
"I don't
doubt you are not an inherently
racist person, but you did act
in an intentionally racist way.
You intended to get a rise out
of Mr Collymore. He has made a
justifiable and reasoned stance
against you to the point where
you shut down your Twitter
account. I find it
difficult to fathom what on
Earth you thought you were
doing. It was stupid, and you
ought to have known better. You
were a legend in your own head
in this attention-seeking
moment."
Is
it because e is
upper-middle-class?
One
common noticeable thing about
the conviction of most of these
"twitter trolls" is
that they tend to all be young
white men, usually in their 20s,
who are not yet in full time
employment.
And, of course, virtually no one
in entertainment or the media is
ever convicted.
Can this really be because
they're all too left wing and
wise and grown up to engage in a
bit of trolling?
Or do we all just use more
devious methods to advance our
agendas because we know how the
game works?
For proof that
this is not just about
racist abuse but the
farcically different
treatment meted out to people based on
their social status in
society we need look no
further than the pitch its
self.
Liverpool’s Luis
"I don't speak to blacks"
Suarez has a long history
of racist abuse towards other
players
but I don’t see him being
charged under the Public Order
Act 1986 for incitement– just a
slap on the wrist from the FA.
He cannot be charged under the
section 127 of the
Communications Act 2003 because
the communication is not
electric. Still Anfield
stadium only has a seating
capacity of 45276 for him to use
racial slurs in front of.
There might be a few viewers at
home but, of course, broadcast
media is completely
exempt. Somehow the PFA
banning players
isn’t quite the same as
porridge.
Of
course for years lots of people
were frustrated that the
government never seemed to
convict anyone for incitement to
racial hatred
because when the BNP and the EDL
had to pay paper printing costs
for pamphlets that had no
circulation it
was easier to sweep such
problems under the carpet and
harder for them to do
harm. So
maybe this is a case of careful
what you wish for...?
Then
again as Wendy Williams, head of
the Crown Prosecution Service
(CPS) in the north-east, notes:
"In recent months we have
seen a number of similar cases
in the north-east, in which
people have been racially
abused through social
networking sites."
"Ironically,
the strongest evidence in
each of these cases has been
directly provided by the
defendants themselves. When
a person makes such comments
digitally, they effectively
hand police and prosecutors
much of the evidence needed
to build a robust case
against them."
Or
as a more cynical person might
put it -
Convicting people for
Inchoate
offences
in the virtual world is
disturbingly easier than
solving past crimes in the
physical world that were
not anticipated.
Following
the 2011 riots the police were
very fast to bang up people who
had been using social media
platforms to incite violence
(it's easier than catching those
who boss criminal gangs?).
Though interestingly not all of
these were under the
Communications Act. The
Infamous "Facebook
Two" were actually
convicted under sections
44 and 46 of the Serious Crime
Act. This
contains the Inchoate offences
of
44.
Intentionally encouraging or
assisting an offence. 46.
Encouraging or assisting
offences believing one or more
will be committed.
Greater
Manchester police are famous for
being in favour of policies
designed to prevent crimes
before they happened. Some
of which are highly
controversial such as sending
ex-cons "funny Christmas
cards". But, of course,
this is all done in a spirit of
jolliness. Our friendly
policemen who do the rounds of
ex-Cons at Christmas are merely
engaged in sending seasonal
felicitations. These
people may have "paid their debt
to society" but a little
harassment and jocularity wont
hurt them - it certainly isnt
hate mail.
Whether GMP's policy of
impersonating Detective
Inspector Chisolm works or not
your guess is as good as mine...
.....and I want to know
why there's been such an
explosion of this kind of
stuff. What sort of kick
the people who do the bullying
get out of it and what can be
done about it?
To find out why
Britain's haters have gone
into overdrive I want to hunt
them down and ask them face to
face. As well as trying
to track down my own troll I
want to find out what drives
the authors of the most
abusive messages to attack
vulnerable people that they've
never even met.
These
so called RIP trolls
post sick jokes, defaced
pictures and videos on
internet memorial pages
commemorating the
dead....
The DJ explained that a friend
had made him burst into laughter
at the exact moment that the
funeral procession passed his
house. He told guests on
his Beer & Pizza Club show:
"I collapsed
laughing and I stood at the
side, and I'm laughing and
laughing. I was laughing for
ages. I looked up, and
there was Prince Charles -
right there - going past in
the car behind, looking right
at me. And you know how you
can sometimes turn a laugh
into a pretend cry?"
Anyway...
Actually
while we're on the subject of
sick jokes about the recently
dead is this the same Queen
Elizabeth the Queen Mother who
when Edwina
Mountbatten, Countess
Mountbatten of Burma died of
unknown causes and was buried
at sea remarked that "Dear
Edwina, she always liked to
make a splash" ...still
okay when you're royal, isn't
it?""
While over at
the biased biased BBC website
they've still got the hump about
Mr Bacon plugging ...
...this
Doug
Stanhope routine about
Sarah Palin's sprogs which it is
probably illegal to transcribe
under section 127... getting a
bit of form, isn't he? But you
wont see Greater Manchester
Police trying to arrest Doug
Stanhope as he has a large
publicity machine so he's not
easy prey.
There follows a short video of
man dancing in guy fawkes mask
to music "lol u died"
I'm dancing of your grave
LOL (video has 7067 views)
...within days I came
across this video posted on a
Facebook page set up to pay
tribute to a young boy who had
just died. It's hard to
imagine how I'd feel if
that was a friend of
mine. I had a friend who
died earlier this year and
there was a Facebook site set
up for him and if I'd seen
that on there and knowing that
his family would see this too
... I would feel aggressively
angry about it.
Tom
Mullaney's family know only
too well how merciless
online hating or RIP
trolling in particular can
be. Tom was
15, boisterous, spirited and
energetic. The very life
and soul of his family.
Actually Tom was slightly more
than boisterous... according to
the coroner's report.
Tom's mum :
He was fun loving. He
was always out and about
with his friends.
Never kept still for 5
minutes
Film of Tom
being pulled behind a boat
in a dingy
Tom's Dad : You always
had to keep an eye on him
because he had no fear of
danger. If he was on his
BMS bike you'd hear the
screech of tyres coming down
the road. The back gate
would go bang.
Upstairs. On the
computer
Tom's Mum : If you were
angry at him you couldn't stay
angry at him for long.
He just made you smile.
Richard informs us that ...
It
took only a dozen threatening
messages posted on his
Facebook page to pull Tom's
world apart.
This is a lie.
Tom's life had actually been
rather eventful that
day.
From
the moment of his death
Tom's parents, the
newspapers and the police
were fast to put the blame
on "internet bullies".
However, at Birmingham
Coroner’s Court it was revealed that
Tom had been
excluded from school
on the day he received
the internet threats.
Now
I'm not saying that
means Tom deserved to
be bullied on line but
it does call into
question the version
of events presented by
Richard Bacon which by
omission suggest that
this was just another
ordinary day in the
child's life and also
that he was a complete
innocent.
Tom’s father
Robert told the
inquest that, although
his son had
behavioural
issues,
he was receiving
help and was happy.
Now it could be that
Tom was an innocent
who had been excluded
from school entirely
due to a series of
misunderstandings when
actually he was the
victim of long term
bullying or it could
be that Tom was the
guilty party (I dont
know but fortunately
it is not legally
possible to libel the
dead). However,
it is clear that vital
information has been
omitted from the story
in order to make it
fit Richard Bacon's
narrative.
Denise
Cunningham, head of year at
Kings Norton Boys, said Tom
had been excluded for a day on
May 19 for an altercation in a
corridor with another pupil.
Paediatrician
Dr Anne Aukett, of Birmingham
Community Healthcare NHS
Trust, said Tom
had been diagnosed as on the
edge of the autistic
spectrum, having poor verbal
comprehension and low
self-esteem a month earlier.
This doesn't exactly fit with
his father's assertion that
Tom was "happy" at the time
but it is possible he had made
a remarkable recovery.
Of course it could
be that Tom was being bullied
and the bullying had moved
from school to online or there
was no wall between the
two. Or that Tom had
reacted physically to
continual verbal communication
and thus been excluded.
We will probably never know
all the details.
Assistant Deputy Coroner Sarah
Elaine Ormonde-Walsh recorded
a narrative verdict that Tom
died as a result of hanging.
She said: “He had threatened
to take his own life but
whether he was serious is
another issue. I often hear of
cases where these acts are
carried out as a cry for
help.”
His
parents had been out for the
evening but returned to find
the house empty. Tom's
Mum : Went upstairs. The
bedroom light was on.
The computer was still
on. The television was
still on. And the chair
was pushed away from the
computer as if he'd just
pushed it away in one of his
moods.
Tom's
Mum and Dad in unison : And
the screen was still on.
When
Tom's dad looked at the screen
he saw it was open on his
Facebook page.
*********
tom fight me tomorrow (posted
17:35)
6 or
7 kids had posted threatening
messages on there
*******
i will bang you first lesson,
second less , lunch time and
last lesson (19 May 2010 at
17:35)
about
a fight Tom had been involved
in that day at school
Shut up (posted
17:37) ary Booth Tom's Dad: Suddenly
something's gone wrong in
Thomas's head and he's got
really scared. In my
mind he's got frightened, he's
got scared and he doesn't know
how to deal with this.
Tom's parents rang
their son's mobile repeatedly
but there was no answer.
The next morning the 15 year
old was still missing and
Tracy and Robert were frantic
with worry. Then they
heard his mobile ringing at
the bottom of the garden
Tom's Dad: I just peeked
behind the shed and I saw this
figure and I said to Thomas
"come on I'm late for work get
going" and I walked away and
as soon as I looked back at
the school I thought there was
something wrong. He
wasn't standing on
nothing. And I just
looked up and I saw the
chord. I just grabbed
his little hand. I can
still see it now and it was
cold, it was clammy. And
I knew there was nothing I
could've done then. I
walked back and shook and
phoned the police
Tom's Mum: I just ran
out the house trying to get to
Tomas to see him but Rober
wouldn't let me go and by
which time the police were
here.
As
if that were not enough for
the family to endure within
days Tom became victim of RIP
trolling. His brother
Ashley had set up a tribute
site on Facebook for friends
and family to post messages
Tom's brother Ashley
muttering something about
sharing his feelings on Tom's
bed.
His brother Ashley had
set up a Facebook tribute site
for friends and family to post
messages. At first it
was a source of comfort to the
Mullaneys but the site was
soon desecrated trolls who
attacked on mass posting
defaced images of Tom and
upsetting messages.
Tom's
brother Ashley : Pictures of
my brother decapitated.
Pictures of my brother hanging
himself. Just horrible
stuff. They took a photo
of my brother. I think
it was that one actually and
just put a noose round it and
just horrible comments as well
Did
you write back to them?
Tom's
brother Ashley : I did
actually I put a comment
saying leave this page alone
you've got no right putting
all these horrible comments
and pictures. You didn't
know my brother...
And
what did they say back to
that?
Tom's
brother Ashley : Took the
mickey out of it. Saying
he was a coward for committing
suicide. Cheated death
and all that stuff.
Even
given this brutal testimony Mr
Bacon cant help leading his
witness. Appending a fallacious
statement that Ashley
"didn't know about internet
trolling before this" to the
front of his question so that
in answering the question
Ashley appears to be endorsing
the view that this is a new
phenomenon that he was
previously completely unaware
of.
You didn't knowabout internet
trolling before this
and your mum and dad didn't
know about it. What kind
of impact did it have on them?
Tom's
brother Ashley : My mum was
just disgusted and angry and
my dad was the same. Was
just hard to see them really
upset.
Of
course it couldn't be
that one reason this
page has been targeted
so severely is because
this tribute page might
have been suspected of
being used as part of a
continuing online
political campaign in
favor of internet
censorship?
Okay it's a bit
optimistic to think that
Tom's critics were that
clever or insightful
...they're more likely
just really childish
bullies but couldn't
this possibly be a
motivation somewhere -
if a mere subconcious
one...?
Tom's
Mum : I just thought those are
our family pictures - why have
you done this? That's my
son there that you've just
Tom's
Dad: Feel violated.
They've got no right to do
that. No right and the
internet should be able to
stop them from doing that.
we see an
online comment: burning in hell
The nasty comments
could be quickly
removed. Taking down the
defaced pictures was a
laborious and upsetting
process.
What a silly boy Hang in there Tom
Tom's Dad : I can still
see the caption. I can
still see the
photograph. I can still
see the words. It's
imprinted on your brain.
Amongst the tolls
targeting Tom Mullaney was
someone calling themselves
Damon Evans. He posted
this crude comment on Tom's
Facebook page
Damon Evans : Get
well soon Tom, the bum sex was
awsome!
he can with me xx
And me
i gave him bum sex, id
...
It kick started a
string of offensive jokes
about Tom and his family
I've
managed to track down a
youtube account for a Damon
Evans and I think he may be
the person responsible for
the post.
It's not hard to find
Damon's Youtube account (it
has a slightly racist
name) though I
didn't watch all his videos
as one has peado in the
title. If Damon wants
his videos to be watched
possibly putting peado in
the name might be a bad move
as I wasn't going to watch
it to find out if it was a
satire of peados or actual
peado material as I dont
want to end up the next
Chris Langham.
Possibly having a user name
which contains a partial
racial slur while being
whiter than an albino with
anemia might narrow his
audience demographic
too. Then again maybe
The National Association for
the Advancement of Colored
People aren't his target
audience.
I watched a couple which
were some kind of prank
phone conversations (not
exactly Victor Lewis-Smith
but it's interesting to see
a renaissance in this art
form which seems to have
died out with the advent of
caller ID). One
involved a lot of swearing
which is probably
"hilarious" if you know
those involved.
Another involved ringing up
someome he'd pulled online
only to tell her not to go
out with people you pick up
online. All slightly
childish and perhaps
misogynistic nonsense but
...well... No doubt Damon
probably imagines himself as
the Howard Stern of Youtube
and Facebook or
something. I feel he
has some way to go though
as... Unfortunately at
the moment his social
satires display all the wit
and sophistication of
filling a paper bag with
shit, leaving it on
someone's doorstep and
setting it on fire.
Then again bullying and
insulting members of the
general public while
pretending to be a member of
an ethnic minority worked
for Sacha Baron Cohen who
never seems to get
convicted. So maybe he
should stick at it...
I've contacted him to see if
he'll do an interview so I'll
try and begin to understand
what would motivate someone to
post such vile hurtful
comments. He'll only
meet me if I can convince him
I am who I say I am. In
an email he sent me he defends
trolling.
Damon's reply is half
shown ... but here's what I
could transcribe.
Later it's read more
fully...
