ASA BAN OAT MILK ADS OVER GREEN STATS
Guardian. 'Oatly is the latest big brand to be called out by the ASA after a pledge the watchdog made last September to crackdown on unsubstantiated or misleading green claims being made by firms.
Last week, the watchdog banned ads run by Lipton, which is owned by drinks giant Pepsi, over misleading claims that all parts of its bottles are made from 100% recycled plastic.'
COURT FORCES MAIL INTO MEGHAN FRONT PAGE APOLOGY AND MULTI-MILLION PAYOUT
Guardian. IPSO nowhere to be seen of course.
IPSO FIND MAIL GUILTY BUT REFUSE TO JUDGE RACISM CLAIM
Guardian. '. The committee made no ruling in respect of a second complaint that the article breached clause 12 of its code, which calls on titles to “avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual’s race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability”. It said it was unable to consider the issue because the complainant was not personally affected. ' The article
MURDOCH AVOIDS SUN HACKING COURT CASE WITH SIENNA MILLAR PREGNANCY PAYOUT
The actor had wanted to take the case to a court hearing. It after getting a large payout has decided not to risk the large legal bills - and clearly hasn’t signed a gagging agreement, continuing to air her string claims against the paper. Murdoch has maintained the line that phone hacking was limited to the News of the Screws, never The S*n, never mind that this is the latest large payout to a claimant against the paper. In all cases no guilt has been admitted. Guardian.
UK GOVERNMENT CMA DEMANDS FB/META SELL GIPHY: WILL ZUCKERBERG REFUSE?
I noted this possibility quite a while ago and now even the most right-wing government in modern British history has ruled that the free market failure in the social media sphere is so bad that they require FB/Meta to sell off Giphy (Guardian).
BUT... FB are claiming this is "overreach" and that the UK government should not be able to make this ruling on an American company. Despite huge pressure from both sides of the US Congress and within the presidency too FB will resist and seek to overturn or block the order. Both Trump and Biden have attacked Facebook but both have also shown willingness to defend the US new media giants from non-domestic taxation and regulation.
REPORT ON UK PRESS ISLAMOPHOBIA
BBFC PUBLIC PANEL ZERO TOLERANCE OF N-WORD, NOW MIN 12 RATING UNLESS EDUCATIONAL
Guardian reports on BBFC's response to its latest public attitudes research.
DISNEY+ HONG KONG LAUNCH CUTS SIMPSONS CHINA EPISODE
Guardian. 'In the cartoon there is a sign in [Tianamen] square that reads “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened”, a satirical nod to China’s campaign to purge memories of what happened.'
MADONNA'S OUTRAGE AT INSTAGRAM NIPPLE BAN
Part of Madonna's nipple being visible triggered an image ban - and an outburst from the fed up star. Her age, 63, adds a layer to this, and she did denounce the sexism, misogyny and ageism she has faced. See post on my RepGender blog.
GULF STATES BAN DISNEY'S MCU ETERNAL OVER GAY KISS
See Guardian.
FACEBOOK FRANCE JOINS AUSTRALIA IN PAYING FOR NEWSPAPER CONTENT
The emerging taming of the wild wild web continues to crawl its way ashore... Guardian.
ENGLISH COUNCIL URGES PARENTS TO BAN SQUID GAMES AFTER COPYCAT OUTBREAK
If it was film they'd have power to ban it... Guardian
NETFLIX DAVE CHAPELLE TRANSPHOBIA ROW
It looks likely that Netflix will be overtaken in subscriber numbers by one or more of Disney+ and Amazon - its long-term prospects are a little shaky. This row won't help, with cancellations and boycott over its support for Chappelle's transphobic comments in his new Netflix special. Guardian.
BIG 3 STREAMING DOMINANCE IN NUMBERS
Guardian: 'the top 1% of artists account for 80% of all streams, and that 10% account for 98% of all listening by fans.
And of the most popular tracks, big music companies own the rights to three times as many among the top 10% as those owned by independent labels. In any given week, nine of the top 10 selling songs globally – the streaming cash cows – are owned by one of the three big music companies.'
PANDEMIC FUELLED PIRACY BOOM
Lockdown has brought many more into using piracy as a main part of their film/TV (not least sport) viewing. The spread of exclusive content from Netflix, Amazon Prime to a growing number (Disney+, Peacock...) has meant facing multiple subscriptions - too many to pay for for many viewers who've instead switched to piracy, and maybe pay for one music service (Spotify or Apple Music mainly).
The emerging use of simultaneous streaming and cinema release has also made it easier for pirates to access high quality movie files. Guardian.
OFCOM 2021 ATTITUDE SURVEY: SWEARING OK, RACISM/TRANSPHOBIA NOT...UNLESS OLDER
Multiple useful takeaways from this, but the split over banning repeats of film/TV with aspects like blackface splits the younger (ban it!) and older (it simply reflects attitudes at that time).
Useful point too linked to Pogues case study, words like "faggot" 'were highly offensive and required a very strong editorial justification if they were to be included in a programme' Guardian.
STORY
OUTLINE
FB AWARE OF TEEN GIRL INSTAGRAM HARM EFFECTS SAYS WSJ REPORT----OCTOBER: US SENATE HEARS FROM WHISTLEBLOWER EXPOSING FACEBOOK DANGERS
Early October Guardian update: the Senate heard from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and now speak of breaking up or acting on Facebook like big tobacco companies were eventually reined in.
Late September update: Facebook executive faced a sceptical, hostile US Senate Committee that referred to the leaked internal Instagram research showing how harmful the app is to young females. Guardian.
Guardian; FB has already responded to the in-depth Wall Street Journal (like the USA's version of the Financial Times but more widely influential) - owned by Murdoch. It denies all.
Shocking stats - this eg is NOT centred on just Insta, though it's generally accepted as the main driver of body issues (porn content is also negatively impactful):
'Two in five girls (40%) aged 11 to 16 in the UK say they have seen images online that have made them feel insecure or less confident about themselves. This increases to half (50%) in girls aged 17 to 21, according to research by Girlguiding in its annual girls’ attitudes survey.'
'The head of Instagram risked fanning criticism of the app on Thursday with comments that compared social media’s impact on society to that of cars. “We know that more people die than would otherwise because of car accidents, but by and large, cars create way more value in the world than they destroy. And I think social media is similar,” said Adam Mosseri.'
SWEARING LOSING SHOCK VALUE - SCHITT'S CREEK etc
Guardian: 'Ultimately, despite a backlash to certain series, it seems that we’re finding “bad words” on television less gasp-inducing in general, according to Ofcom, and the number of people who bother to make official complaints about it appears to be on the decline as well. The regulator says just three viewers complained about the title The End of the F***ing World when it was broadcast, and 12 viewers when the trailer aired pre-watershed. These complaints “were assessed and not pursued”, it says. The last big fine imposed on a broadcaster for swearing was back in 2008 for MTV, which had to cough up £255,000 for “repeatedly airing swearing and offensive language” on its pre-watershed shows, including a trailer for the show Totally Jodie Marsh, in which the words “some fucking wanker from a modelling agency” were uttered.'