That's what grief tourism is
really but I dont think
************* way about targeting
these people. A message
************ appropriate than posing
abuse on people's RIP pages. I had my Facebook cloned
multiple times last year and
people ************** use the accounts to
troll these pages. I
actualy got in
******************* trouble for it but
manage to sort it out and
clear my ********** I think the media need
to look further into
********** labeling it bad because I
think some
**********
*** things I did were
*********** *** troll because
************ *** who ***
So
he says RIP sites are fine
when friends and family post
on them but what he doesn't
like is when people who
didn't know the deceased
post a nice message.
He says those people are
just trying to look
nice. He admits
to a form of trolling himself
****** to help with the ****** ****** have never even
met the ******* ***** go on the page and
say ***** ***** out to him" or
something **** **** I believe that they
are just ***** *** think "what a nice
person" *****
but says that his
facebook site was cloned and
someone nicked his identity
and did some trolling and it
just ... seems like quite a
coincidence that.... he does
some trolling and then someone
else would nick his identity
and do some trolling with his
name.
He's asked me to send a
message to his twitter account
as proof of who I am.
Once convinced he says he'll
arrange a meeting.
I think it's fair to
say that Damon Evans has
made a bit of a name for
himself online by the fact
he has made it onto http://www.datingpsychos.com/psycho/Damon-Evans/5881
which presents a slightly
unfair picture of
Damon. Even going so
far as to insinuate he's
actually been on a date.
However,
this is a BBC3 documentary so we
cannot stick to any one subject
of train of thought for longer
than 3 minutes as this would
mean not targeting an audience
of 16 to 34 year olds who have
no attention span and cannot be
trusted not to switch
over. Perhaps if there was
a channel specifically for old
gits or those undergoing a
midlife crisis then Richard
might not get so many trolls who
believe that the BBC is only
interested in young people so
... oh, that's Radio 5Live,
isn't it?
"BBC Three's programming
consists of comedy, drama,
spin-off series and repeated
episodes of series from BBC One
and Two, and
other programmes that attempt
to alert others of their
actions through a series of
programmes challenging common
beliefs."
Or as we used to call it,
when I was a child,
propaganda? In the meantime I want
to know what experts believe
motivates Trolls to post on
RIP sites. Is it
possible they just dont
understand the consequences of
their abuse? Dr Emma
Short is one of the country's
leading experts on online
harassment.
Dr Emma Short is a
Chartered Psychologist
based at the University of
Bedfordshire with a
headshot that looks like
it was taken for spotlight
who tells us on her CV
that she's very much in
demand on the television
and in the media.
She's an expert in cyber
stalking and
trolling. In this interesting
interview.... Dr
Short attempts her
definition of what
"trolling" actually is.
What
is the difference between
cyber-bullying and trolling?
Dr
Emma Short : Stalking
is a word used to describe the
obsessive pursuit or intrusion
of another person. The
intrusion is persistent and
frequent. It causes fear and
distress person being stalked.
A Troll is widely accepted
to be a person who posts
with the intention of
insulting and provoking
others. The
intention is often to disrupt
the normal functioning of a
discussion group so it
collapses.
“A
group is considered to be
cohesively destroyed when
two-thirds to three-quarters
of the messages are a result
of trolls," Wood
2007.
This political
explanation of trolls is in
my view a fallacious one as
it hinges on the assumption
that the function of
discussion is for people to
either like each other, bond
with each other or reach a
consensus of opinion.
It doesn't consider that
there could actually be just
no point to some forms of
communication. The
implicit assertion is that
all communication should
fulfill a useful
function. It cant just
be - like cows going moo or
dogs going woof...
to express their
needs. But moreover is
destroying a cohesive group
always a bad thing?
What if I went and trolled a
BNP forum with the political
aim of preventing their
group cohesively
functioning? Surely
that's not such a bad
idea. After all,
aren't all cohesive groups
lobby groups with an aim of
advancing a political
agenda...? And dont
some violent disagreements
serve a useful social
function? Is it
actually sensible to purge
all anger and hate from
public discourse?
The problem is, to borrow a
cliche from Star Trek, that
in Dr Short's analysis the
needs of the many outweigh
the needs or the few.
However, sometimes the needs
of the few (or indeed one)
may outweigh the needs of
the many...? That said
one might question the
sanity of people who have
the time or energy to
communicate with people with
whom they violently
disagree... but is
that actually wrong?
Clearly Sean Duffy is
bonkers but has locking him
up actually achieved
anything and aren't people
with asbergers entitled to
communicate too? Mind
you when Volatire said "I
disapprove of what you say,
but I will defend to the
death your right to say it"
he probably wasn't thinking
of Sean Duffy....
Okay then, I'll let John
Cleese say it better than I
can...
..okay Cleese may not be
from the demographic that's
likely to suffer racist or
RIP trolling but he's got a
point - particularly about
how pressure groups find it
easy to stamp on the lives
of those at the bottom of
the pile but dont always
seem to be able to change
what happens at the top
...? It's easier to
put a student in jail or
sack a minor civil servant
than to bring a TV comedian
or a Premiership football
player to political heel.
Dr Short seems to
imply that insulting
people or provoking an
extreme emotional reaction
in someone else is
intrinsically morally
wrong or that
people who seek to force
their unwanted opinions on
others are somehow
immoral. When in fact
they're just bores and
windbags...
...but is it always true
that insulting people is
immoral?
In recent years the
government has gone to some
lengths to crack down on
what it considers to be
insulting behaviour ...not
just online but in public.
For example the
infamous Public
Order Act 1986
section 5 outlaws
"insulting words or
behaviour."in
public. What
constitutes "insulting" is
unclear and has resulted in
many controversial arrests
and prosecutions. It's not
often you see David Davis
and Peter Tatchell come
together to state that "Civil liberties
campaigns, faith groups
and secular organisations
have joined forces to have
the word "insulting" removed from
the legislation on the
grounds that it restricts
free speech and penalises
campaigners, protesters
and even preachers."
because they miss the sound
of their own voices telling
people that either they're
going to burn in hell or
must be homophobic if they
dont agree with someone
else's every idea or
something.
The Reform Section 5
campaign is headlining with
the slogan: "Feel free to
insult me", and asks the
vital question: "Who
should decide
whether words,
posters or ideas
are insulting?"
The
problem is, of course, that
all political criticism is
by definition
anti-social. It can be argued that
comedy in particular is a
fundamentally anti-social
activity.
Dr Emma
Short : Many
trolls are characterised by
having an excess of free
time(says who?) and
are probably lonely and
seeking attention, some
extreme antisocial online
behaviour may be due to a
psychological need to feel
good by making others feel
bad. Trolling
is antisocial behaviour, just
as offline antisocial
behaviour is. It can
be compared to recognised
antisocial behaviours such
as misuse of public space or
nuisance behaviour such as
intimidation, harassment and
criminal damage. The
point is, that trolling tends
to be motivated by an
antisocial tendency rather
than a fixation on one person
where is it feared and
unwelcomed, that it what
defines the stalking
relationship.
One could ask the question what
is public space for? Or
how do you define
nuisance behavior?
What exactly does one class as
intimidation or
harassment? But
lets not... Here we see
the government's problem.
While for a long time there's a
raft of Public Order Act type
acts there was for a very long
time, much to the government's
chagrin, no Online Order Act.
The problem with anti-social
behavior offenses has always
been the definition of
them. Broadly described as
"legislation against people
getting on other people's tits"
... Well, look I'm not
completely ideologically opposed
to ASBOs and their coalition successors
... in principle like the far
left and right brigades
seem to be but if nothing else
they do seem to suffer from, at
least in logistical terms, being
(gentleman's most private parts)
.
In recent years
governments have gone to more
and effort to regulate
public spaces. ...in an
attempt to build a brave new
world full of Community,
Indentity and Stability.
Tony Blair's famous line "tough
on crime tough on the causes of
crime" wasn't just a call to
improve public services - it was
an explicit statement of belief
in a very paternalistic style of
social engineering. Or if
you want a female description of
the policy - it was a call to
create a "nanny state".
A new exiting recent
over-paternalistic development
is the banning
of swearing
(though I think I'm still
allowed to swear on stage (just)
as this is art and I'm "in
character")...?
Quite right too - we wouldn't
want people swearing in public -
this is Britain and it is not
British to explictly show a
verbally emotional
response. So everywhere
over the country parents are
enrolling their offspring on
passive aggressiveness classes
to learn how to be spiteful with
longer words. One is
reminded of the Alexei
Sayle sketch where a group
of gentlemen dressed as Oscar
Wilde practice the "ancient art
of verbal abuse". Still
everyone feels much safer with
all those signs everywhere
telling one the staff at this
place or another dont deserve
abuse however putrid their
service is. It also
creates a nice revenue stream to
local authorities in £80
fines. Is swearing ALL
emotional violence - or does
some of it fulfill an emotional
need to release aggression
safely?
Anyway this being a BBC3
documentary we jump in a
decontextualised conversation
with Dr Emma Short at the point
where she says.
Dr Emma Short:
Well, I dont think they
are necessarily thinking
about the family
watching it to be
honest. It's just
a joke. Richard
Bacon : Emma is there a
typical profile to these
people that troll?
Dr
Emma Short: Well,
it's very hard to say.
It all depends on the
motivation. Why are
they doing it? Some
people are doing it to
intimidate, to frighten, to
control and other people are
doing it purely for
notoriety.... to get their
own following.
Note... that no one
could be doing it simply
because they dislike
what's being said?
Of course saying
controversial things to
get a following is
called self promotion
when trolls do it ...
but not when Richard
does it on the
wireless... because that
is entertainment,.. and
there must be a strict
dividing line between
the two...?
Richard Bacon : These forums seem to
encourage people to abuse in a
very extreme way, dont they?
Unlike the
professional media, of
course, which employs
Julie Burchills, Victor
Lewis-Smiths, Jan Moirs,
Allison Pearsons and
James Dellingpoles by
the bucketload precisely
for their measured
opinions and not to
sensationalise, vilify
and bully.
One might present the hypothesis
that it is not that people are
bullying online that upsets
Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th
Viscount Rothermere as much as
the idea that while Facebook now
has 900,000,000 users the Daily
Mail's paper circulation has
been falling rapidly. In
January 2011 it hit a 10-year
circulation low and is dangerously
close to dropping below its
psychological benchmark of 2m
readers, with a fall of 3.33%
to 2,030,968, down 1.83% year
on year.
The online version of the Daily
Mail now stands at 3 million
hits ...Maybe
it is not bullying the Daily
Mail objects to ...just who the
bullies in society are? To
quote Bacon himself "Columnists
hate Bloggers because they
represent a power shift".... or
something like that.
We'll skip over the paradox that
some people seem to actually
like getting hatemail:
Dr Emma Short: Ummm
... if you're someone who
lives their life largely
online...(says who?)I
think that margin begins to
blur and actually it's just
cyberspace. It's a
behaviour I'm engaging in, I
like doing it, I'll send
another message.... and the
impact of that you're having
almost become irrelevant
because ...the reward is the
behavious its self it feels
good. You get nastier
and nastier.
This may be true that
trolls have an excess of free timebut
it is still an assumption that
trolls dont have a life
outside the internet. When
you say something people dont
want to hear online "you've
got no life except on the
internet" is an easy ad
hominem attack
on your critic.
No one
attacks people who write on
paper in this way (although it
is very often true) as the
printed word is somehow more
respectable..? And no
one questions whether Richard
Bacon and his "Troll Hunters"
have an excess of free time.
Even when at least one of them
later claims to be monitoring
the internet purely as a
hobby?!?
Richard Bacon : So
is the troll who is
relentlessly targeting me
doing it for noteriety,
attention or something more
complex...?
dick_bacon_boom @richardpbacon
bullshit you ********** logic a guest is free
to swear, s********* 3 Jun 2010
I tried to approach him
online to find out. That
didn't work. So I want
to unmask him. If I find
out his identity perhaps I can
contact him in the real world
to get some answers.
dick_bacon_boom
@richardpbacon bullshit you
could have jumped in
anytime. By that
logic a guest is free to swear,
slander etc if they decide to
3 Jun 2010
dick_bacon_boom
@richardpbacon some thoughts on
todays programme
http//i-hate-richard-bacon.tumblr.com
3 Jun 2010
dick_bacon_boom
@richardpbacon a new low today
letting that retarded old man
give
such graphic details of what he
saw yesterday. truly
disgusting
3 Jun 2010
dick_bacon_boom
@richardpbacon i think that you
like this extra attention even
though
it's negative ... go on admit
it.
3 Jun 2010
These
posts seem rather tame to
me. Although there are 4
of them on the same day and
they're not flattering they do
seem to be, at least
superficially, an analysis of
the content of the
program? Also the tone is
much calmer? That might be
because at the time of these
posts Richard has not yet had
Dick Bacon Boom's blog removed
from the internet. Of
course Mr Dick Bacon Boom's
motivation for saying this may
be bad but should things really
not be said simply because they
are the result of malice?
I fear we are going to lose a
lot of good writing if people
start having to be nice to each
other before writing anything
down.
At this point in time Dick Bacon
Boom is not called Dick Bacon
Boom but (lady's most private
parts) of the Day and you can
find his timeline on the way
back machine http://wayback.archive-it.org/1740/20100609044226/https://twitter.com/(lady's
most private parts)_of_the_day
By the way you cant remove my
pages from the internet because
they're not a blog - they're
hand coded. That hasn't
stopped people from tying ...and
if you want to leave comments on
it you cant do that either.
Anyway back
to Richard Bacon who is now with
"It Expert" Paul ... probably
one of the world's most
ineffectual private
detectives. A man so
comically incompetent (more
an Inspector Clouseau than a
Sherlock Holmes of the internet)
in his attempts to track down
Dick Bacon Boom that he should
be submitted to the Leveson
Inquiry as an argument for
sometimes allowing the press to
just hack things.
The only name on his
twitter account refers to
me. There are no photos
of him. No email
address. IT expert Paul is
going to give me some tips on
unmasking anonymous haters.
Richard (to Paul): How
hard is it to track down
somebody who posts
anonymously?
Richard: This guy that
I'm dealing with he's not
given much away, has he?
This is why I and many
other hate this ****** Beer
And Pizza is on ITV4 right
now, Rastas
Paul: Well, your hater
doesn't leave that many clues
on his twitter feed.
He's quite intelligent.
He seems to use the technology
quite well. It's going
to be a bit of a
challenge. So what we
need to do is maybe set up a
trap.
Richard : Like a honey
trap?
Paul: A honey
trap. We need to tempt
him out into the open.
Find his email address.
And when we find his email address
then perhaps we can find more
details about him online or
even find his IP address.
Of
course there are ethical
issues involved in
Entrapment.
Is Richard encouraging his troll
into being more and more
aggressive in order to make good
television?
Legally entrapment
arises when a person is
encouraged by someone in some
official capacity to commit a
crime. If entrapment occurred,
then some prosecution evidence
may be excluded as being unfair,
or the proceedings may be
discontinued altogether
The current law on entrapment is
defined by this 2001
case where some customs
officers went a bit far in
trying to provoke people into
committing crime.