BBFC CONFIRM LONG-TERM NETFLIX ARRANGEMENT
Theyve deemed their self-rating trial a success. BBC
ADS BANNED FOR SEXISM, OBJECTIFYING
Staggering that these were passed by agencies and brands as okay! Guardian
GOVERNMENT TRY TO FIX OFCOM APPOINTMENT PROCESS TO INSTALL PAUL DACRE - BUT STRUGGLE TO FIND PROFESSIONALS WILLING TO RISK DAMAGING THEIR REPUTATION
This is the type of behaviour that made Trump's administration so notorious a questioned for its democratic legitimacy. Dacre was the long-term Mail editor well known for his hostility towards the BBC and C4. OfCom is supposed to be the neutral media regulator - this shows the power of making appointments (see also the multiple Conservatives now running the BBC). Guardian
OFCOM FOLLOW UP CGTN BAN WITH £200K FINE!
Having withdrawn their license because the company with that license wasn't directly controlling the editorial decisions - ultimately the Chinese government was - a sizeable fine has been added! (Aug 2021; license withdrawal Feb 2021)
'The regulator revoked CGTN's licence in February after an Ofcom investigation found the international English-language satellite news channel was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, which is not permitted under UK broadcasting law' BBC
MURDOCH AUSTRALIA PAPERS 42 STORIES IN 2 DAYS ATTACKING ABC DOC ON FOX NEWS AS TRUMP TRUMPETER
It's hard to argue that Fox News was an agressive mouthpiece for Trump, enthusiastically cheering their man and his policies. Racism, sexism, craven celebration of ignorance - nothing could shake their fervent faith. Owner Murdoch would be outed as not a fan of the man when he lost the election - though of course Fox backtracked on their dismissal of Trump's stolen election fiction. But hard right-wing politics are precisely what Murdoch's global press empire pushes for day in, day out.
The Chomskian propaganda model filters of source strategy, concentration of ownership (he enjoys a near monopoly in the Australian press) and of course flak were all at play in this unsubtle attack against an ABC (the BBC equivalent) doc. Thin-skinned Murdoch has also launched an OfCom complaint against the BBC series The Murdoch Dynasty, which dates to unpick how he has parlayed his media empire into political influence, the decades-long kingmaker in not just British politics - never forget Tony Blair flew to a News Corp meeting in Australia to strike a secret deal before the 1997 election win.
'News Corp has published 45 articles in just two days attacking the public broadcaster across its Australian mastheads.
The ABC told Guardian Australia News Corp’s reaction was expected. “The Australian’s first column attacking the story was published before the first episode had even gone to air,” a spokesperson said. “Since then, the striking uniformity of the attacks from News Corp journalists, commentators and outlets across the nation has only further served to highlight the importance of having a range of independent voices in the Australian media.' Guardian
KHAN BRINGS NEW FTC ANTITRUST CASE AGAINST FACEBOOK, TARGETS MULTIPLE TECH GIANTS
Facebook tried to get her to recuse herself for past critical remarks about the social media behemoth. The refusal is indicative of a newly assertive FTC, which could see huge changes in the FAANGS-dominated new media sphere ... though the FTC lost an anti-trust against FB recently for failing to adequately show FB was a monopoly. Guardian.
FACEBOOK UK FORCED TO SELL GIPHY? CONTROLS OVER HALF UK DIGITAL ADS MARKET
Quite ludicrous how two companies are allowed still to control over 90% of the digital advertising market, but at last a hint of some action? 'The watchdog said the deal also removes a potential competitor from the £5.5bn UK digital display advertising market, where Facebook is the biggest player accounting for more than half the market.' 'The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an in-depth investigation earlier this year into Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy, the largest supplier of animated gifs to social networks such as Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter, after identifying a number of concerns about the $400m (£290m) deal which was struck last year.' Guardian.
BBFC JUSTIFY 15 FOR THE SUICIDE SQUAD
Quite a familiar rationale ... it's fantasy style, violence isn't sustained... Indie
BBFC MOCKS IT'S OWN 80s VIDEO NASTIES PAST, SPITTING SURVEY STATS TO JUSTIFY ITSELF AS HORROR FILM "CENSOR" REFLECTS ON THE MARY WHITEHOUSE/MAIL MORAL PANIC
Lots of useful material in this Guardian feature. Austin is BBFC chief executive....
'Ask Austin how he feels about the 80s BBFC and you might think he was talking about a late, disgraced elderly relative. The Video Recordings Act of 1984 gave the BBFC control over the films people watched at home; in the same year, the board dropped the word “censors” from its title. But, to Austin, a more profound change came in 1999. That was when the board switched from airing examiners’ hang-ups to transparent guidelines drawn from public consultation. Twenty-two years later, 10,000 members of the British public are still asked annually to gauge the level of sex and violence that should be viewable by, say, a typical 12-year-old. “I don’t just make up the standards in Soho Square,” Austin says. “Our standards are given to us by the public.”
Yet not everyone is at peace with the BBFC. In 2016, the film-maker Charlie Shackleton pushed back. His objections included its financial model: not profit-making, but reliant on distributors having no choice but to submit their films for certification – and to pay the BBFC to do so, for each minute of screen time. His provocative response was Paint Drying, a 10-hour study of a freshly painted wall. The classification fee was crowdfunded, the issue publicised. (The film got a U.) Shackleton remains a sceptic. “It suits the BBFC to highlight video nasties. They acknowledge the absurdity of their past and tell everyone they’re different now. Then they release another survey to justify their existence.”
(“And 88% of parents found it useful when Netflix started using BBFC classification,” Austin says.) But the relationship is unusual. Rather than submit content to examiners, the company uses an algorithm developed with the board. The bill is substantially cheaper.
Austin wants to work with other big streamers. But the real prize is the internet. If video nasties were an early freakout at rising individualism, online life is the world after the flood. Here, more than movies, is where the questions of the 80s endure. When does “I don’t want to look at this” attract the addendum “and no one else should” or “because they might copy it”? “That was video nasties in a nutshell,” Bailey-Bond says. “It came from people feeling everyone was morally shady, that we’re only ever one film from garotting someone with a shoelace.”
OFCOM THREATENS TO GET TOUGH WITH SOCIAL MEDIA FLR RACISM FAILURES - BUT DOES IT HAVE THE POWER?
OfCom will gain some control under the Online Safety Act, the power to fine. But NOT the power to remove licenses it has, and has used, for broadcast media, and the BBFC effectively has for film. Will these global giants really change in any meaningful way through fining?
FRANCE HITS GOOGLE WITH €500m FINE FOR COPYRIGHT THEFT FROM PRESS
France is taking a lead within the EU (Germany and Holland also passing their own laws) on beginning to regulate the new media giants. They've fined Google for not negotiating 'in good faith' with French media (especially press) for a formal system of compensation for featuring their content, as previously ordered by French courts. Google refutes this. Guardian.
OFCOM COMPLAINTS RISE 4-FOLD, ALL TOP 10 ITV, 3 PIERS MORGAN, 2 BLM
BBC. A 410% increase. I'd have to think that's reflective of the number of people under lockdown plus many watching shows like GMB they normally wouldn't.