Of course when considering the
actions of journalists like Mr
Bacon the law is far less clear
...but I did find an article in
everyone's favorite bedtime read
the "Law
Society Gazette" in which
David
Sleight, a solicitor at
Kingsley Napley cogitates on the
legal issues surrounding
entrapment by hacks...
It is submitted that
those factors (below), adapted
from Lord Nicholl’s speech and
applied to individuals
entrapped by undercover
reporters, may offer some
guidance in consideration of
whether it is in the public
interest to prosecute someone
who commits an offence in
those circumstances:
Whether or not the
undercover reporter did more
than present an unexceptional
opportunity to commit a crime;
The
reason for the particular
sting operation. Is the
reporter/newspaper acting in
good faith and not, for
example, as part of
malicious vendetta against a
particular suspect?;
The nature and extent
of the reporter’s
participation. The greater the
inducement and the more
forceful or persistent his
overtures, the more likely
that the conduct might have
brought about commission of
crime by a suspect who would
normally avoid crime of that
kind;
The suspect’s
criminal record. This will
only be relevant if it can be
linked to other factors
grounding reasonable suspicion
that the defendant is
currently engaged in
criminal activity.
The
Vine had struck a fibre:
which about
If
clings my Being--let the
Dervish flout;
Of my
Base metal may be filed a
Key,
That
shall unlock the Door he
howls without.
Richard:
By searching for
references to his
twitter feed and blog
elsewhere Paul has
managed to come up with
some leads.
He's found a facebook page
that promotes links to the
both. Above the postings
is the name of the person
who's put them up.
Paul: We found this entry
here. We dont know if
this person is your troll but
he's certaonly promoting the
troll's tumblr account.
On this page there's an
online conversation which took
place back in 2010 when the
three hate accounts first
appeared. Paul thinks
that the person who posted the
links to promote these sites
could be the same person who
set them up. We can
perhaps click on his name and
find out more details about
him.
Richard: So in that
Facebook page here he put a
link to that tumblr account
that's why we're interested in
him.
Paul: I think that tumblr
accout is connected to the
twitter account. So how
does this guy know about the
existence of that tumblr
account
The
Facebook site gives the name
of our suspect. With
clever detective work Paul
manages to find a matching
email account within minutes.
Paul: And that's
confirmation that that is the
right email address
Paul then uses that
address to uncover other
details including his name and
home town.
According to website pipl Dick
Bacon Boom is 43 and lives in
Great Britain.
Paul: His
photobucket account, his bebo
account, his myspace page ...
I'm sure there's a load more
as well
Richard: Are we getting
closer to unmasking my hater?He's 43 years
old. That wouldn't
surprise me if that was about
the age of this troller
because he's a 5live listener
...I never thought we were
dealing with someone who was
say 25..
Paul: No the
language used is quite well
constructed. Good
language apart from the
obvious bad words. Good
use of apostrophes. He's
quite educated.
Richard:
So now we have an email
address for our 43 year old
suspect the next step is to
get an email for Dick Bacon
Boom to see if they
match. If they do we've
hit the jackpot.
Paul suggested I lure
him into revealing his email
address by pretending to be
someone who hates me.
But making contact with him
could prove tricky. My
hater hasn't tweeted
lately. It seems to be
my radio show which triggers
his hatred and he think he's
been quiet because I've just
become a dad and taken some
time off work.
I'm back on the radio
today for the first time in a
fortnight. I've been off
because I've had a baby and
I'm going to try and smoke him
out. Whenever I say
anything ironically on twitter
he doesn't see that.
Takes it seriously. So
I'm going to say "Back
on the radio today with
guests Jason Manford and
Reginald D Hunter. I
imagine that every single
person is delighted by this".
If he responds I'll be one
step closer to tracking him
down. As abusive as my
troll is I think it goes with
the territory of being a
presenter. But for the
hundreds of thousands of
victims of cyberbullying the
threat ...
...seems much more
personal and unexpected.
In recent months the papers
have been full of research
citing just how widespread the
problem is.
According to some of
these studies the perpetrators
dont actually understand how
serious what they actually do
actually is. Because
they cant see the impact of
what they're sending they fail
to understand how much stress
cyberbullying causes.
And also the bullies with
often post anonyomously.
So you see the abuse.
You know it's someone you know
because of what they've said
but you dont know who it is
which I think is probably even
more disturbing.
Girls
Aloud singer Nicola Roberts is
one of the few celebrities to
take this on and draw
attention to the damage online
hate can do. After
writing about her own
experience at the hands of
bullies Nicola was inundated
with tweets from victims
desperate for her support.
For those of you who've got a
life ...Nicola Roberts is, to
quote Chris Moyles, "the ginger
one from Girls Aloud". DJ
Chris Moyles stated on air
that she was ...erm ...a bit
"ropey". This was when Ms
Roberts was 17. She claims
that this led to a spate of
online bullying and became an
anti-bullying campaigner.
Of course it is not fair
comment to insinuate that
members of manufactured girl
bands are selected solely for
their looks. There is no
political inference here.
At this
point I have to say that it had
crossed my mind that Moyles or
someone inspired by Moyles might
be Richard Bacon's troll.
There seems to be a bit of a
feud going on between Moyles and
Richard Bacon and Chris Evans
(old mates from the Big
Breakfast)? Older readers
will remember how Chris Evans
once had Moyles's gig and
behaved so badly he lost it...
When Moyles complained on air
that the BBC weren't paying him
on time Evans in a spiteful
interview on Richard Bacon's 5
Live program stated that this
was beyond the pale and, in an
outbreak or ageism (that is now
illegal) that Moyles was too
old for his gig. Of
course Moyles and his followers
may not be Bacon's critic ...but
that there would be to some
people a commercial interest in
bashing Bacon is not in
doubt. Would such kind of
negative campaigning be valid
criticism or workplace bullying?
Previously the 1-3 pm slot had
been taken by veteran
broadcaster Simon Mayo and
"debates, interviews and
reviews" including coverage of
Prime Minister's question
time. When the BBC decided
to relocate 5Live from London to
Manchester Simon
Mayo refused to go and
dematerialised to Radio 2
replacing Chris Evans.
Fortunately Terry Wogan had
about this time decided to fall
on his toupee which meant
that Chris Evans could be moved
into early moring Radio 2 slot
putting him back in direct
competition with Chris Moyles
who took over his gig on Radio 1
a long time ago... About this
time Chris Evans appears on
5Live to slag off Chris Moyles
for being too old and falling
back on himself for material.
Dick Bacon Boom claims to be a
big Simon Mayo fan.
Anybody want to come up with a
conspiracy theory?
Nicola:
It's hard to see kids treating
...saying ...like I had ...
scared to go to school today
...or ...there's a group of
girls in college just telling
me to just kill myself....
It's almost like someone can
say something and it's like
God that's below the
belt. There seems to be
no belt now ... people just
say whatever they think.
Imagine people just saying
whatever they think, where will
it all end?
Richard
Bacon: Do you think these
social media platforms make
people slightly exaggerate
their opinions? In other
words the bulling is worse
because there ...there
...talking to an audience to
some extent.
Nicola:
I do and it;s sort of like
erm... all about self ego
isn't it so ..erm ... so to
say something nasty to
someone else automatically
elevates you to a higher
place. It's like
feeding a side of society
that really does not need to
be fed.
Carney
Bonner is a former victim of
cyberbullying who now runs
mentoring sessions to help
others protect themselves
against the bullies.
Actually Carney
Bonner is or was the "Youth
MP for Swindon" and even
has a foundation named after
him... Reading what he has
to say carefully ...when Mr
Bonner states that he slit his
wrists he was not actually
commiting suicide but "self
harming". Not that one
should have to actually commit
suicide before people are
concerned but I did feel there
was an element of parsimony with
the truth in telling people you
have "slit yours wrists" which
creates a mental picture of
actually cutting the veins when
you've self harmed ...but not in
a potentially fatal way.
Still, the cause is a good one
so does it matter if anyone is
mislead? Having said that
it does seem that Mr Bonner's
endeavour is on the whole
positive thing and I'm probably
looking for things to moan about
but then ...that's what I do...
interestingly I also managed to
track down by accident another
particpant in the discussion
Gemma Cain. Far from being a
randomly selected internet
abused teenager Gemma
Cain 16 is, according to
the Burnham and Highbridge
Weekly News Member of Youth
Parliament for Sedgemoor and
King Alred School. Are these
really internet abused teenages
or the new
proto-wannabe-political class
getting in pratice at backing
in-vogue career advancing causes
that they think have no
detractors? Or both? Given these
kids hobby seems to be forcing
their political views on others
it shouldn't be too much of a
shock that some of them get
trolled? Or did they all
go into politics simply because
they were bullied by their
peers?
Reading what he has to say in
these interviews reminded me why
I find all those so
surreal. He states that
"Wherever we are we need our
mobile phones on us, much of the
day I spend on my laptop, which
meant there was no escaping what
I was going through". One
has to question - do children
need to spend "all day" on their
laptop? And indeed do all
of them need a phone.
Okay, it has safety benefits ...
but they may be undermined by
you children killing themselves.
Such a different world to my
childhood where the only people
who had phones were the
homeowners/person who paid the
rent. The nearest we got
to mobile phones was telephoning
each other from the two public
phone boxes on either side of
the Common. With no
Facebook available the mediums
for self expression were limited
to stand up, writing something
that was actually good enough to
get published or toilet walls
and park benches. I must
admit to having seen a marked
improvement in park benches
since the internet came in and
Facebook became the park bench /
toilet cubical wall.
The
bench at the top of Waller
Lane, Caterham back in the
1980s
For those of us who wanted to
write the only escape was
magazines or the small
press. I wrote loads of
tiny poems for small press
magazines circulating to less
than 1000 people an issue - and
one or two more mass market bits
and pieces like silly one liners
for Viz.
The BBC would also take one
liners off writers. I hate
writing one liners. It's
the mental equivalent
hari-kiki. Far too much
like real work.
Above is part of the editorial
of the May 2006 edition of Acumen
poetry magazine in which editor
Patricia Oxley bemoans the gulf
between the number of people
wanting to write and the number
of people wanting to read
poetry. In the old days
due to the cost of paper if you
wanted to say anything (off
stage) in writing you had
to go through an editor... (like
Ms Oxley) and this meant that
there was usually some other
kind of ability arbiter on your
work to reign you in (a
bit).
The intrinsic costs of paper
(which is actually quite
expensive) meant that poetry its
self became limited. Poems were
limited to 40 lines in order to
cram enough authors into any
particular publication to make
it have enough contributors who
were also subscribers to make it
financially viable and magazines
revolved around their editors.
The editors while filtering out
a lot of rubbish would also
select authors who wrote like
them. One interesting
aspect of the small press that
was annoying was that, of
course, it was subsidised by the
government which meant that a
lot of bad poems were published
but strangely the operating
costs of the magazines didn’t
seem to go away but actually
increased. Given that the
internet now means anyone can be
as long winded and boring as
they like (take this page as an
example) it is a curious thing
but the small press still
exists. Still begging for
subscribers and in a continual
state of self proclaiming
penury.
The point at which I gave up on
the small press was when I was
doing a gig on a Saturday night
and an envelope fell through the
door which contained a poem I
had written 2 years previously
and which the editor of a
magazine (not the one above) had
sat on for 6 months before
telling me she was going to
publish it. She then sat on it
for another year before sending
me the above mentioned letter a
week before publication which
contained “my” poem literally
rewritten by her so it was
actually hers. So I wrote a
letter back with lots of rude
words (which would now be
illegal under the 2003
Communications Act) in asking
what she was up to which she
printed without explaining the
game she had played of sitting
on it for 18 months before
suggesting alterations. After
that I couldn’t be bothered with
it any more. Mainly because the
internet and stand up had set me
free. I didn’t really want to
write poems I wanted to have a
voice. And in the world before
the internet apart from
novelists, comics and writers
more or less everyone else was
voiceless. Now everyone
has a voice ... I suppose
there's got to be a downside to
that.
Carney
Bonner: When
we have our Q&A sessions
we see actually a lot more
people than we think have been
affected by cyberbullying or
are being cyberbullied.
The statistics have come out
that 1 in 3 people between 11
and 17 can be cyberbullied
...with girls three times more
likely. It goes to
school with you, it goes home
with you, it goes in the
shower with you ...it goes
everywhere you go.
So being a teenage girl
means you're 3 times more
likely to be targeted than a
boy. Jemma, Larne and
Charlie have all been sent
abusive posts online.
Larne, tell me a bit about how
it affected you?
Larne: I
had to actually go on medication
for a while and I would lock
myself in my room because I was
so worried about everybody.
Of course who does know
the answer to this without
evidence but according to
University of Durham
psychologist Anne
Campbell
: "Typical
male physical violence is
largely a form of showy
sexual competition between
men for reproductive
access to the most
desirable women. The
types of social aggression
among women I described in
my previous article also
appears to be a form of
intrasexual
competition for the
most desirable men, but it
avoids the comparatively
higher cost of physical
harm to women’s bodies."
Why most men cant be nasty to
each other without the getting
the shit kicked out of them
beats me.
Do you think it's more
powerful because it's in
writing. When you see
something in words?
Larne: I
think so because if it's like on
your facebook wall or on twitter
you keep seeing it and other
people keep seeing it as well.
And the person who
bullied you is it weird when
you see them the next day at
school?
(we now cut to a different girl
but Richard doesn't explain this
is another interview - although
later there is an establishing
wide shot where we see all three
girls. Of course
interviewing 3 people and
cutting between them to create
one narrative gives you three
different sets of answers to
cherry pick the answer you
actually want from.)
I think it's really
strange. I had a case
where someone had made a
comment to me on
Facebook. I went into
school the next day and they
came up to me and gave me a
hug. "It was meant to be
a joke" and I'm like "was it
really because you're like
...they meant to say it or
they didn't mean to say it".
(we now cut back from Charlie?
to Larne. Richard seems to
direct some questions
specifically to Larne but not
specifically to the other
interviewees).
There's
a statistic, Larne that girls
between 11
and 17 are three times more
likely to be the victim of
cyberbullying than boys.
Why do you think that might be?
Larne: I think girls seem more
vulnerable to others as girls
put on such a strong front
Sometimes
bullies will say I'm just
expressing an opinion - I'm
allowed to do that? - what do
you say to that?
Larne:
You
have to think of other
people. You have to
think of what consequences
your actions have. And
sometimes I think the people
like this a) realise and b)
are they perfectly happy with
the fact that they might be
tipping someone over the edge.
Often
the bullies just dont know how
vulnerable their victims
are. Remember 15 year
old Tom Mullaney who had no
history of being
bullied. He took his own
life after just one night of
cyberbullying.
As we
know Tom had been
excluded from school the
same day, been referred to
a psychiatrist a month
earlier and was on the
autistic end of the
spectrum. The
problem was clearly
ongoing. But
Richard's heart is in the
right place so it doesn't
matter if he bends the
truth.