PHONE-HACKING + NOTW CLOSURE 10 YEARS LATER: JOURNALISTS REFECT
Looking back at the News of the World’s closure a decade on, Davies said a chance for real change had been missed: “There was an extraordinary period which only lasted a few weeks and it was like seeing the teacher chased out of the classroom. And just for a brief period, we didn’t have to be frightened of Rupert Murdoch and his dreadful newspapers and politicians were free to say what they thought and advertisers were free to tell him to get stuffed.
“But you know, power doesn’t relax its grip easily. And slowly and insidiously Murdoch got his bony fingers back around the throat of British public life and has kept them there.” Guardian.
MORE AUTHORITARIANISM: BORIS ALLY TRIED TO BLOCK BBC APPOINTMENT
Guardian. The advisor who came up with the media strategy on the race report (Britain isn't racist, yay! in summary) and worked on the right-wing TV news station GB News, warned the BBC not to appoint someone from the HuffPost. Which Boris was battling with after he okayed a minister using Twitter to bring thtreat to a journalist. He texted: 'the government’s “fragile trust in the BBC will be shattered” if she went ahead'.
Labour subsequently demanded the resignation or sacking of Gibb, former Communications Director for Theresa May as PM (Guardian). Alistair Campbell, Blair's media pitbull, had a colourful phrase to describe the Tory/Johnson attempts to shape and control the media, culling critical voices: "Putinism with posh accents". Gibb sits on the BBC Board; 'According to the corporation’s website, one of Gibb’s responsibilities as a non-executive director on the BBC board involves “upholding and protecting the independence of the BBC”.'
FRANCE: ISLAMOPHOBE TEEN PROTECTED, ONLINE ABUSERS CONVICTED
A hugely controversial case (Guardian) in which the right to attack religions has been legally safeguarded and judged as separate from racism, therefore not legally defined hate speech, whilst abusive online posters were convicted of hate speech and intimidation. The judge established online behaviour to be no different to physical interaction, and to be judged accordingly:
“Social networks are like the street,” presiding magistrate Michael Humbert said on Wednesday as he handed down his judgments. “When you cross someone in the street, you don’t insult, mock or threaten them. What you don’t do in the street, you don’t do on social media.”
OFCOM SAY GB NEWS OK...BUT BLAST JOHN LENNON PEACE VIDEO
BBC: It seems there's no going back from the radical reinterpretation of broadcast news balance/accuracy requirements. Much like IPSO + the PCC before it, opinion segments are getting extra leeway, while the inclusion of some/any counterviews, regardless of how they're presented or undermined, seems now to mean right-wing Trumpian/Fox-style 'news' shows are okay.
The Lennon case is about the use of 1 of 2 videos for Happy Xmas (War is Over) which features short clips of real war footage.
As with Indie social realist films getting hammered with high BBFC age ratings, it seems that reality/realism is not to be encouraged!!!
FLASH GORDON BBFC'S BIGGEST 2020 CONTROVERSY! KARATE KID RATING CHOPPED
A new DVD edition was uprated for its use of stereotypes, eventually leading to ... 26 complaints. Pinocchio was #2! FilmStories.
SkyNews is one of many other sites who detail the range of upratings like Star Wars and LotR, but also Karate Kid dropping down to 12.
FACEBOOK TRUMP ANTITRUST LAWSUIT; ABOVE THE LAW?
They joined Apple, Amazon, Alphabet/Google, and Microsoft as $1 TRILLION valued companies as their shares soared after the judge ruled the FTC had no case; they shouldn't have let it buy WhatsApp and Instagram if they wanted to argue it was a monopoly suppressing trade. Guardian.
CLIMATE GROUP PROTESTS PRESS BY DUMPING MANURE OUTSIDE THE MAIL
Their point being that the Mail is full of it.
'Speaking for the [XR, Extinction Rebellion] group, Gully Bujak said: “For the British public, who’ve seen the criminal behaviour of this government and their cronies throughout the pandemic, the conclusion must surely be clear: the arenas of power in this country are rotten, and where the billionaire-owned press is concerned, corruption is the business model.
“It’s time they cut the crap and stop acting as though they are providing a noble service to the public, while greenwashing the climate crisis and stoking the culture war to divide people.”' Guardian.
MURDOCH LOOKS LIKE HE'LL GET UK GOVERNMENT TO DUMP RESTRICTIONS
The limited, ineffective supposed block on Murdoch's interference in Times editorial + legal divide between the Times/Sunday Times were 'put in place in 1981 by Margaret Thatcher’s government as part of a compromise deal to allow Murdoch to buy the two papers without needing approval from monopoly regulators' (Guardian).
This is rather chilling: 'Extinction Rebellion said four female members were arrested on Friday at one of its east London warehouses where they had been creating art for the Free the Press march on Sunday.'
NFTs AND THE WEB 2.0 FATE OF TEXTS
From a long-read Guardian feature:
There is one big problem at the heart of meme NFTs. Whatever their advocates argue, in themselves they have no inherent value, being fundamentally non-monetisable at their core. The meme only assumes cultural capital through mass transmission, and mass transmission only takes place when the meme is free to share. You’d never pay to send a meme, any more than you’d pay to tell a joke, or send a nude. The meme is a gift from one person to another, spontaneously, voluntarily, without any expectation of financial reward. Memes belong to everybody and nobody. You can’t apply the principles of free-market capitalism to a meme because, by its very nature, a meme is not an asset class but a living organism.
“What is important and interesting about memes from a critical perspective is that they don’t belong to anybody,” says art critic Davis. “They are distributed among people, but it’s what thousands of people did with it – that’s the meme. And when you take a meme and treat it like a conventional art object by saying: ‘Here is the unique thing, you own it,’ it creates confusion about what is valuable about the meme. It’s not the image itself that is valuable. The image was just a container for a huge number of jokes.”
EU TO IMPOSE QUOTA ON BRITISH FILM/TV?
And so the great Brexit triumph continues... The UK music industry faces crisis as touring in the EU is made impossible (British drivers are only allowed to take tour vans to 3 venues then must return to the UK, with carnets, tax forms, required now too for all equipment).
The booming UK film/TV industry now faces a huge hit too. The EU are likely to impose a quota on UK productions to protect domestic European production and culture, echoing the quotas in place to protect against American dominance, or cultural imperialism. In France, for example, this applies across radio, film and TV.
One of several Guardian reports notes:
Good example of the clash of left/right-wing thinking, plus this government's determined attack on anything 'woke' (obviously argued one way through the Guardian lens):
Under the EU’s audiovisual media services directive, a majority of airtime must be given to such European content on terrestrial television and it must make up at least 30% of the number of titles on video on demand (VOD) platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.
UK GOV TO PRIVATISE C4?