Tom's Dad: These words
that are coming out of another
14 year old's mouth about "I'm
going to beat you up ...I'm
going to fight you ... and
then I'm going to beat you up
some more ... and when you get
off the floor I'm going to
beat you again" And
everybody's going "yeah yeah
yeah" If I dont do
anything they're going to
think I'm a coward or if I do
anything I'm going to get into
trouble.
I'm actually not gonna
stop punching you in your
***** face. 19 May
Tom's Brother: He says
come to school tomorrow and I
will beat you up on first
lesson, second lesson break
time third lesson lunch time
and last lesson
(Underneath
this we can see on another piece
of paper another cutout
screengrab that reads
he
has to fight me otherwise I'm
gonna bang him for not fighting
me as well
:)
Richard Bacon: And do
you think the people that
wrote these messages in the
first place dont fully
understand what they did?
Unfortunately
for Richard ...Tom's brother
goes on to completely undermine
the point he's trying to make
...
Tom's Brother: I
dont think they understand
that what they've said is
over the top because they
dont know my brother what
was going on in his personal
life.
One might ask
how could they?
Although clearly threatening
to beat someone up is a
crime they are
children. Is not the
real crime that both they
and Tom seem to not be
supervised online?
They lower age limit for
Facebook is 13 ... should
not someone be monitoring
these minors rather than
trying to dump on them sole
guilt for Tom's suicide?
Tom's Brother: It literally tore my
family to pieces. This
house feels so empty without
my brother.... and now he's
not here it's too quiet.
Ashley told me his
family's anger and grief was
only deepened by the vile
pictures and comments that
appeared on Tom's tribute
page.
Now here I
think Richard has a point -
there is a hole in the law that
defacing and photoshopping
personal photographs is not a
bigger deal. Posting
childish bullying comments can
be a spur of the moment lapse in
taste or consideration.
You cant really say that about
defacing people's personal
photos which takes much more
time and effort. Although
it is probably just not wise to
put your photos in the public
domain. To illustrate this
point here's a picture of 4 of
my ex-neighbours in Caterham
when I was growing up.
This
is one of the more tasteful
images on
this Joey Deacon memorial site.
A few are of a pornographic
nature. That said part of
me was still pleased that all
these years later someone still
remembers Tom, Ernie, Michael
and Joey Deacon. Also I'm
afraid the site does make at
least one legitimate satirical
point - if it took all 4 of them
to write the book - how much of
the original material was
actually
poster-boy-for-Mrs-Thatcher's-care-in-the-comminity-scheme
Joey's? And you never know
he might actually have liked
some of the content ...although
most of it is simply
insulting... anyway .... I'm on
tangent again. Suffice to
say thanks to photoshop
satirists no longer have to be Sir John Tenniel
And I think I'm getting
closer to meeting one of the
people who I believe could be
responsible for defiling Tom's
memory. I'm about to
call Damon Evans. I've
been talking to him on Youtube
and Twitter over the last
month.
Damon
Evans : Can I phone you back on
this number and let you know?
Richard Bacon (on phone):
Yeah yeah of course you can yeah
...and I think he may
be responsible for posting
this abuse on Tom Mullaney's
RIP tribute page.
Screengrab
***** Get Well (Damon's photo -
not exactly a cloak on
anonymity. May other
photos and likes on the comment)
Ok well there you
go. He's agreed to do an
interview which is good
news. He sounds sincere
...erm... I suppose because of
the thing he does there's a
bit of me ...er ... it's not
particularly rational ...so a
bit of me wonders whether
he'll actually turn up ...erm
...we'll find out.
But
first I want to find out more
about how trolls
operate. It's high
profile
tragedies that make the news
that attract the most RIP
trolls
Richard
now goes on to examine the case
of
Horatio
Chapple - the Eton schoolboy
savaged and killed by a Polar
Bear.
Now I hope Horatio's relatives
wont be offended by me saying
this but unfortunately the whole
story is ...
...I'm not being cruel. It
just is. What is funny and
what is moral are not the same
thing. While it is tragic
when any young person dies...
the circumstances surrounding
Horiato's death combined with
the social and class issues
involved on top of that ... add
onto this the politics
surrounding British colonial era
Expeditions to the Poles ...
and, of course, that perennial
British favorite ...over
sentimentalism towards animal
stories ... add to this the
penchant of the upper classes to
give their children comedy names
like Horatio and ...there is so
much comedy to be milked from
this incident it's probably only
a matter of time before someone
writes a Fringe show about it.
....erm
...I think it was E.B.White who
said "Analyzing humor is like
dissecting a frog. Few people
are interested and the frog dies
of it." but come on ... although
it's very sad for all concerned
...it does sound like something
out of Hilaire Belloc's book of
Cautionary Tales... does it
not...?
It
is a cruel truth of comedy that
most suffering is simply
hilarious - as long as it is
someone else's. And if
we're going to stop gleaning
guilty amusement from people who
died in unusual and surreal
circumstances that smack
slightly of hubris someone's
going to have to take http://www.darwinawards.com
down
Newsreader:
Nearly 1000 came to celebrate a
magnificant young man who
died...
Chapple's
death was a big media event
covered by the BBC with over
1000 people attending his
funeral service at
Sailsbury Cathederal.
Harry's Godfather's speech is
available on the above
link. It contains some
good one liners. Such as "Horatio's
demonstration of how to use
superglue was less heroic and
became an example of what not
to do after he successfully
glued his fingers together"....
It
also contains the interesting
statement
"Accounts
of what happened on that final
day have been both confusing
and contradictory, but we now
know that Horatio was standing
up in front of the Polar Bear
before the end. We will never
know if his actions may have
distracted the bear providing
others a few valuable seconds
to help end the attack and
save lives, but we do know
that he stood there, facing
his attacker as brave and
determined as ever".
How
British. Hurrah!
Sorry ... I am trying not to be
childish I really am...
There's
even a bit of praise for the
positive side of social media
platforms.
"What else
can I tell you about Horatio?
As I read about 400 of the
thousands of letters and
online postings I found that
many words and phrases
describing him were repeated
often. Intelligent 144
mentions, talented 58,
hard-working and persevering
111, polite and having
impeccable manners 86, lovely
198, inclusive 76, interested
in others 139, good-looking or
'not-hard on the eyes' 98,
charming 105, inspiring 112,
gentle and easygoing 135 and
kind 273, the sense or
statement that it was a
privilege or honor to know
him, all of them."
17 year old Horiato
Chapple died after being
attacked by a polar bear on a
school's exhibition to the
arctic. It made news
around the world.
Newsreader:
...but the 17 year old never
returned from his most ambitious
adventure. He was killed
by a polar bear on an expedition
to Svalbart....
After his death several
tribute sites were set up to
Horatio on Facebook. One
of them by his family and
others anonymously by his
friends. As is usually the
case the vast majority of
cases posted were
comforting... but then the
trolls started to
appear. Both on tribute
pages to horiato and on
tribute pages to the Polar
Bear who killed him.
Godfather
Harry's Page F ... Friends and
... Community 543 like this.
RIP Horiatio Chapple Public
figure 4,160 like this.
What do you get when cross a
polar bear with an Eton
schoolboy? A polar bear
6
August ****u r fucking
disgusting**** ****you fucking sick****
Horatio's godfather
tried to protect the family
from the vile messages
- a task which was clearly as
easy as nailing a jelly to a
ceiling.
*******
1 less conservative another eton schoolboy
tosser vote r.i.p. PB
Horatio's Godfather
Harry: It really sort of
snowballed [not
the word I'd use if I wanted
to avoid polar bear puns]
into really horrendous
comments and erm postings and
erm from people saying you
know just ... you know...
unimaginable things but
...including things like he
shouldn't have been there
...he deserved to die ...it's
all his fault ...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
LMAO
******** He gave it a
good go though
******** I wish the polar
bear would of killed them
all. And
******** Attention
seeker aha......
Well,
that's opinion, isn't it? The
problem is it isn't an opinion
Harry wants to hear ...but does
that mean it shouldn't be
said...?
....to
graphic pictures of
dismembered bodies and
comments along them and just
...it ... was just
unbelievable.
The
use of graphic photoshopped
images may be harder to defend
but could they be much more
graphic than the ones the Daily
Mail printed of the butchered
animal? Of course if they
are the family's original images
they could sue for breach of
copyright. However, by
using Facebook people probably
dont realise that they are relinquishing
control of their images
under the terms of
service. Mark "I
stole everyone's online photo
on campus and used them to set
up an illegal site requesting
people to state who was hot
and who was a boiler but
didn't get chucked out for it"
Zuckerberg reassures customers
that "In reality, we
wouldn't share your
information in a way you
wouldn't want. The trust you
place in us as a safe place to
share information is the most
important part of what makes
Facebook work." But
since his company has been
floated on the stock exchange
the decision is not really his
to make any more ... and
probably never was.
Possibly
the law could be tightened to
make the photoshopping of images
of the recently dead a criminal
offense but would that not have
free speech implications?
Harry set about
scouring the tribute sites and
forwarding the good messages
onto the family. Unlike
other websites Facebook has
clear rules to prevent trolls
harassing ....
Henny
Newall RIP Horatio You will forever hold a
place in my heart You will be messed ever
so much and my ***
...and intimidating
others. And it gives
those who create tribute pages
the tools to block and remove
content. But
because some of the tribute
pages to Horatio were set up
by other people... it was
difficult for Harry to
remove the abuse.
Harry:
There probably isn't a simple
way of stopping people from
creating pages.... in any
circumstance... I think it
would be great to have an
official way of creating an
official tribute page. That
was through the sort of
Facebook system.
Frustrated at
his inability to control
Horatio's tribute sites. Harry
Cunliffe sent emails to five
senior executives at Facebook
including the founder Mark
Zuckerberg .
Harry
Cunliffe: I had no
response at all from
Facebook and I was really
shocked. I was
really surprised it makes
no sense to me that a
corporation that size
that's become extremely
wealthy that they wouldn't
be taking responsibility
towards dealing with
urgent issues in an urgent
manner.
I
have to admit that (after I had
stopped laughing) I decided I'm
with Harry here and with some of
the other victims of Facebook's
passive
attitudes above.
Having been both banned from and
having to go through a tortuous
process to get some libel
removed from Facebook myself
(they actually banned me at one
point by mistake) I know how he
feels.
I
wouldn't have minded as much if
I actually used the thing except
to contact acts who've forgotten
they're booked ... Facebook's
not as much fun when you promote
a gig. Unfortunately we at
the Pear Shaped Comedy Club have
not access to libel lawyers but
I managed to deal with my
problem by slightly more devious
methods. However, I'm not
going to tell you how as I come
from a class that is of the
opinion that the po po should be
the absolute absolute last
resort and I wouldn't want to
get anyone in trouble or spend
tedious hours in court
...anyway...
That
said Harry struck me as a bit
naive. It's hardly a shock
that Facebook are slow in
dealing with online
harassment. Just look at
the statistics - in 2010
Facebook had 350,000,000 users
and 1,200 employees.
(it now has over 900 million
active users).
Using
my fingers that gives an
employee to user ratio of
1 employee to
290,000 users.
I
mean, you get what you pay
for. The reason Facebook
is free to use is the customer
support is crap. To an
extent this is a bit like flying
Ryan Air and complaining that
the staff were not attentive...
or going into MacDonalds and
bitching there's no table
service.
The
entire focus of the company has
been growth towards its
inevitable floatation - needed
ro recoup the initial investers
their investment back.
Facebook is just a huge mass of
self-re-generating code that has
only changed to become more
consumer friendly in its
moderation of bullying since the
negative publicity has started
in the last year or so to bleed
them punters. The previous
main function of Facebook was to
increase punters and increase
traffic. That's where its
value to investors
lies. I mean this is
the same Zuckerberg who was
charged by the administration of
Harvard with breach of security,
violating copyrights,
and violating individual
privacy, and faced expulsion for
his prototype Facemash.
Yup, Mr Business Ethics there...
Facebook was born out of an
experiment in social bullying
and satire ...I dont think it's
going to become the soul of
social responsibility any time
soon. We wont even get
into the acromonious bitching
matches between the founders
chronicled the in film.
Of
course this may partly be a
cultural difference. The
USA where Facebook is based has
NO rights to privacy at
all. And next to zero
restrictions on freedom of
speech (save incitement to
crime, attacking the state
etc). The First
Amendment to the Constitution
was adopted on December 15,
1791. The Amendment states:
Ordinary members of
the public in the USA may be
priced out of democracy since
you need to be a millionaire
to stand for elected office as
there is no cap on electoral
expenditure but they do get
the "freedom" to be racist and
bigoted in public while
trolling the internet.
Which is good because it means
even if our artists are too
castrated by legislation to
make satire with any cutting
edge or lack of taste BBC3 can
always buy such material from
Seth MacFarlane that isn't
short on RIP gags about the
Kennedys and others ...
Harry's leters are shown on
screen. They are not
completely readable but here's
what I could deciper...
that this is the world
we live in now; thousands
looting around impossible to even
have a tribute page to a
young man's inappropriate and
hateful comments from
cowards hiding Chapple was a
young man so clearly and
diametrically opposed engage in these
activities, with a bright,
procutive and compar him apart from
those who would use his
death to take cheap
Dear Nicky Jackson
Colaco
I need your help
urgently regarding an issue family in grief who
are on Facebook. Iam Zuckerberg,
Founder, Chris Cox, VP of
Prod Officer and Joe
Sullivan, Cheif Security
Officer person to help me
with this matter. Also
by
I am the Godfather
of Horatio Chapple and a Olivia
Chapple. Horatio is
the wonderful 17 Friday in Norway by
a Polar bear news.
Gentle readers will note
the comparison by Harry
between his godson's critics
and the Facebook Two.
Facebook
say they have no knowledge
of receiving any of the 5
registered letters Harry
sent. They say they
remove offensive comments
within 24 hours of them
being reported but sometimes
distateful images and
comments including this one
...
...do not violate
their rules as they're
trying to strike a balance
between censorship and
freedom of expression.
I've looked into the law and
while it defends the right
to free speech it also says
that sending grossly
offensive...
The Communications
Act 2003
127 Improper use of
public electronic
communications network
(sections 1 and 2)
...messages can
be illegal. Facebook
argue that freedom of speech
and the right to criticise
makes some offensive images
and sick jokes on tribute
sites acceptable but when I
look at images like this one
that we saw earlier and I
think about the devastating
impact that that must have
had on an already grieving
family ... I do wonder if
they're calling it
right. If they really
are best placed to act as
judge and jury over what is
and is not offensive.
The thing
that's difficult here is that
the story was its self was
also the subject of a huge
controversy. Like
Gerogia Varley's parents
...Horiato Chapple's parents
are looking for someone to
take legal
action against
someone. In this case...
prosecution of the The British
Schools Exploring Society
(BSES). The British
Schools Exploring Society
(BSES) based at the Royal
Geographical Society was
founded in 1932, by a member
of Captain Scott's final
Antarctic Expedition of
1910-13, Surgeon Commander
George Murray Levick who took
this photograph of penguins in
1912... Interestingly
some of Levick's research had
to be suppressed when it
turned out that some penguins
dont just have sex but have
homosexual necrophiliac
sex. He says without RIP
trolling.