Good example of the clash of left/right-wing thinking, plus this government's determined attack on anything 'woke' (obviously argued one way through the Guardian lens): Guardian
ARE US NEWSPAPERS POST-DEMOCRACY ASSETS TO STRIP? HEDGE FUNDS STRIP THEM BARE AS 25% OF US LOCAL/REGIONAL PAPERS CLOSED SINCE 2005 - AND CLOSURE RATE ACCELERATES
See Guardian analysis.
MURDOCH LINKED TO KILLING; MET POLICE INSTITUTIONALLY CORRUPT FOR COVER-UP; POLICE CORRUPTION FOR MURDOCH PRESS LINKS ... REMEMBER UK CON. PM CAMERON BLOCKED LEVESON INQUIRY INTO POLICE/POLITICAL LINKS TO PRESS
This should be a political earthquake. IPSO should be springing into action.
But instead - the government immediately rejected the inquiry's finding that the Met Police commissioner should resign. IPSO, of course, said nothing and faces no political pressure to do so. It only reacts to articles, nothing else. Guardian June 2021.
FACEBOOK COLONIALISM? HOW DATA 'CHARITY' ENTRAPS COUNTRIES' USERS IN WALLED, NET NEUTRALITY-SMASHING SURVEILLANCE - AND WHY INDIA BANNED IT (think Andrew Keen...)
A lengthy but fascinating read (Guardian).
'India, the most important market outside of the west, where ungrateful critics perceived it an example of “digital colonialism” and it was eventually blocked by the country’s telecoms regulator on the grounds that it violated the principle of net neutrality by explicitly favouring some kinds of online content while effectively blocking others. Beyond India, however, Free Basics seems to be thriving, being used by “up to 100 million” people in 65 countries, including 28 in Africa.
Last May, Facebook launched a kind of Free Basics 2.0 called Discover. It’s a mobile app that can be used to browse any website using a daily balance of free data from participating mobile network partners. Effectively, it strips out all website content that’s data-intensive (images, video, audio) and displays a pared-down version of the site. “We’re exploring ways to help people stay on the internet more consistently,” explains the Facebook blurb. “Many internet users around the world remain under-connected, regularly dropping off the internet for some period of time when they exhaust their data balance. Discover is designed to help bridge these gaps and keep people connected until they can purchase data again.”
Sounds good, eh? But a recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, on how Discover works in the Philippines (where it has replaced Free Basics) found that not all websites seemed to be stripped for onward viewing. When accessing Facebook through Discover, for example, it wasn’t stripped much – just 4% of images were removed from Instagram, compared with more than 65% of images on other popular sites such as YouTube and e-commerce platform Shopee. The inference was that Discover rendered Facebook’s own services far more functional than those of its competitors. Charged with this, the company blamed a “technical error” that had since been resolved.
HOW BETTING COMPANIES FLOUT ADVERTISING RULES WITH DIGITAL ADS DURING EURO FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS
This topic is an interesting one given it suggests media effects are very real. There are many more articles on how betting (and alcohol and even tobacco) companies ab/use sponsorships and online marketing especially to target young audiences who are supposed to be protected from such ads. This Guardian feature looks specifically at how betting giants are exploiting unregulated space.
GB NEWS LAUNCHES EVEN AS MURDOCH HESITATES - IS BRITAIN GETTING ITS OWN FOX NEWS?
In short - yes ... and no. Murdoch's US Fox News is a commercial juggernaut, attracting huge advertising revenues for its comically, demonically far-right proselytizing; this venture, even with a Trump-like UK Prime Minister, is unlikely to gain either the commercial of cultural importance. But it seems a large degree of newspaper style bias will be okayed by OfCom. See Guardian analysis:
Contrary to popular belief, there is no legal requirement for British broadcasters to give equal time to both sides of a political debate. Instead, GB News will simply have to ensure its broadcasts meet Ofcom’s standards of due impartiality. This would enable a host to express a strong opinion on a culture war topic as long as viewers are later exposed to alternative viewpoints.
Stop Funding Hate, the Twitter-centric campaign group that puts pressure on rightwing news outlets by targeting their advertisers, has already launched a campaign against the channel. “GB News may now be trying to shake off the Fox News label – but if to be ‘woke’ is to be anti-racist, then by branding themselves an ‘anti-woke’ TV channel, they seem to be making their intentions quite clear,” it said.
MURDOCH'S HUGE SUN LOSSES: LEGALLY DECLARES VALUE AT £0; PHONE HACKING PAYMENTS; OVERTAKEN BY MAIL AS UK'S BIGGEST; TIMES DOING BETTER
Guardian reports on NewsUK's market update.
The New European provides a deeper dig into whether Murdoch and his print empire are done.
BBFC 2021 SWEARING FINDINGS: NO MORE AT 12 SAY PARENTS - WHILE THEY SWEAR MORE THEMSELVES!
Guardian. 'The report coincides with the BBFC’s first guide to what terms parents can expect to hear in differently classified TV shows and films. It says that for a U-rated film such as Monsters Inc, “look at the big jerk” will be as strong as it gets.
In Back to the Future, a PG film, Marty McFly exclaims “holy shit!” when armed terrorists approach in a van, but the word is not used again.
Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the 12/12A-rated examples: “Freddie fucking Mercury,” says Mercury in a scene in which he reveals to his bandmates that he has Aids. “You’re a legend,” says the drummer Roger Taylor. “You’re bloody right I am,” Mercury replies. The BBFC says viewers would have been expecting “sex, drugs and strong language”.
The report also touches on acronyms and concludes that the meaning of an example such as WTF is rarely lost on viewers, whatever age. “Therefore, the BBFC will classify acronyms as if they are a use of strong language in full.”'
UK GOV LOSES COURT CASE TRYING TO AVOID FREEDOM OF INFORMATION. DCMS ADMITS AVOIDING SCRUTINY BY USING SELF-DELETING MESSAGES: ANOTHER COURT CASE LOOMS.
Guardian reports on the extraordinary efforts of the government to thwart and frustrate FOI requests, seemingly in clear breach of court rulings. Despite the latest court ruling it's at best uncertain that the increasingly authoritarian UK government will comply. Days later it emerges, from an FOI request, that the DCMS (responsible for overseeing the archiving of government messaging for legal scrutiny) is facilitating the use of self-deleting messaging (Guardian).
'Transparency campaigners have expressed alarm at a culture of “government by WhatsApp”. The Citizens has threatened legal action, saying use of such functions makes it impossible to carry out required legal checks about whether a message should be archived for posterity. Information that could be useful to a public inquiry, or otherwise fall within the scope of an FOI request, may be lost as a result.'
WILL FAANGS DEFEAT TAX AVOIDANCE PROPOSAL? AND BOOK ON AMAZON'S BEZOS REVEALS HE REFUSED TO FUND WAREHOUSE AIRCON...UNTIL NEWSPAPERS EXPOSED AMBULANCES WAITING OUTSIDE FOR COLLAPSED WORKERS
Jeff Bezos' personal fortune has risen 7-fold from 2013-21. And 70% since the start of the pandemic in January 2020. 'When one of his executives proposed a modest investment to air-condition his warehouses, Bezos dismissed the idea as too costly. But then the Morning Call of Allentown, Pennsylvania reported that workers were passing out in the Lehigh Valley warehouse, then being transported to the hospital by ambulances the company kept waiting outside. Only then did Bezos approve $52m for air conditioning – “establishing a pattern of making changes only after he read criticism in the media”, as Stone puts it.'
Stone being the author of 2 books about Bezos - the new one: "Amazon Unbound". (Guardian). Sounds rather like Andrew Keen...
Meantime the G7 (a group of 7 economically powerful nations) have started the process of creating a minimum global corporation tax of 15%, still a historically low rate, to tackle the use of tax havens like the Caymans, Luxembourg and more to avoid paying tax. 'Amazon is one of the largest businesses in the world, with a market value of $1.6tn (£1.1tn) and sales of $386bn in 2020. A Luxembourg subsidiary paid zero corporation tax in 2020 on sales income from across Europe of €44bn (£38bn), making Amazon a prominent target for politicians campaigning for changes to the global tax system.' BUT...under the terms of the proposed tax change they still won't pay any more tax .. (Guardian)
MUSIC RIGHTS NEW MONOPOLIST: HIPGNOSIS
DB ANALYSIS: Elberse did a very convincing job of destroying the credibility of the long tail theory in her Blockbusters book, showing that a small number of tentpole hits (in books, games, film, music) account for the vast bulk of sales. Since she wrote this the same has been observed of Spotify. However - that overlooks the revenue from back-catalogue music (and TV/film through multiple global channels) from radio, TV, film and games licensing ... not to mention advertising. So perhaps Malcolm Gladwell's concept has some meaning after all?
Guardian. 'The London-listed company, which earns royalties every time one of the 65,000 songs to which it owns the rights is played, said that revenues climbed 66% from $83m (£59m) to $138m in the year to the end of March.
Hipgnosis, which spent $1bn buying 84 new song catalogues last year, said the increase in streaming while the live music sector remained shut down fuelled a 50% increase in profits to $107m.'
CHINA: JOHN CENA APOLOGIZES TO PREVENT MOVIE FLOPPING; CENSORING TIANAMEN SQUARE SEARCH RESULTS OUTSIDE CHINA TOO
Google bowed to pressure from its staff and risk to its image (though does anyone still think their corporate motto 'don't be evil" is anything but a sick joke by now?) by pulling out of China in 2010 rather than agreeing to censor it's results. Murdoch pulped (last British Governor of Hong Kong) Chris Patten's autobiography and wrote off the £1m advance, and dumped the BBC from his Asian satellite TV network Star to protect his access to China. NBCUniversal made wrestler/actor John Cena apologize for correctly referring to Taiwan as a country - like Tibet and Hong Kong, China insists it isn't, it's simply part of China (and is increasingly open about threatening military invasion to enforce this). Do a 'china' word search in this post to read more.
Into this picture of craven Western media bowing to China's notorious censorship demands stumbles Microsoft. Their search engine is compliant with the great firewall of China, the extraordinary operation to block critical (what Gramsci calls counter-hegemonic) content - like any reference to Tianamen Square. They've been caught out applying this censorship in the West now too (they blamed this on "human error"). But this isn't an entirely new development...
'In 2014, the Guardian reported that Bing was censoring results for Chinese-language users in the US for many of the same terms that Bing censors inside China, such as Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square and Falun Gong.
In 2009, the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about receiving seemingly censored results on Bing when he searched for topics such as the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, and Falun Gong using simplified Chinese language characters.' (Guardian)
It's worth emphasizing that the basic Western democracy v Chinese dictatorship binary isn't so clearcut. Trump made clear he admired several dictators and attempted to trample on US democracy. Boris Johnson is doing the same in the UK, while Poland and Hungary barely qualify as democracies any more. Many western governments were caught out secretly spying on their citizens with the Wikileaks publication of Chelsea Manning's leaks and the Guardian/New York Times publication of Alex Snowdon's leaks. The British government sent in police to literally destroy the computers Guardian journalists were working on. Democracy?!?! (read more)
Western 'democracies' secretly have their own operations - Andrew Keen covers this in his books reflecting on web 3.0, describing how Google/Facebook have brought about surveillance capitalism.
MAY 2021
MORE PHONE-HACKING LEGAL CASES LAUNCHED
£125k LIBEL PAYOUT: £6k PER TWEETED WORD BY CELEBRITY DR ATTACKING DUP LEADER ARLENE FOSTER
Arlene Foster has been the DUP leader and First Minister of Northern Ireland for some years. A TV celebrity doctor with over 300k followers tweeted gossip that she'd been having an affair with her bodyguard (see Belfast Telegraph). He now accepts this is untrue but rejected repeated calls at the time to apologise publicly, leading to the court case and the major damages outcome.
There have been multiple cases of people jailed for racist hate speech on Twitter in the UK, and of course we've seen examples like former deputy Prime Minister John (Lord) Prescott and Dwayne Johnson take to social media to demolish untrue press stories.
So we await proper regulation of social media, but libel laws and its use as an alternative to a failed press regulator are also part of the complex picture.
SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA: RACIST HATE SPEECH IS FINE - ITS NOT OUR JOB TO POLICE YOUTUBE COMMENTS; COMPARE TO ANTI-BBC FLAK
There is a serious point/principle at play here, not unlike the hypocrisy-soaked shrieks of outrage that greet any attempt to raise meaningful press regulation: it is a potential threat to democracy to have statutory press regulation ... but of course the (right-wing) press love to pile on calls for tougher regulation of all other media.
Australia has been working through political attempts to make new media giants Google and Facebook legally liable to compensate news media for content they use, exploit, distribute, share, publish - the exact term you'd use has big legal consequences. Is Google a publisher? If so, it must pay for content and be legally responsible for libel and meeting regulatory standards. This includes user comments....
SkyNews Australia has been accused of a Fox News-style ultra right-wing agenda. Note: it's UK equivalent isn't seen in this way, as an OfCom-compliant news channel. The Guardian reports on the mass of racist comments under a short news clip, posted on YouTube, on the shooting of a BLM activist in London. The clip is fine - but News Corp Australasia ) Murdoch's local subsidiary) insist they are not the publisher of the comments - Google is; it's their responsibility to police racist hate speech!!!
They do have a point - but to performativize this to the extent of refusing to delete (or simply block all) comments is unconscionable.
'After this story was published on Thursday, YouTube advised Guardian Australia they were now “actively” removing comments that violated community guidelines.' Prompted by the paper's claim that much of the hate speech remained, I checked for myself on 27.5.21 - and sure enough, there remains a dominant thread of repugnant racism in the comments underneath. Check for yourself here.
So, who is responsible for policing user comments online??? Is it Google/Alphabet in the case of YouTube? Or the account-holder uploading and publishing the video, and not only permitting comments but not either vetting (selecting the moderate all comments before publication option) or moderating comments? 'spokesperson said. “Sky News Australia is not the author of user comments on the YouTube platform. We suggest you direct your inquiries to Google.”'