Membership is open to all
school children but they might
be put off by the price tag of
some of the expeditions which
can be in the region of
£10,000s - money they
have to raise themselves...
meaning it is mainly a
playgroup for the very
rich. Although one
could argue that they do
return with some interesting
geological samples
sometimes. Horatio's
father was Field Marshal Sir
John Lyon Chapple, GCB, CBE
former Cheif of Staff (i.e.
Head of the British Army -
just below the Queen and the
Prime Minister) a former
president of the BSES.
Formerly the British Public
Schools Exploring
Society until the name was
changed due to sounding too
socially exclusive.
Astute observers of the
British aristocracy will also
have noticed that, as
Sailsbury Cathederal styles
him, the Hon
Harry Cunliffe is in fact heir
to Baronetcy. His
father being the architect
Roger Cunliffe, 3rd Baron
Cunliffe who was a hereditary
peer with a seat in the house
of Lords until the abolition
of most hereditary peers in 1999.
His great grandfather was
Walter Cunliffe, 1st Baron
Cunliffe who was enobled by
Lloyd George for his
Govenorship of the Bank of
England. He was a big fan of
the gold standard and famous
for his epigram "Mr. [John
Maynard] Keynes, in
commercial circles, is not
considered to have any
knowledge or experience in
practical exchange or business
problems." He was
educated at Harrow School and
Trinity College,
Cambridge. Roger went to
Eton and Trinity College,
Cambridge. Harry broke
the mould by going to St.
Thomas College and Concordia
College in Minnesota from Eton
and becoming a lifestyle coach
after 20 years in
banking.
Michael Reid, 29, was invited
to be the guest of Sir Ranulph
"I'm always on the
news showing people my
frozen fingers falling off"
Fiennes (also a Baronet)
third cousin of actors Joseph
and Ralph Fiennes and "distant
cousin to the British Royal
Family" who's father,
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Ranulph
Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes,
commanded the Royal Scots
Greys as he collected
an honorary doctorate at
Plymouth University for
shooting the polar bear.
I'm sure there was a general
point about social mobility
and the political promotion of
a particular set of values
that I was trying to make here
but I've forgotten what it
was.
It
all brought me back to my time
in the Scouts when the then
Scout leader took us up tall
mountains. I've always
been strongly of the opinion
that "adventure" was not for
me as I am firmly in the take
no risks and stay alive
camp...
...but
he kept our spirits up with
stories of all the mountains
he had fallen off and all the
adventurers who had had
fingers frozen off.... before
he died prematurely falling
off a ladder trying to change
a lightbulb. Which
seemed a sad yet slightly
ironic end. Of course his
death was very sad ... but was
it also ironic? Sadly
yes. Okay it wasn't as
ironic as when another
Scout leader became
Conservative leader of
Tandridge Council only to be
revealed to have been
perpetrating a massive fraud
for which he spent 5 years in
jail ...but I'm not going to
tell you who that was as I'm
not Greater Manchester
Police... and well, they did
take us places and seemed nice
people. Just couldn't
get my head round the
"adventure" thing.
Younger readers will
probably not be as familiar
with the antics of old British
heros than older readers but
there was a time in the 70s
and 80s when "Scott of the
Antarctic" was very frequently
on the box. With its
depressing storyline having
made it the fourth most
popular movie at the British
box office in 1949. Like
"Reach for the Sky" without
the optimism it was a story of
heroism of the kind we dont
seem to have any more because
less people have been shot at
since the second world
war. Scott's Terra Nova
expedition was a joint
enterprise between the pre-WWI
admiralty, the Royal Society
and the Royal Geographical
Society with public money
matched by private
donations...
... and sponsorship
deals the Olympics would
be proud of. I'm
not sure what the
message of the film was
but it was sort of along
the lines of ...okay, we
cant put a man on the
moon and we no longer
have an empire but we
did come 2nd at
something once. By
the way if you want to
visit the antarctic
sitting at the south
pole looking at
particles that land
there because there's no
van allen belt is one of
the jobs that's always
going in physics.
So there is still some
point in going to these
places. Prehaps if the
BSES sent Eton
schoolboys on trips to
sit at the south pole
for 6 months completely
isolated throughout the
antarctic winter counting
neutrios less
accidents would
happen. Still if
we can get idiotic posh
people to risk their
lives collecting
geological samples then
why not encourage
that...? To be fair it
is actually research...ter.
But what about
the hunt for my own hater
Dick Bacon Boom? His
messages go beyond
criticism. He's
fantasised about my death
and has sent links full of
abuse to my family but he stops
tweeting when I take a
couple of weeks off from
my radio show
for the birth of my
son. So I posted an
antagonistic comment to see
if it would get him tweeting
again.
So
it would seem the problem
may be Richard's radio
show. It seems to me
this is having his cake
and eating it a bit.
You cant complain that
your troll hasn't been
bugging you then
simultaneously claim he's
an obsessive?
Again Richard
repeats his smear that
since his troll said he
hoped Richard's plane
crashed after Richard said
he was getting on a plane
this is "fantisising"
about his death.
Aren't we allowed to have
fantasies? Okay,
putting a picture of
Richard on his background
all beaten up may be
taking things a bit beyond
fantasy into incitement
but... also Richard
suggests by omission that
the abuse his family
received was unsolicited
but we know (because he
said it earlier) that his
wife has tried to "reason"
with the troll and he has
put up pictures of his
family and friends on
twitter. Yes, I'm
being devil's advocate but
I feel someone
should. I have my
Horace Rumpole hat on at
the moment. Who's
really obsessing about who
here?
So let's see if
he's active.
He's changed his profile
picture [and
wallpaper] ... it's
now a picture of me when I
got beaten up about 3
years ago with a busted
nose and some
bruises. He's now
mentioned my son...
Using a picture of
Bacon beaten up is fairly
indefensible but it has to
be said that if Mr Bacon
mentions his son on air is
surely fair to allow people
to comment on that?
@charlottechurch
is a fucking moron etc
#leveson etc #5Live etc
#whogivesafuckabouttherthoughtsonthis
etc #hacking etc (21 hours
ago)
@Fearncotton is
officially a fucking
twat. Good Day! (25
Nov)
oh you poor fucker
@ArthurBacon ! Imagine
having that **** as your
data #richardbacon
#shitdads# #5live (25
Nov)
interviewing Gina
Yashere right now ... coming
across ... condesending and a
little bit racist #5live
Richard
Bacon (viewing the twitter
feed of Dick Bacon Boom) :
Your reaction to it is quite
strange. I laugh
because it's so
ridiculous. Erm ...for
the record my son does not
have a twitter account
...erm ... it does bother
me... how could that
not bother you ...when there's
a theme of violence to it
... when
he's mentioning my newborn
son ... it the past
he's tweeted my wife ... my
mum ... erm ... but
it also intrigues me
because I want to know
why? Why he's doing this?
Why this utter obsession?
I want to know what he gets
out of it. And I want
to know what he's
like. I want to meet
him. I want to talk to
him.
Nobody has
ever seen Big
Brother. He is a
face on the
hoardings, a voice
on the telescreen.
We may be reasonably
sure that he will
never die, and there
is already
considerable
uncertainty as to
when he was born.
Big Brother is the
guise in which the
Party chooses to
exhibit itself to
the world. His
function is to act
as a focusing point
for love, fear, and
reverence, emotions
which are more
easily felt towards
an individual than
towards an
organization.
Now
he's back tweeting I want to
lure him into revealing more
details about himself
...when I met with IT expert
Paul he said this would be
crucial to uncover who Dick
Bacon Boom really is.
Again Mr Bacon complains that
Dick Bacon Boom mentions his
son like there aren't loads of
pictures of his son on his
twitter feed - what are they
there for ...if not to be
commented on? And by
this point I'm starting to
wonder if it is just Dick
Bacon Boom who's obsessed.
43 years old Great
Britain (screenshot)
I want to see if
his email address matches
that with Paul's prime
suspect. As Paul
explained to me when we
first met getting my troll's
email address would unlock
the key to information
required to track him down.
Paul: When we find his email
address then perhaps we can
find more details about him
online or even friend his IP
address.
Richard: And
what's an IP address?
Paul: An
IP address is like a mobile
phone number of the internet
if you like. Everything
on the internet has got its
own number and those numbers
trace back to an internet
service provider or possibly a
place of work and those are
the details that the police
might use to er... find out
who's behind an internet
posting.
Richard: So to get those
details that Paul might need
I'm going to try to get him
to reveal his email address
by pretending to be someone
who has some compromising
photos of me. Ones
that I hope he will want to
see.
I'm going to
write to Dick Bacon
Boom. "Love your
picture of Bacon. My
brother works in the same
building as the twat..."
(It's curiously enjoyable
slagging yourself off in a
tweet "...Got some great
pics of him on his Iphone
...and then shall we just
come back and see if he
wants to look at them ... is
that what we're doing?"
Paul: That's what we're doing.
Richard: Alright. This
is it. This is our
honeytrap. It's
actually quite
exiting. I'm
pretending to be a
troll....who hates me.
...and it turns
out I'm not the only one
pretending to be a
troll. It's also a
trick used by self appointed
troll hunters. People
who spend hundreds of hours
on the internet trying to
track down and expose the
very worst of the online
haters. [Rather a strange
hobby notes the moron
who's got the man hours to
manually transcribe a
Richard Bacon BBC3
documentary] I've
been sent information on
over a dozen RIP trolls who
target tribute pages.
The troll hunter
who sent me these names
goes by the name of
Michael Fitzpatrick
Michael
Fitzpatrick (who is
anonymous but not a troll
because his thoughts are
printed on paper rather than
being in the evil electronic
world)
is Richard Bacon's main
source of information.
"Michael" has been running an
on paper campaign with the
help of the Daily Mail to
"expose" trolls for quite some
time. It
is Michael's research that
led to the conviction of
Sean Duffy. Michael
claims that he is a part time
teacher for whom this is all a
hobby. Which sounds like
the most unconvincing cover
story since Rene Artois
decided following a fake
execution to pose as his own
twin brother. Call me Mr
Cynic but Mr Fitzpatrick is
either a policeman, a spook, a
private detective or a hack -
or a combination of any number
of the 4. Or some kind
of Mary Whitehouse character
from Mediawatch.
He started
hunting trolls 3 years ago
when he discovered a youtube
account posting offensive
and violent images about
murdered children. He
was "incensed by it".
Michael has agreed to meet
me but
because he fears for his
safety he wont show his
face on camera.We've also
disguised his voice.
Using fake online profiles
Michael has gained access to
private Facebook pages where
the trolls gather to plan
their attacks on RIP
websites. In the 3
years since he began his
hunt he's discovered just
how organised and vicious
trolls can be.
Indeed, according
to the Daily Mail Michael
Fitzpatrick's campaign
goes beyond simply
collating evidence against
trolls to actually writing
to those who he believes
to be their neighbours in
order to alert them to who
they actually live next to
and what they think.
'What
he does is he works out who
they are then posts letters
to their neighbours saying,
'do you know your neighbour
is doing this?' However, the
morality of this activity
which borders on sending
out poison pen letters at
the least or, if his
reseach is poorly
executed, could well
extend into criminal libel
is, of course, never
examined. Although
his belief that most
people actually care what
their neighbours get up to
is quite sweet and old
fashioned. Mine
could be axe murdering
serial murderers for all I
care as long as they dont
park infront of my garage
when I've got a gig to
drive to. Mr
Fitzpatrick's belief in
and the Daily Mail's
promotion of such
vigilante justice is
morally dubious in the
extreme but doubtless they
would justify their
actions with a theory
along the lines that what
the state fails to police
must be policed by
communities
themselves. Because
that always works out
well. Of course the
masked Mr Fitzpatrick sees
himself more as a Bruce
Wayne character than the
instigator of something
that could possibly mutate
into an internet version
of the KKK.
Michael: I
can just say there were
hundreds of them
organising. Some
of them say that they
trawl through the papers
every day to find out
about a child who's died
and they will look for an
RIP page for a dead
child. If there's
not one they'll set one up
themselves.
There's a lot of them who
have been bullied and
ex-trolls have said to me
that a lot of trolls are
getting their own back on
society by doing this.
The thing is if Mr
Fitzpatrick knows this and
is in collusion with
Associated Newspapers why is
the Daily Mail publishing so
many stories about children
who die anyway....? All
seems a bit suspicious to
me...
Also ... are there really
"hundreds of trolls" all
working in collusion with
each other? Should the
BBC be allowed to make
claims like this if it cant
back them up? During
this documentary they only
actually confront 2.
One the previously convicted
Sean Duffy and one who's
naive (or fame hungry)
enough to go to an
interview?
According to
Michael RIP trolls are not
just nasty they're
dangerous. If you
annoy them they'll steal
your name and your photo and
post vile and inflammatory
messages on sensitive
tribute sites using your
identity.
I'm really into
necrophilia!!!!!!!
Richard: At some
point this could turn into
something violent.
Michael: The only surprise to
me is that nobody has been
killed over this because I
mean they're playing on the
rawest of human
emotions. It's only a
matter of time before one of
them gets killed or even worse
an innocent person gets killed
because of them.
Richard: And why are you doing
this interview anonymously?
Michael: Because
they could place my life and
my family's life in
danger. I've
seen them find trollhunters
addresses and they've made
loads of Facebook pages
saying they're peadophiles
and they abuse children.
Well, that may not
be moral but if you will
hound people...
Michael: When
I started this I thought it
was all largely about mad
people or irrational people
posting these crazy things on
Facebook and on Twitter but
then... the
thing that really stood out
to me about Michael is that
he says that they're taking
the names of real people and
posting abusive messages
under their names on RIP
sites and endangering those
people in real life
and that has made me realise
that this all a lot more
serious than I thought it was
when I began this hunt
Read this in the
noose yesterday
Finally Richard
gets round to plugging
what he's been wanting to
plug for ages...
Which raises the
question why are RIP trolls
getting away with posting
vile messages.
It's the 2003
Communications Act
which makes it
illegal to post
obscene offensive
messages
online.
You could be
sentanced to up to 6
months in prison for
doing so.
Unless of course your
host a website abroad
where they have different
free speech laws and can
upload without the
government knowing or your
ISP provider grassing
you. We haven't even
touched on the sordid
question of what about the
harmonisation of
international hate laws...
Anyway thanks Richard we
get the message.
But only two trolls have
been convicted in the UK
using this act.
According to academic Clare
Hardakre getting enough
evidence to bring a
successful prosecution is
tough
tion (ChiCI) and
computer-supported cooperative
work
ever, whilst research has been
conducted on the effect of
aggressive video games and
their link with offline
violence
1995; van Schie and Wiegman
1997; Dill and Dill 1998
currently investigate
linguistic agression online,
possibly
is percieved as frivolous,
insignificant or marginal
1997; 1; Merchant 2001; 295
Cho et al 2005)
Michael:
Unfortunately people are
often really upset by these
posts they dont want their
friends or family to see
these things if it's on a
tribute page so they delete
it very quickly. The
police need evidence.
They need screenshots of
these posts so that they can
actually take action.
The next problem is that even
if the police have the
evidence trollers work very
hard to keep themselves
anonymous. They'll use a
whole range of different
accounts. They'll use
each other's accounts.
They'll even take over
innocent people's
accounts. So even if the
police track right back to the
person they think is the
suspect they need to be able
to prove did this person write
this message at this time.
Colm
Coss is one of only two
trolls to be prosecuted in
the UK. His arrest and
conviction by Greater
Manchester police gives a
chilling insight into the
mind of a troll and the
dangers they pose.
PC Julie Gurka
was first alerted when she
recieved a dossier of
information showing RIP
Facebook pages that Coss had
attacked.
PC Julie Gurka : The
person who had put the pack
together (Michael Fitzpatrick)
had
identified Colin Coss as a
troll and it explained what
a troll was within the
pack. There is a lot
of detective work went into
that erm... from someone who
is technically policing the
trolls and trying to inform
people of this troll.
It was the troll
hunter I'd met Michael
Fitzpatrick who compiled
this dossier. For the
police this was new
territory. The vile
comments posted by Colm Coss
on tribute sites are too
disturbing to repeat.
Making obscene sexual
references to the
deceased.
PC
Julie Gurka : A lot of it
was on memorial sites for
babies for people who'd died
in car crashes
Coss who is
unemployed and in his 30s
was arrested and brought in
for questioning. His
police interviews give a
rare insight into the mind
of a troll. For
example he justified his
actions by claiming that
many of the tributes on RIP
pages are not from genuine
mourners.
Colm Coss Police Interview
Tape : The
pages are flooded with "I
never knew you or your
family. I am
devastated by your passing (
mumble mumble ) you
what... step back
...you never knew this
person so. I find that
quite provoking ... is that
...well okay if you're going
to write this inane baseless
comment then I've got one of
my own.
Colm Coss also admitted
to deliberately making his
comments as shocking as
possible. Colm Coss
Police Interview Tape :
Just purely provocative.
It made me laugh. Erm
... and it's also so over the
top in my eyes that nobody
takes it seriously. You
must be quite a sensitive soul
PC
Julie Gurka : He wants to
leave messages there to
cause offense to
people. When
he gets a notification that
someone's replied to it
that's when he gets his buzz
....that's his buzz...
In October 2010
Coss was convicted under
offenses committed under the
2003 Communications act and
was given and 18 week prison
sentence but his short stint
in prison doesn't seem to
have stopped Colm Coss
trolling. Michael Fitzpatrick the
troll hunter I met who's
evidence helped convict Coss
has continued to keep tabs on
him and has discovered the
he's still posting abuse
on the net.
Richard
Bacon: And what's he
trolling here ...what's
this?
Michael
Fitzpatrick : This is him in
October he's on an RIP page
for a young girl who got
killed in a nightclub and he's
written ...
Okay, so it's quite hard to
feel much empathy for Colm ...
but is it him posting?
Mr Bacon's just told us that
people assume other people's
identities online .... well,
you cant have your cake and
eat it ...? even Mr Bacon
realises this is a problem
so...
So it seems that
Colm Coss could still be a
troll. Michael also showed
me evidence that Coss was
also posting messages on
tribute pages using the name
Karen Shaw
Karen Shaw : Ma, dont hit me. Karen Shaw :
Saxon Bird. Mate, get
with the program
Since anyone can
sign under anyone else's
name how do you know that's
really him?
It's not just
Michael's screengrabs that
provide evidence that Coss
is still at it. Michael also says he
confronted Coss in an online
conversation.
Michael
Fitzpatrick : I
asked him was if he trolling
again. He said he
was. He said it was
him. He was doing
it.
(No need to call in
Rumpole of the Bailey then -
he said he was guilty so he
must be)
Michael
Fitzpatrick : I
asked him why and he said he's
never going to stop because he
loves it and he's not scared
of going back to jail again.
Just days after my
meeting with Michael he
spotted yet another racist
post.
Colon Cross*
> Justice for Anuj Bidve
How will all his children (56)
and wives (24) and mothers,
fathers, grandmothers,
grandfathers
there Western Unvion Money
exchange funds now
You didnt think of that did
you?
* Are these the same people or
is it all some IamSpartacus
business...?
which he believes
could be from Coss. It
was posted on a tribute site
to Anuj Bidve a student who
was murdered in Salford at
the end of last year.
That is what he would think
of as a joke I guess it's
got a streak of racism about
it. It appears to be
him. It's posted under
his name but ...who knows
this world is so
...odd. Erm ... but if
it is him clearly prison
hasn't put him off and I'd
like to know what drives him
on really I'd like to ask
him. He might not
answer but erm ...at least
I'd go and meet Colm Coss.
We've written to
Coss to see if he'll meet me
so I can ask him if he's
still posting horrible
comments on RIP sites.
He's refused to take part in
the program so I'm in
manchester looking for
him. Colm Coss has
been spotted by a member of
the production team on a
bike near an internet cafe 3
miles from the city center.
So not being
able to find his own
troll Richard's decided
to harass Colm - Well,
he's got to find someone
to interview or he
doesn't have a 3rd act.
Richard Bacon : Colm ...
Hello my name's Richard I'm
from the BBC ... We wrote to
you. Is it alright if
I ask you a could of
questions?
Colm: No, not really
Richard: It's
just we've got some evidence
from Michael Fitzpatrick
that you've been
trolling...-
Colm:
Allegations.
There's a difference between
allegations and
evidence. You've got
allegations made by him which
has made to myself so...
Richard:
OK. So you know about
it?
Colm: Yeah I do
Richard: So you
know this one here?
Here's what I want to know
Colm. You certainly
trolled sites before you
went to prison. We've
got evidence that
...allegations that you have
done it since you went to
prison so... what I want to
know really is ...why you do
it? Why do you troll?
Colm: I realise why you want
to ask but I've also said I
dont want to take part
Richard: Before
you went to prison...
Colm: No I dont...
Richard:
...because we know you went
to prison.
Colm: I dont wish to answer
any questions.
Richard: Why not?
Colm: Well, I dont ...it
doesn't matter. You're
just a TV program I dont have
to take part.
Richard: Yeah
Colm: I'm not obliged
to. I dont wish to.
Richard: Just let
me ask you this
[holding the Bidve post] is that you Colm? On the site for Anju
Bidve where you've written
this comment here...
Colm: Look...
Richard: ...how
do all his children...
Colm: I really dont think I
should be interrogated by you
...or anyone
Richard: Do you
deny that ...is that you or
not.
Colm: I really dont want to
answer any questions and you
are just asking questions and
I'm not going to...
Richard: Ok, but
I'm free to ask the
questions by the way....
Colm: I'm free not to respond
and I am ...a little bit
busy. Thankyou very much
Richard [Richard has moved out
of Colm's way] I really enjoy
your Radio 5 shows.
Richard: It's
unsettling to talk to
someone like that I must
say. Erm ...he called
them allegations. He
didn't exactly deny
them. Erm... he has
said to Michael Fitzpatrick
on the telephone that erm...
that prison hasn't put him
off trolling so we know that
erm... so we know that much
but as ever with this
journey it's a bit confusing
and its complex and really
rather dark. Still,
it's nice to meet a
listener.
It's very
frustrating to Greater
Manchester police that Coss
may still be trolling but
just underlines how
difficult it is for any
force to monitor social
networks, gather evidence of
trolling and track down the
culprits.
Policeman: We
cant police Facebook and
we're not going to try
because it's just too big
...it's too vast.
There's far too many people
on it. People have got
to be aware of the dangers
of putting things on
Facebook and police it
themselves by making sure
that they've got tight
control of their own
Facebook or whatever their
own site so people cant make
comments, cant make nasty
remarks, cant steal their
identity and if you really
must open an RIP site then
think of the consequences
and try to put some kind of
control over it before you
press the button and send it
and make it a live document.
This
is quite an interesting
observation.
Ironically the strength of
Facebook is not just that it
allows people to publish
things with ease but that it
allows people to control
their readership. This
is probably why Facebook is
the ideal platform for
gossip. And I cant
help thinking that with its
self restricting readership
it is a mirror of the small
press as well. With the way their
shares are going and their
plans for "content
promotion" it is only a
matter of time if you ask me
before it starts going on
about how people need to
read Facebook in order to
write for Facebook.... maybe
the whole thing was just
flawed?
Even if you have
got control over your own
site there is...
Richard
Bacon caught me with his
camera crew this
morning. Everyone
create a RB account of
change your name?
Fun, not fun?
(Facebook screengrab user
name blurred out)
...no way of
stopping trolls of creating
a page in your name
Tell me about
it. I'm often
mistaken for the last man
hanged in Scotland.
Soon after
meeting Colm Coss I found
someone had stolen my
identity to create a fake
Facebook page and their plan
was to start trolling with
it.
I thought this
would happen. It's
still a little bit
unsettling when you see
it. But I'm glad this
has happened before we
finished making this program
because it illustrates how
some of the trolls work
...when they want to get at
someone they take your real
name, set up an account and
start abusing people using
your name.
As my hunt has
gone on there's hardly been
a week where...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101563/Wheres-son--Vile-Twitter-user-taunts-footballer-Billy-Sharp-baby-sons-death.html Note 1c
that this story is about
someone from an ethnic
minority suffering a
bereavement... and being
trolled. Can anyone
see a pattern emerging 1 a,
b & c are all stories
where someone is trolled for
their race.? And all
in the North of England ...
humm .... I think ...I'm
turning into Michael
Fitzpatrick ...there hasn't
been a story about trolls
posting horrible
messages. Yet the
Government currently has no
plans to get tough with
trolls or with the social
network sites which make it
so easy for them to post
messages.
As for my own
hater they've posted 255
more tweets about me since I
started this hunt and he's
taken his profile picture to
a photo of me taken when I
was the victim of an
assault. But I still
haven't tracked him
down. So far I've
tried to get him to give me
his email address by
pretending I'm a fellow
hater and telling him I have
some compromising photos he
may want to see ...but he
hasn't taken the bait.
So now I'm going to send the
pictures to him. I'm
going to send him a link to
a made up blog and tell him
that he can download the
photos there and er... see
if that provokes a
reaction.
I'm prepared to
carry on with my attempt to
meet this guy and talk to
him face to face but
psychologist Emma is
seriously concerned.
Emma: Clearly you as an
individual embody something
that he hates.
She finds it
alarming that my hater
Dick_Bacon_Boom has
plastered his twitter page
with pictures of me beaten
up.
So
would I. Indeed if I
was Richard Bacon I'd be
wondering how I got
randomly beaten up in the
first place? Had
someone been waging a
campaign to incite
violence against Bacon for
much longer than this but
this is the first time the
penny's really dropped?
Emma: This is a fixation upon
you that has been long
standing, obsessive ...
RIchard: Nearly
two years now. Is
there er any chance that
this could become anything
more than a man in a bedroom
saying stupid things?
Emma: There will be warning
behaviours. If it were
to happen ... some of those
will be the escalation of
violent images or ...
Richard: This is
recent that he's put this
... beaten up profile
picture on there
Emma: Yeah. I mean
that's an escalation.
You know that's going from
somewhere up... erm ...other
warning behavious might be him
reporting having turned up
whereabout you are
Richard: So ...
what would you do about this
is you were me?
Emma: If I was you I would
pursue some sort of
intervention or advice from
erm police authorities.
Richard:
...that... that very premise
is really unsettling
...what's the threat?
Emma: It's hard to say I mean
he's clearly rehearsing
...thinking about replaying
violence ...directed towards
you
Richard:
But there could be a
physical threat?
Emma: Yeah
Richard: There
could be?
Emma: Yeah
Richard: Is there
any chance this could be
someone I know?
Emma: There is quite a
high possibility of
that. Our research
indicates that more than
half the people who are
cyberstalked end up
finding out that their
stalker was someone that
they knew?
Richard: That's like Scooby
Doo ...it was the janitor
all along. I dont know
any janitors. But ...that's
weird. But I dont think it
will be but that's ...It's
much worse if it's someone
you know.
Emma: Yes
Richard: Much
much worse.
There's something
Emma the psychologist said
last night has changed
things a bit. It was
her talking about the use of
that picture escalated
things. She talked
about how some trollers go
from trolling to entering
your real life and that has
unsettled me and that has
been going round in my
head. And now I'm in a
quandary because do I go to
the police which would be
... very dramatic... he's
have the police turning up
at his door. That's
not where I imagined this
would go. Or do I
ignore her? I
genuinely dont know what to
do now.
Whist I consider
whether I should carry on
the hunt for my own hater
I'm about to come face to
face with Damon Evans.
I've been messaging him on
twitter and through
youtube. I want to
meet him because I believe
he may have posted a message
on Tom Mullaney's RIP page.
So we're set up
in there. Damon is ..
he's only 20.... and in an
email exchanged with me he's
admitted to some trolling,
denied other trolling, has
defended elements of it ...
so let's just see what he's
go to say for himself
...erm... let's see
how this goes.
So after months
of hunting online haters I
am finally going to confront
Damon Evans
Richard: Damon ...
Richard ... thanks for doing
this ...come through here
we're all set up
I'm going to
challenge him about a
message that was posted on
Tom Mullaney's tribute
page. I also want to
know why he got into the
murky world of trolling in
the first place.
Damon Evans: It all
started it was just on
facebook when I was...drunk
and it was on a Susan Boyle
page and it was just
photoshopping pictures and
then putting them back on the
page and then ...it's still a
bit of fun.
Richard:
Okay. And what were
you doing with the pictures?
Damon Evans: There was one
erm... her singing with a
microphone and just
photoshopping penises onto it.
Richard:
Okay. So is part of
the motivation that you're
trying to make people laugh
I guess so you ...
Damon Evans: Yeah, some people
laugh ..some people get
annoyed by it ...it is...
addictive sometimes when you
get people going crazy and you
find it quite funny and you
can just keep pushing them and
pushing them and pushing them
Richard: People
that are upset.
Damon Evans: Yeah it can be
slightly addictive but ...
So what about the
messages posted on Tom
Mullaney's tribute site
apparently in Damon's
name...?
Richard: Here's
some stuff.
Screengrabs of the Tom
Mullaney tribute site.
Now that's... your name.
Damon Evans: That isn't
me. I did ...I think I
mentioned in my message my
account was cloned. And
I have sent Facebook emails
about that.
Richard: Have
you?
Damon Evans: I think it was
somebody that I'd
trolled. Had cloned my
account.