There IS a HUGE principle at stake here, so I can understand the rationalisation behind this stance. But I have a channel with many 100s of videos, I'm rather busy ... but I vet all comments before publication. Same for Blogger, on which I've had over a million post reads across multiple blogs. I'm not prepared to risk hateful comments. I'm certainly not going to rely on Google's ability/will to enforce 'community guidelines'.
Both SkyNews and Google are monetising that BLM shooting video. Advertisers pay more when there's evidence of user engagement, so the racist hate speech is driving up revenue. How can BOTH these conglomerate giants get away with refusing or failing to police hate speech on their own channel/platform?
Another angle on this centres on OnlyFans, a UGC site that has been hailed for its explosive growth as an exemplar of the future of new media. The BBC article itself warns that some readers might find some of its report disturbing, as it covers exploitation of teens posting explicit content, and I'll reiterate that. If you want to read more, it is a lengthy, detailed report covering reports from schools, police, parents and teen uploaders plus analysis of UK proposals (now 2 years old and still with no definite timeframe for enacting) to fine companies up to 10% of global revenue for posting illegal content featuring under-18s. The BBC investigation suggests that the site's vetting procedures to prevent under-18s from registering are failing; the company repeatedly points to an updated registration process.
WHITHER DEMOCRACY - ATTEMPT TO BREACH UK GOV SECRECY OVER PSB PLANS
Words fail me on this. Appalling.
UK TORY GOVERNMENT BLOCKS PRESS-POLICE INQUIRY ... AGAIN!
With David Cameron blocking the wish of the rest of the House of Commons to continue with Lord Leveson's official press standards inquiry (the next stage would have investigated corruption and links between police, politicians and the press), now another Tory PM has followed suit. A court case is likely to challenge the block on an official report into the suspicious circumstances, including press (specifically Murdoch's NoTW), political and police corruption, of a journalist in 1987. Such long delays between events and reports, never mind actions, can be viewed as a standard government technique to diminish the impact from any harmful or critical findings. Guardian.
UK TO REGULATE SOCIAL MEDIA? CIVIL RIGHTS CONCERNS
The classic regulation issue: The online safety bill, introduced to parliament on Wednesday, hands Ofcom the power to punish social networks that fail to remove “lawful but harmful” content. The proposals were welcomed by children’s safety campaigns, but have come under fire from civil liberties organisations. (Guardian)
UNIVERSAL ITALY USES MAN TO DUB TRANS WOMAN
The practise of using deep-voiced CIS men to dub a trans woman's voice is also seen in Germany and Spain. Social media outrage has seen Universal apologize and pull the Italian version of Promising Young Woman and delay the release until they replace the transphobic overdub. Guardian.
BBC CENSORS RU PAUL PRINCE ANDREW JOKE
Curious 'logic' of protecting the public from offence given how widely loathed the subject of the joke is since his disastrous BBC interview on sex offences. Even more so as they left in another joke about his tastes.
The Guardian speculates this reflects the Tory government imposing a Tory Director General on the BBC.
'The edits to Drag Race came at a time when the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, is battling with a government trying to stamp its authority on the national broadcaster, with Conservative MPs accusing the BBC of being unpatriotic and failing to promote the union flag in its publications. Davie was also accused of curbing leftwing comedy programmes that have been unpopular with leading Tories.'
DISNEY'S CANCEL CULTURE ISSUE GOES MUCH DEEPER THAN PRINCE CHARMING'S NO CONSENT KISS: EXTENSIVE RACISM
People tend to overlook that Walt Disney himself was a rabid racist. Good Guardian article that runs through some examples of the racism in Disney classics.
"streaming services such as Disney+ and the UK’s Now TV have recently added disclaimers to films such as Peter Pan and The Aristocats, making clear that the much-loved animations feature outdated and potentially offensive stereotypes.
It’s a clumsy approach, but the alternative would be to go through each movie frame by frame and excise everything that upsets modern-day sensibilities. The result would be the eventual destruction of these films, a sort of death by a thousand final cuts. Or Disney could just remake everything, which seems to be happening behind the scenes in any case."
FOX NEWS MADE ME DO IT - LEGAL DEFENSE?!
Not necessarily a hypodermic syringe application, it's as much two-step flow (being influenced by people or organs with status). One of the Trump supporters who invaded the American Congress has used the persistent Fox News coverage pushing the line that Biden had stolen the election from Trump as his legal defense.
It's also notable that the US has fairly weak media regulation after years of deregulation through the FCC, advertisers having at least as much influence over TV and radio content. Subscription TV like HBO carries much more explicit drama series like The Sopranos that the ad-funded national networks wouldn't run. Guardian.
APRIL 2021
AUSTRALIAN PRESS SELF REGULATOR TO BE BOYCOTTED BY JOURNALISTS
There has been talk over the years of the NUJ taking action against the UK self-regulators, but in the case of Australia the journalists' union actually part-funds their equivalent regulator. Journalist union action may be a future source of change in the weak UK system, which suits the owners (who fund and run IPSO) just fine. Guardian.
FOOTBALL BOYCOTT SOCIAL MEDIA OVER RACIST ABUSE - HIGHLIGHTS LACK OF REGULATION
While there seems to be a clear mood within the UK government and parliament to finally create a social media regulator, despite threats of economic sanctions from the US government, there is no timeline on this. Meantime, racist abuse of footballers, unpunished and allowed to continue by Twitter etc, has prompted a 4 day switch off of social media by all English professional clubs and players.
Maybe this will build pressure for belated statutory regulation?
'Two years ago a number of footballers took part in the #Enough campaign – a 24-hour social media boycott in protest at a similar spate of abuse. The new boycott is significantly broader in scale and ambition.
[Football groups] urged that the government ensured its online safety bill would bring robust legislation to make social media companies more accountable for what appeared on their platforms.' Guardian.
As always, the reality may be that there is no easy fix. A proposed Australian law that would require all search links, social media mentions etc of any film that get an RC (Refused Classification) rating, would be a massive curtailment of free speech and see the government there define what is unacceptable in sexual practices. Guardian.
HOW FACEBOOK ENABLES AUTHORITARIANISM - GUARDIAN SERIES
This example considers the case of Azerbaijan. Despite being reported to Facebook as early as 2012 they continue to allow government troll accounts to dominate online discussion.
ITALY FINALLY SCRAPS 1914 RELIGIOUS FILM CENSORSHIP
The last major application of the laws was 1998, but it's still quite shocking that a major Western democracy would still have such regressive laws on the books in 2021. The removal will no doubt annoy religious conservatives though. Guardian.
MARCH 2021
FREEDOM OF PRESS BATTERED BY UK POLICE
It's been easy to tut at the overtly fascist trampling of media freedom to report by police under Trump in the USA, but that shouldn't be taken as exceptional for the western democracies. While PM Johnson predictably focused on condemning protestors (against a government attempt to give the police extraordinary powers to ban protests!) and the UK Opposition leader remained silent, not only were protestors battered by police, so were journalists. Again. Despite displaying their press credentials which gives them legal protections to report on such events. For all the hand-wringing over authoritarianism within the hallowed EU (Poland and Hungary), rule 101 of democracy, a free press, is being battered even within leading democracies. Guardian.
FAANGS CLAMP UP AT CONGRESS HEARINGS AS STATUTORY REGULATION LOOMS
It looks ever more likely that Facebook et al will lose their unregulated position in the near future - the US Representatives questioning the likes of Zuckerberg in March were unimpressed with the answers they got to questions about social media role in the pro-Trump insurrection (Guardian).
Meantime Amazon faces pressure over its appalling working conditions, with a battle underway in Alabama to unionize the workforce (bitterly resisted by Amazon), and leaks conforming that the company know it's drivers often have to urinate and defecate into water bottles and bags to make their delivery quota ... while Amazon pushes for AI constant monitoring of these same drivers (Guardian).
MPs CRITICISE GOVERNMENT USING LICENSE FEE THREAT TO WEAKEN BBC
Guardian. Unusually strong language from the Culture Select Committee (which has MPs from a range of parties, including Tories, the party of government):
The committee also criticised the government for floating the idea of decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee last year, a proposal that has now been dropped.
They raised concerns that the threat had been used as a bargaining chip by government to change BBC policy and “thereby [to] undermine one of the core principles of public service broadcasting: that it should be removed from government interference”.
COYID MEGHAN WINFREY INTERVIEW IMPACT (LACK OF) UK PRESS REGULATION? ALSO: SOCIETY OF EDITORS TURMOIL
(Harry/Meghan have now complained to OfCom about Piers Morgan's comments on Good Morning Britain, Metro)
International Women's Day gets an annual debate in the House of Commons and a group of 70 female MPs who wrote a 2019 letter condemning 'colonial undertones' to some press coverage have called for tougher press regulation.
Labour MP Holly Lynch 'said there needed to be the beginnings of a conversation about further press regulation if there was not a culture change in how sections of the media were operating. “We are legislators – we should be able to work together to find solutions. We have a responsibility to intervene,” she said.'
Meantime, in the week that Piers Morgan's comments implying Markle lied sparked over 40,000 complaints to OfCom and he resigned, the Society of Editors have drafted a 2nd statement in the aftermath of the now-resigned chief executive's appalling performance on a BBC interview, talking over presenter Victoria Derbyshire to aggressively deny the UK press has a racism problem.
Their annual awards show, hit by increasing boycotts, has been postponed from the end of March, with the organisation set to acknowledge the significant failures of the UK press on race.
These twin stories, both linked to the spotlight the Winfrey interview has thrown on the alleged racism of the press' treatment of Markle, could lead to a new crisis for the cosy voluntary self-regulation system backed by the government which benefits hugely from the predominately right-wing, therefore friendly, press.
The Millie Dowler phone hacking revelations a decade ago led to the PCC scrapping itself and IPSO launching - to near zero effect? It certainly hasn't done anything to challenge or change the often racist reportage of immigration and ethnic minorities - some of the most disgusting examples being written by the current Tory Prime Minister. The impact, the effect, could be seen with the predominance of immigration in the ultimately successful Brexit campaign.
30 years ago the death of Harry's mother, Princess Diana, after a chase by paparazzi in Paris, led to the Press Council being scrapped and the PCC launched. Just as a right-wing Tory PM, David Cameron, blocked Leveson from completing the Leveson Inquiry's work and blocked his proposals for tougher regulation - leaving it to the free market (the highly monopolised industry), maintaining a deregulated laissez-faire approach, so the Tory PM John Major blocked the Calcutt Committee's main proposals in 1991 and it's 1993 recommendation that statutory regulation be brought in.
The then Heritage Secretary (these days named Culture Secretary, heading the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, DCMS) David Nellie 'interviewed in December 1991 on the TV programmne Hard News following the establishment of the Calcutt Review inquiring into Press Standards. Mellor claimed during the interview that "the press – the popular press – is drinking in the Last Chance Saloon"[7] and called for curbs on the "sacred cow" of press freedom.[8]' (Wiki)
The press famously killed his career by splashing his extra marital affair in a Sun front page, Photoshopping him into a Chelsea football shirt and falsifying lurid details: 'The Sun, relying on material supplied by publicist Max Clifford, made a number of lurid claims about the relationship that de Sancha later admitted in a newspaper interview were entirely untrue:[10] this was subsequently confirmed by David Mellor in 2011 at the Leveson Inquiry into Press Behaviour.[11][12]'
Will the Markle case, with its link to Diana, finally bring meaningful change to the status of press regulation?
There's another, supremely ironic, wrinkle in this tale... From a Guardian analysis of how Meghan disrupted the unspoken contract between royals and the press they despise, but host at private parties:
The final nature of that rupture was further reinforced when it emerged that the couple had complained to Ofcom about Piers Morgan’s discussion on Good Morning Britain of their interview, having already complained to ITV. It came as Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, wrote to the US broadcaster Viacom CBS over what it said was the “indefensible” use of images during Oprah Winfrey’s interview with the Sussexes that had been “doctored or presented as headlines when they were not” to suggest racist coverage.
USA DESTROYING PRESS FREEDOM? REPORTER IN COURT DESPITE FALSE ARREST
In democracies journalists have certain freedoms. The freedom to report on events such as protests is a very, very basic one. A free press is a basic requirement of a democracy. Trump may be gone but the abuse of reporters by police and courts continues under Biden. In a case where a reporter states she was pepper sprayed and zip-tied then arrested for covering a BLM protest. The policeman failed to switch on his bodycam, a legal requirement, to record his actions. Not an isolated case:
The CNN journalist Omar Jimenez, and his crew were arrested live on camera while covering a protest in Minneapolis. The NBC journalist Ali Velshi was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet, also live on camera. Donald Trump called what happened to Velshi “the most beautiful thing”.
According to the US Press Freedom Tracker, 127 journalists were arrested or detained in 2020, compared with nine arrested or detained in 2019. Sahouri is one of 13 to face criminal charges.
MARKLE CASE: JUDGE FORCES MAIL FRONT PAGE RULING!!! FIELDING WINS NOTW PHONE HACKING COMPENSATION
Guardian. The DGMT owners will surely appeal this (I suspect they'll win an appeal against being directed to do this, but they were refused the right to appeal on the issue of guilt). The court also made history with this:
Mail Online has also been ordered to publish the statement on its homepage for one week, with a hyperlink to the full judgment. Meghan had sought for the online statement to be on the website for up to six months “to act as a deterrent to future infringers”, but the judge, Lord Justice Warby, was “not persuaded of the case for prolonged publication”.
........
IPSO has made much of its agreement to introduce limited financial sanctions (never used!) and front page IPSO rulings (almost never used), but this court ruling is a massive blow to any claims it has to be an effective regulator. Simply put, if it was there would be no need for any court cases. An opinion piece also sharply analyses the racism of British media treatment of her.
This comes in the same week that celebrity Noel Fielding won compensation from Murdoch's press company for phone hacking by the NotW. Remember, the PCC actually attacked the Guardian for its report that the NotW was guilty of this - it's abysmal failure on phone hacking later acknowledged when it disbanded itself and launched the remarkably similar IPSO. Which was seemingly enough for Tory PM Cameron to block (despite most other parties supporting Leveson) nearly all of Leveson's recommendations AND the 2nd/3rd phases of his Inquiry - which were set to investigate police and political links with the press.