When I trolled I didn't use my
real account.
Richard: What
name did you use?
Damon Evans: Erm ...Erm ...
I'm not even sure to be honest
it was ages ago.
Which is curious
because only days before
meeting me he did remember
the names he used to troll
Aston Steele and Martin
Crooks. He made this
admission in an online
conversation with troll
hunter Michael
Fitzpatrick.
This is one of
the offensive comments
MIchael believes Damon
Posted on an RIP site
Ashton Mell
Steele: Rip mate, you were a
great friend with an
even greater cock.
Remember when we went up to
the park, got height and had
anal sex in the trees. That was amazing
:) I can't wait to be with
you again buddy, missing you loads. RIP
Big Mac
using the Ashton
Steele identity.
Richard: Erm ... there's
another thing here which this
is a conversation which you
have written ... here's you
admitting that erm Ashton
Steele was one of the
pseudonyms that you used
online...
Damon Evans: Yes
Richard: Erm ...so that was me
...Ashton Steele. So if
we go here this is an RIP site
to the teenagers who died when
he was 15 or 16 and as Ashton
Steel you've written (see
above) ...did you write that?
Damon Evans:
No. I have sorted that
out...
Richard: Have you?
Damon Evans: Yeah
and people know it's not me.
Richard: So you admit that you
had a site under that name and
then somebody else took that
name.
Damon Evans: This
is a different name.
As
we can see from the
screengrab it actually is
a different name
too. Ashton
Mell Steel is not Ashton
Steel. Any more than
Colon Cross was Colin
Coss. Of
course it's little wonder
people are using fake IDs
if they fear prosecution?
Damon Evans: It
was the person that was
cloning me. But I'm
not sure who that was.
Richard: You've never seen
that?
Damon Evans: No.
I haven't seen this.
I've seen this one. I
have emailed Facebook about
it and there's not much more
that I can do and I have
been to the police about it.
Richard: Why would
someone clone a site of yours
that's not even under your
real name?
Damon Evans:
Because I think it was
someone that I trolled
previously.
Richard: ButI thought you'd
only trolled celebrities.
Damon Evans: Erm
... I'm not sure. I
messaged them and they said
that I'd trolled them
previously.
Richard: Are you saying
absolutely 100% you have
never trolled on an RIP site.
Damon Evans: 100%
A few days after I
met him Damon sent an email
admitting he had lied in the
interview. He
wrote that he had written
messages on RIP tribute
sites but he still denies
posting messages about Tom
Mulaney
We then see a couple of
screengrabs of Damon's reply
one of them though only
partially visible seems to put
his denials down to the fact
the interview was more to his
mind an "interrogation".
due to the fact
that it was into an
interrogation.
I regret trolling
RIP pages that's why I
didn't admit it. It
was years ago and I dont
believe what I did was a
very good thin if I'm
honest. I believe that
some of the reactions I got
were hilarious but I
understand that what I did
was wrong. I stay
clear of it now and like I
say I haven't done it in
years and am now against it.
But the fact that
he uses the word hilarious
does suggest that he
still doesn't fully
understand the consequences
of this.
Or it could suggest
Richard has a bit of a
humour bypass ...?
As my three month
hunt draws to close I've
realised just how vulnerable
we all are to people who
chose to attack us
online. Even when
social network sites have
rules, regulations and
security rules trolls seem
to be able to bypass these
measures at will. I
believe it's time for the
government to really get
their head around
this. And
I think there'sa gap
between what the social
networks find acceptable
and what the rest of us
think. Most
importantly families like
the Chappels and the
Mullaneys need more
protection.
Finally we end
with proof of my theory
that grief doesn't make
you logical with Tom
Mullaney's Dad and Richard
Bacon's extremely sinister
agenda.
Richard: What are
the points in the year which
you really find the most
difficult where you really
find yourself thinking about
things?
Tom Mullaney's Dad:
He's
missed ...time and time
again... day in
...day out... I miss him
dreadfully. Something
for nothing. This what
people have got to
realise. Keep their
mouth shut. If
you've got
nothing nice to
say then dont
say it at all. The
internet's not
the place.
Not
the forum to
put it.
Oh well, I suppose if
the internet isn't the
place then everyone will
have to go into live
entertainment. But
what about freedom of
speech for those who cant
afford to go to the Fringe
to mouth off knowing that
the police dont dare
prosecute anyone from the
establishment
....yet? Or dont
have time to run
clubs. I guess the
government had just learnt
what comedy promoters have
known from years: if you
give ordinary people a
voice it sadly very often
turns out to be boring,
bigoted or just not
entertaining.
If like Tom you find
yourself a victim of
cyberbullying the advice
from the experts is dont
keep it to yourself.
Mentor: My advice
to someone being bullied is
dont retaliate just block
them or just report them
straight away and go to your
teachers or go to someone
who's close to you.
And if you find
yourself a victim of
trolling dont get into an
argument with them
Emma: There's a
phrase in computer
language. Dont feel
the trolls. Erm ..
dont give them anything
because if you
respond. Especially if
you respond with you know
real observable emotion and
upset you are giving them
more material with which to
play and discuss and throw
about.
Richard: That's
the reaction they want.
As for my own
hater. Having taken
advice I've been told the
nature and peristance of his
abuse goes beyond what is
considered acceptable.
Which means it's time to
leave the hunting to others.
Good
idea. So the advice
I've been given by two
experts is to go to the
police and they say that
there is a case there and
that I should do it.
It's not the personal
criticism that's fine you
kind of expect that ...,it's
the stuff to my family...
it's the violent imagery
...it's the mentioning my
baby that kind of thing and
...I didn't want to go to
the police it just seems
very dramatic but its what
they've both said very
clearly and so that is what
I'm going to do and
hopefully that will put an
end to it.
I may not have
learned the identity of my
hater but I have found out
just how easy it is for
today's nasty bullies to
hide behind a
keyboard. If you find
yourself under attack keep
the evidence you may need it
if you have to go to the
authorities.
And one
thing's for
sure - the
authorities
want us to
know that now
EVERYONE's on
the internet
they're going
to try and put
that genie
back in the
bottle ...or
die trying?
He
pressed his
fingers
against his
eyelids again.
He had written
it down at
last, but it
made no
difference.
The therapy
had not
worked. The
urge to shout
filthy words
at the top of
his voice was
as strong as
ever.
Photo
Credits.
Belshazzar's Feast
by Rembrandt
(National Gallery)
An Experiment on a
Bird in an Air
Pump' by Joseph
Wright of Derby,
1768 (National
Gallery)
Bernard Manning by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ianmacm
Richard Bacon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/49949971/
Chris Moyles by
Rabbro
Arthur Wellesley,
1st Duke of
Wellington by Sir
Thomas Lawrence
Rowan Atkinson.
Photo was taken at
the UCI Cinema in
Huerth, Germany by
Gerhard Heeke
Sir Edward Coke
attributed to
Thomas Athow,
after Unknown
artist, after
Cornelius Johnson
Whitby harbour
from new Quay by
Graham Proud
Ryan Giggs by Ray
Booysen
Maslows Hierarchy
of Needs by
Factoryjoe
Nicola Roberts by
Anthony Blakemore
Terry Wogan by
Keith Laverack
Paul Daniels
picture stolen
from his website
in honour of the
Debbie McGee
modelagency
Portrait of Her
Majesty Queen
Elizabeth The
Queen Mother
painted by Richard
Stone in 1986.
Luis Suarez by
Jimmy Baikovicius
Statler and Waldorf
by Ford
Buchanan
Pooh and Co by
Spictacular
Dorothy Parker by
Unknown SiSir Ranulph prior to
his presentation at Dept of
Engineering, Cambridge
Universityby
B Milnes
Mark Zuckerberg by
Guillaume
Paumier /
Wikimedia Commons,
CC-BY-3.0 Legologand
Genie in bottle by Jerry
Daykin from Cambridge,
United Kingdom
with additional material by
Agathar Christie and George
Orwell
The
Moving Finger writes; and,
having writ, Moves on: nor all
thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back
to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears
wash out a Word of it.
Postcript
Since this article was
written ...
Christopher McGee,
45, the train guard was found
guilty and sentanced
to 5 years imprisonment
for the manslaughter of
Georgia Varley. Her
mother described her as a
lovely polite, respectful
young lady. It
seem she had
been "unsteady
on her feet all night,
especially as she was
wearing four inch high
heels and had fallen
over several times on
the way to the station
and on the train"
and was high on the drug
MCat (mephedrone) and her
friends had tried to send
her home earlier in the
evening. CCTV
footage showed she was
leaning on the train when
it pulled out the
station... Still her
mother says she did
nothing more than what
many young girls her age
do - get drugged up and
drunk under age get on and
off a train a lot and be
completely drunk and
disorderly...?
Anyway ...
As it happens we did put in
an official complaint to the
BBC but it was rejected as
out of time.
However, following a repeat
of the program we put it in
again. Our complaint
read:
Complained before but "out
of time" - now you've
repeated it complaining
again
1) Richard
covers the case of Tom
Mullaney stating boy took
his life after "one night
of cyber bullying".
However, the Inquest into
the death of Tom showed
that he had autistic
problems, was suffering
from depression and had
been "excluded" from
School on the day of his
suicide and had
"behavioral issues".
Blaming suicide entirely
on Facebook is misleading.
2)
Richard touches on the
Georgia Varley case and
says her page was deluged
with negative comments.
This may be true but
Richard fails to mention
that the Daily Mail
plugged the Varley RIP
page (days after their
MacBryde trial coverage)
with an actual screengrab.
It is not mentioned that
during the Natasha
MacBryde suicide inquest
it was stated that she was
upset at her parents
divorce - her death is
solely, entirely and
unfairly dumped completely
on social networks.
3)
Richard covers the Horiato
Chapple case. But he fails
to mention that like
Georgia Varley's parents
they are involved in legal
cases which makes their
RIP pages political.
4)
Richard makes many
statements not backed up
by research. Like that
there is an "explosion in
online hate" in recent
years without showing
empirical evidence for
this.
5)
Michael Fitzpatrick is
attacks "anonymous haters"
literally from beind a
mask.
6) No
analysis of the Free
speech implications.
7)
Colom Coss was harassed
They replied
Dear Mr Miller
Thank you for your email
about The Antisocial
Network.
I
discussed your concerns
with the production team
who made this programme
for the BBC and I’d like
to try and address each of
your points in turn.
1) It
is believed by some, most
notably Tom’s parents,
that the bullying messages
pushed Tom to the edge and
had he not received those
messages at a time when he
was feeling vulnerable he
would not have killed
himself. Regardless of the
other things going on in
Tom’s life the fact that
his computer was left open
on the bullying messages
he had received speaks
volumes. Tom’s brother
makes the point that the
people did not know what
was going on in Tom’s
personal life when they
posted those messages, but
he also believes it was
the messages that pushed
him over the edge.
Time
considerations meant
that we couldn’t go into
any greater detail about
the case but Tom was not
the only pupil to have
been excluded – everyone
involved in the incident
had been excluded until
it had been fully
investigated. It is true
it was this incident
which formed the basis
of the cyber bullying
but it seems that it was
the online comments
about the incident – and
the threats to Tom –
which made him take his
life rather than just
the incident itself.
2) On
the Georgia Varley case
The Daily Mail did not
encourage Trolls to
exercise their “freedom of
speech” and leave messages
that would obviously be
devastating for the family
to read. The Daily Mail
reported on the RIP page,
they did not ‘plug’ it as
a site to leave hurtful
messages.
With regard to Natasha
McBryde, the tragic
reasons for her taking her
life bear no relevance to
the hurtful messages and
jokes that were posted by
so called internet ”
trolls” after she died.
The main focus of our
programme was why people
are using this medium and
its impact, so there
wasn’t the time to go into
detail.
3) It
is not clear what is meant
by the phrase ‘making the
pages political’. Some
parents are trying to take
legal action against those
who deface their
children’s RIP websites,
which is understandable.
4) There is clear evidence
that there has been an
explosion in the number of
cases of trolling and
cyber bullying in terms of
the numbers of complaints
made to the police and the
number of
convictions. In
terms of the mainstream
media, many more
complaints are being
reported worldwide about
this phenomenon of
trolling. Five years
ago there were hardly any
reports about RIP and
other forms of
trolling.
This is also the view of
anti-bullying charities
such as Beatbullying’s
research. One
charity has reported an
77% increase in cyber
bullying from 2009 -2011,
another, Beatbullying has
collated statistics
indicating that there is
now a very strong
likelihood of school
children being cyber
bullied “1 in 3 people
aged between 11 to 17
experience cyber bullying,
with girls being three
times more likely.”
5)
Michael wished to remain
anonymous due to fears for
his own – and his family’s
– personal safety, should
he reveal his true
identity. The
evidence that he gave to
us throughout the course
of the programme was
overwhelming and had
previously helped secure
two criminal convictions
of trolls. All evidence
was carefully analysed by
the production team.
6) The
issue of freedom of speech
was touched upon by
Richard when he discussed
the arguments given by
Facebook for allowing
messages to be published.
However the focus of the
programme was cyber
bullying, specifically
trolling, and a search for
why people troll.
7)
Colom Coss has previously
been convicted of posting
messages so vile, we were
not able to quote them on
the programme. The
production team was given
evidence that despite his
previous conviction, Mr
Coss had once again
started posting online
hate messages. These
allegations were put to Mr
Coss in writing and an
interview was offered. Mr
Coss refused to comment on
the allegations and in
such circumstances where
the public interest in a
story is deemed suffice
our guidelines allow an
individual to be
doorstepped. As you
will have noticed, Colm
declined to talk and
whilst Richard did try and
persuade him to comment he
did so in a polite manner
and when it was clear Colm
was not willing to
cooperate they parted
amicably.
I hope
this address your concerns
and explains the purpose
and focus of the
programme. Thank you again
for your comments and
suggestions which have
been passed on to and
discussed with the
production team.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Kettle
BBC Audience Services
You will notice that their
reply has rather more words
in than my original
complaint. This is
because complaints ar
extremely space limited in
the online submission
form. As they had more
space to make their points
than I did and I wasn't sure
all their answers made sense
I replied:
1) I still
feel the Tom Mullaney case
was presented in a way
that was misleading.
Significant data such as
the fight at the school
and the exclusion was
concealed from the viewer
by accident or design? Tom
left no suicide note and
his parents were out -
because they believe
things does not make them
right.
2) The
Daily Mail reproduced a
large screengrab of
Georgia Varley's Facebook
page in their paper which
must have increased
traffic. I think covering
so many cases in so little
detail is bound to lead to
a lack of perspective.
3) If
the parents are seeking
changes in the law as Tom
Mullaney's are their
motives are overtly
political. I would say
campaigning for people to
be convicted of criminal
offenses is also a
political act. Of course
it is everyone's right to
campaign but these
campaigns are still
political and so opposing
views should be
represented?
4)
There may be an increase
in online bullying but has
it been measured against
the statistics of the
number of people online?
Why was the provinance of
the data not put forth?
Perhaps because
Beatbullying is a
political lobbying
organisation? What they
campaign for may be
desirable but opposing
views should also be
represented?
5) Too
ludicrous
6)
"The issue of freedom of
speech was touched upon
..." It is the briefness
of that touch that led me
to believe bias.
7) I
think Coss was simply a
substituted when Richard's
own stalker could not be
tracked down.
To which they replied:
Dear Mr Miller
Thank
you for your contacting us
again regarding The
Anti-Social Network. I
dissed your concerns with
the production team.
Please accept our
apologies for the delay in
responding.
In a
programme looking at the
issue of cyber-bullying it
was entirely appropriate
to examine its role in Tom
Mullaney's death. As you
may know, at the inquest
the coroner said that the
online threats had "played
a part" and the Detective
Chief Inspector of West
Midlands Police's public
protection unit is quoted
as saying that "Tom had
been on Facebook and
became engaged in a series
of conversations with
another youth. From what I
have seen, they were
always one-way traffic.
The threats were from
another party to Tom." The
individual responsible for
the threats was cautioned
under the Malicious
Communications Act.
In any case, it simply
isn't accurate to suggest
that the programme
contains no allusion to
the other things going on
in Tom's life which may
also have contributed in
some way to his death.
Richard quite clearly
states that "six or seven
kids had posted
threatening messages about
a fight Tom had been
involved in that day at
school". Later in the
programme he says, in
reference to Tom, "often
the bullies just don't
know how vulnerable their
victims are" which is
followed by Tom's brother,
who says "I don't think
they understand what
they've said pushed my
brother over the top,
because they don't know
what was going on in his
personal life."
We
would also point out that
the programme does not
examine the cases of
Georgia Varley or Natasha
MacBryde. It contains
fleeting shots of
newspaper and online
coverage of the fact that
tribute pages to Georgia
Varley had been targeted
by trolls - we cannot see
how the limited 'coverage'
of this story constitutes
bias.
On the broader question of
balance; the programme
includes many stories of
the extreme hurt caused to
individuals, their friends
and families as a result
of abusive messages being
posted online. It also
includes personal comment
from Richard as someone
who has been a victim of
trolling. However, it also
hears from two individuals
who have admitted to, or
who have been convicted
of, trolling and they were
given ample opportunity to
put their points of view
across. Likewise, Facebook
was given the opportunity
to respond to the
allegation that they had
done nothing to remove
some comments and images
that Horatio Chapple's
family found upsetting:
"[Facebook] say they
remove offensive comments
within 24 hours of them
being reported. But
sometimes distasteful
images and comments,
including [the 'Eton mess'
image], do not violate
their rules, as they're
trying to strike a balance
between censorship and
freedom of expression."
With
the above paragraph in
mind, it should be noted
that although the BBC's
Editorial Guidelines
outline our commitment
to reflecting a breadth
and diversity of
opinion, they also state
that impartiality does
not necessarily require
the range of
perspectives or opinions
to be covered in equal
proportions either
across our output as a
whole or within a single
programme. The
guidelines talk about "due
weight" which, for
example, means that
minority views should not
necessarily be given equal
weight to the prevailing
consensus.
I hope
this response addresses
your concerns but should
you wish to escalate your
complaint to the next
stage of the BBC’s
complaints process it is
open for you to contact
the BBC's Editorial
Complaints Unit to appeal
for an independent
investigation. You can
write to them (within 20
working days) at the
following address:
Yours sincerely,
Paul Kettle
BBC Audience Services
So there
you are. Seems the
BBC are allowed to be
biased so long as they
truly believe the views on
this page only belong to a
tiny minority of
people. Maybe they
do? If they don't
maybe YOU should do
something about
it...? Hopefully we
are not a lone insane
voice here at the
Pear. You may think
all you can do is write a
letter but remember ... Your
letter is only the start
of it. One letter
and now you’re a part of
it.
Ah, well, ... I suppose we
could pursue this all the
way to the BBC Trust board
but then again .....it
probably would be a waste
of time and licence
payer's money to write to
a governing body that
replaced a sensible one
with something that is now
supposed to also be a
regulator as well which is
too confusing for me ...why
was it again that the
Board of Governers was
replaced with a trust?
Anyway ...and er ...
seriously...
... we
do understand that the
BBC Trust
have a lot of other more
pressing problems at the
moment.
Post
Post Script
The
government seem to
have little
intention of
repealing Section
127 of the
Communications Act
2003. However,
in an attempt to
avoid a repetition
of the Robin Hood
Airport case they
have published new
prosecution
guidelines and
initiated a new
consultation.
This reads:
The
Crown Prosecution
Service (CPS) today
released a set of
interim guidelines
outlining
regulations for
communications sent
via social media,
such as Twitter.
Mr Starmer (head of
the CPS) said:
"These
interim guidelines
are intended to
strike the right
balance between
freedom of
expression and the
need to uphold the
criminal
law. They
make a clear
distinction
between
communications
which amount to
credible threats
of violence, a
targeted campaign
of harassment
against an
individual or
which breach court
orders on the one
hand, and other
communications
sent by social
media, e.g. those
that are grossly
offensive, on the
other. The
first group will
be prosecuted
robustly whereas
the second group
will only be
prosecuted if they
cross a high
threshold; a
prosecution is
unlikely to be in
the public
interest if the
communication is
swiftly removed,
blocked, not
intended for a
wide audience or
not obviously
beyond what could
conceivably be
tolerable or
acceptable in a
diverse society
which upholds and
respects freedom
of
expression.
The interim
guidelines thus
protect the
individual from
threats or
targeted
harassment while
protecting the
expression of
unpopular or
unfashionable
opinion about
serious or trivial
matters, or banter
or humour, even if
distasteful to
some and painful
to those subjected
to it."
ACPO lead on
communications Chief
Constable Andy Trotter
said:
"This
interim guidance
sets out clear
advice to police
forces in England
and Wales on
handling
complaints from
the public
relating to social
media. It takes a
common sense
approach and will
help support
consistency from
prosecutors and
police. We welcome
the opportunity
for early
consultation to
take place between
CPS and police
before any action
is taken in these
cases."
Chief Executive of
Victim Support Javed
Khan said:
"Victims
tell us that
sustained and
vindictive
targeting on
social media can
leave long lasting
emotional and
psychological
scars, so we
warmly welcome
clarification on
how prosecutors
will deal with
online threats or
harassment.
The distinction
between
communications
which constitute a
credible threat
and those which
may merely cause
offence is sorely
needed. In
particular we
welcome the
guideline which
makes a
prosecution more
likely if a victim
is specifically
targeted and this
has a significant
impact on
them. We
will watch how the
interim guidelines
are used with
interest and will
respond to them in
detail during the
consultation
period."
The
interim guidelines
do not change the
law, but set out the
approach prosecutors
should follow when
considering cases
relating to
communications sent
via social media.
The guidelines come
into immediate
effect, and are
subject to a
three-month public
consultation which
starts today.
Mr Starmer added:
"We
want the interim
guidelines to be
as fully informed
as possible, which
is why we held a
series of
roundtable
discussions and
meetings with
Twitter, Facebook,
Liberty and other
stakeholders,
police and
regulators, victim
groups, academics,
journalists and
bloggers, lawyers
and sports
organisations
ahead of drafting
them. I would now
encourage everyone
with an interest
in this matter to
give us their
views by
responding to the
public
consultation."
Introduction
1.
These guidelines set
out the approach
that prosecutors
should take when
making decisions in
relation to
cases where it
is alleged that
criminal offences
have been committed
by the sending of a
communication via
social media. The
guidelines are
designed to give
clear advice to
prosecutors who have
been asked either
for a charging
decision or for
early advice to the
police, as well as
in reviewing those
cases which have
been charged by the
police. Adherence to
these guidelines
will ensure that
there is a
consistency of
approach across the
CPS.
2.
The guidelines cover
the offences
that are likely to
be most commonly
committed by the
sending of
communications via
social media. These
guidelines equally
apply to the
resending (or
retweeting) of
communications and
whenever they refer
to the sending of a
communication, the
guidelines should
also be read as
applying to the
resending of a
communication.
However, for the
reasons set out
below, the context
in which any
communication is
sent will be highly
material.
3.
These guidelines
are
primarily
concerned with
offences that may
be committed by
reason of the
nature or content
of a communication
sent via social
media. Where
social media is
simply used to
facilitate some
other substantive
offence,
prosecutors
should proceed
under the
substantive
offence in
question.
4.
These guidelines
are interim
guidelines and
they have
immediate effect.
At the end of the
public
consultation
period, they will
be reviewed in
light of the
responses
received.
Thereafter final
guidelines will be
published.
General
Principles
5.
Prosecutors may only
start a prosecution
if a case satisfies
the test set out in
the Code for Crown
Prosecutors. This
test has two stages:
the first is the
requirement of
evidential
sufficiency and the
second involves
consideration of the
public interest.
6.
As far as the
evidential stage is
concerned, a
prosecutor must be
satisfied that there
is sufficient
evidence to provide
a realistic prospect
of conviction. This
means that an
objective, impartial
and reasonable jury
(or bench of
magistrates or judge
sitting alone),
properly directed
and acting in
accordance with the
law, is more likely
than not to
convict. It is
an objective test
based upon the
prosecutor’s
assessment of the
evidence (including
any information that
he or she has about
the defence).
7.
A case which does
not pass the
evidential stage
must not
proceed, no
matter how serious
or sensitive it may
be.
8.
It has never been
the rule that a
prosecution will
automatically take
place once the
evidential stage is
satisfied. In every
case where there is
sufficient evidence
to justify a
prosecution,
prosecutors must go
on to consider
whether a
prosecution is
required in the
public interest.
9.
Every case must be
considered on its
own individual facts
and merits. No
prospective immunity
from criminal
prosecution can
eve be given
and nothing in these
guidelines should be
read as suggesting
otherwise.
10.
In the majority of
cases, prosecutors
should only decide
whether to prosecute
after the
investigation has
been completed.
However, there will
be cases
occasionally where
it is clear,
prior to the
collection and
consideration of all
the likely evidence,
that the public
interest does not
require a
prosecution. In
these cases,
prosecutors may
decide that the case
should not proceed
further.
11.
Cases involving the
sending of
communications via
social media are
likely to benefit
from early
consultation between
police and
prosecutors, and the
police are
encouraged to
contact the CPS at
an early stage of
the investigation.
Initial
assessment
12.
Communications sent
via social
media are capable
of
amounting to
criminal offences
and prosecutors
should make an
initial assessment
of the content of
the communication
and the course of
conduct in question
so as to distinguish
between:
(1)
Communications which
may constitute
credible threats of
violence to the
person or damage to
property.
(2)
Communications which
specifically target
an individual or
individuals and
which may constitute
harassment or
stalking within the
meaning of the
Protection from
Harassment Act 1997
or which may
constitute other
offences, such as
blackmail.
(3)
Communications which
may amount to a
breach of a court
order . This can
include offences
under the Contempt
of Court Act 1981 or
section 5 of the
Sexual Offences
(Amendment) Act
1992. All such cases
should be referred
to the Attorney
General, and via the
Principal Legal
Advisor’s team where
necessary.
(4)
Communications which
do not fall into any
of the categories
above and fall to be
considered
separately (see
below): i.e. those
which may be
considered
grossly offensive,
indecent, obscene or
false.
13.
As a general
approach, cases
falling within
paragraphs 12 (1),
(2) or (3) should be
prosecuted robustly
where they satisfy
the test set out in
the Code for Crown
Prosecutors. Whereas
cases which fall
within paragraph
12(4) will be
subject to a high
threshold and in
many cases a
prosecution is
unlikely to be in
the public
interest.
14.
Having identified
which of the
categories set out
in paragraph 12 the
communication and
the course of
conduct in
question falls into,
prosecutors should
follow the approach
set out under the
relevant heading
below.
(1)
Credible threats
15.
Communications
which may
constitute
credible threats
of violence to
the person may
fall to be
considered under
section 16 of the
Offences Against
the Person Act
1861 if the threat
is a threat to
kill within the
meaning of that
provision.
16.
Other credible
threats of violence
to the person may
fall to be
considered under
section 4 of the
Protection from
Harassment Act 1997
if they amount to a
course of conduct
within the
meaning of
that
provision and
there is sufficient
evidence to
establish the
necessary state of
knowledge.
17.
Credible threats of
violence to the
person or damage to
property may also
fall to be
considered under
section 127 of the
Communications Act
2003 which prohibits
the sending of
messages of a
“menacing character”
by means of a public
telecommunications
network. However,
before proceeding
with a prosecution
under section 127,
prosecutors should
heed 5 the words of
the Lord Chief
Justice in
Chambers v DPP
[2012] EWH2
2157 (Admin) where
he said:
“…
a message which does
not create fear or
apprehension in
those to whom it is
communicated, or may
reasonably be
expected to see it,
falls outside
[section 127(i)(a)],
for the simple
reason that the
message lacks
menace.” (Paragraph
30) As
a general rule,
threats which
are not credible
should not be
prosecuted,
unless they form
part of a
campaign of
harassment
specifically
targeting an
individual
within the
meaning of the
Protection from
Harassment Act
1997.
18.
Where there is
evidence of
discrimination,
prosecutors should
pay particular
regard to the
provisions of
section 28-32
of the Crime and
Disorder Act 1998
and section 145
of the
Criminal Justice Act
2003 (increase in
sentences for
racial and
religious
aggravation) and
section 146 of the
Criminal Justice
Act 2003
(increase in
sentences for
aggravation related
to disability,
sexual orientation
or transgender
identity).
(2)
Communications
targeting specific
individuals
19.
If communications
sent via social
media target a
specific individual
or individuals, they
will fall to
be considered
under the Protection
from Harassment Act
1997 where they
amount to a course
of conduct within
the meaning of
section 7 of that
Act. In such cases,
prosecutors should
follow the CPS Legal
Guidance on Stalking
and Harassment.
20.
Where communications
target a specific
individual and
the offence of
blackmail is made
out, prosecutors
should seek to
prosecute the
substantive offence.
21.
Again, where there
is evidence of
discrimination,
prosecutors should
pay particular
regard to the
provisions of
section 28-32
of the Crime and
Disorder Act 1998
and section 145
of the
Criminal Justice Act
2003 (increase in
sentences for
racial and
religious
aggravation) and
section 146 of the
Criminal Justice
Act 2003
(increase in
sentences for
aggravation related
to disability,
sexual orientation
or transgender
identity).
(3)
Breach of court
orders
22.
Court orders can
apply to those
communicating via
social media in the
same way as they
apply to others.
Accordingly, any
communication via
social media that
may breach a court
order falls to be
considered under the
relevant
legislation,
including the
Contempt of Court
Act 1981 and section
5 of the Sexual
Offences (Amendment)
Act 1992, which
makes it an offence
to publish material
wh