FEB 2021
UK GOVERNMENT TRUMPIAN CULTURE WAR ON FAKE UNIVERSITY BANS
Based around a fake report by a pal of the Education Secretary the UK government is pushing to pass a law preventing universities from blocking speakers. Guardian report lays bare the falsehoods the Tory campaign is based on.
THE LAWYER WARRIOR TAKING ON FACEBOOK ETC AND CONTROL BY ALGORITHM
A long but inspiring read on the lawyer who, as part of a group called Foxglove, has been challenging the social media giants and governments use of algorithms to produce pre-designed outcomes like barring immigration from certain countries. Guardian.
ASA REFUSE TO BAN GAY KISS CHOC AD
Article from the ad trade magazine, Campaign, sets out why the ASA rejected complaints against the Cadbury's Creme Egg ad.
TOBACCO USING INFLUENCERS TO FLOUT BANS AND TARGET TEENS
I've lived through the shift from tobacco being the biggest, most visible sports sponsor (snooker players would smoke like chimneys with freebie packs in tournaments often named for tobacco firms) to outright marketing bans spreading across the western world. Even if Germany persists in permitting indoor smoking, cigarette smoking has become increasingly anti-social.
But, the empire strikes back... Vaping has clearly been sold to teens with its range of sweets-like flavours. And nicotine pouches are being squarely marketed to kids from Sweden to Pakistan through the use of social influencers, as this article examines.
FACEBOOK LENIENT TO RACIST ABUSER
After all, there's money to be made from racists?! The Football League condemned the move. Guardian.
BLASPHEMY RESURRECTED IN POLAND
With Trump's America not so long gone it'd be wrong to overdo the exceptionalism of this - but still, blasphemy is a rare cause for censorship in modern Europe ... not so Poland. MetalInjection - NB: quotes some strong language.
...RAPPER ARRESTED FOR INSULTING SPANISH MONARCHY!!
It's not just the anti-democratic eastern fringe of the EU that's attacking free speech in a draconian way...
'Police have fired teargas, rubber bullets and sound bombs at thousands of protesters in Madrid, the day after a rapper was arrested on charges of glorifying terrorism and insulting royalty in his songs.' Guardian.
DUCHESS/MEGHAN WINS MAIL PRIVACY COURT CASE
Highest profile case since Max Moseley, with press again losing. Damages penalty yet to be determined. Guardian.
GOVERNMENT UNDERMINING FOI ACT - EDITORS' JOINT LETTER
6 national newspaper editors note their concern that the government is actively campaigning to undermine the act, with increasing numbers of requests ignored or refused, a shadowy organisation within government co-ordinating responses, and a 41% drop in the Information Commission's Office budget in the past decade while it's caseload has increased by 46%. Guardian. Let's not forget Blair called it his "greatest mistake" as PM and the right have always been opposed to it.
UK POLICE ARREST PRESS PHOTOGRAPHER - IGNORE JOURNALISTS LEGAL PROTECTIONS
It's easy to assume attacks on media freedom are limited to non-democracies like China, but the UK has a far from glowing record. The right to protest has been dramatically reduced over recent years and the legal protections for journalists to report and to protect sources have come under pressure - from a state with a poor record on Northern Ireland, other war reporting, use of the Official Secrets Act and notorious libel tourism that allows corporations and the rich to use courts to gag critical reporting. This latest story, where the police refused to apologize or acknowledge their 'mistake', is concerning for anyone who believes in press freedom. Guardian.
NEWS UK TV LAUNCHES - FT
OFCOM BAN CGTN - CHINESE GOV STATION
This joins Iran's Press TV (with much Tory pressure to dump Russia Today in there too) on the banned list. BBC.
UNIVERSAL UK EARNS X2 FROM VINYL THAN YOUTUBE!!!
This is perhaps the single most killer stat I've yet seen...
'Earlier this month David Joseph, the UK chief executive of Universal Music, home of stars including Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and the Beatles, told the committee that 70% of his artists’ music is watched and listened to on YouTube but the royalties only account for 5% of the company’s revenues. In 2019, UK record labels earned just £35m in royalties from YouTube, almost half the £66m received as a cut of sales of vinyl records.'
TORY GOVERNMENT PUTS DAILY MAIL IN POWER
Surely the UK won't fall into such an anti-democratic pit as Trumpian USA... Johnson said to be appointing the Daily Mail's Paul Dacre to head OfCom, which he can use to eviscerate the BBC. Even the Daily Mail itself now sees Dacre as just too right-wing! Guardian.
JAN 2021
ARISE LORD MURDOCH? CANCEL CULTURE HYPOCRITE?
So, the Dirty Digger got an official sounding award that turns out to be from a savvy fossil fuels lobby group. Sparking a fracking* ex-PM of Australia to accuse him of being the originator of cancel culture (he basically describes Chomskian flak!). Guardian.
* interextualising with Battlestar Galactica (which used that in place of 'the f word'), + the environmental catastrophe of fracking...
ITALY BANS TIKTOK OVER COPYCAT KID DEATH
The era of unregulated new media looks to be fading fast. Italy has given TikTok a month to prove all its users have authentically proven their age (13+) after a young girl died from 'playing the choking game'. Choking yourself to get a high has been a recent TikTok trend, not exactly the first dangerous concept to spread through the app (+ wider social media to be fair) with so many people desparate for their 15 shares of fame.
Copycat behaviour is of course a primary concern for and factor in BBFC age rating - generally with a thin basis of evidence behind it, but perhaps social media is backing their analysis? See Guardian.
TELEGRAPH GUILTY ON EDITORS CODE CLAUSE 1: TOBY YOUNG COVID COLUMN
The piece was published in July 2020, the ruling comes in January 2021. Yes, the DT is to publish a correction (and has removed the story from its website) but how does that in any way address the damage this column did in fuelling anti-lockdown opinion? Guardian.
TORY DONOR TO BECOME BBC CHAIRMAN
No comment needed?! Guardian.
YOUTUBE BANS RADIO CHANNEL OFCOM SAYS IS OK!
TalkRadio has had its channel removed for including anti-lockdown views. OfCom has noted that this is YouTube's decision and that TalkRadio's content remains fine within its UK license conditions. Guardian.
UPDATE...Within 24 hours YouTube reversed its decision! Murdoch (who owns the station) will be pleased - hurrah!
DEC 2020
OFCOM FINE INDIAN NEWS CHANNEL £20K
2 USA ANTI-TRUST SUITS THREATEN TO BREAK UP FACEBOOK
Guardian. Both the federal government, through the FTC (Federal Trade Commission, the equivalent of the UK's CMA, Competition and Markets Authority), and a coalition of almost state governments have launched lawsuits against Facebook. Both seek to force the split of Facebook under anti-trust laws, alleging that they have bought rivals to stifle competition. (Another detailed breakdown analyses the likelihood this could take years to come through)
FACEBOOK OWN THE 4 MOST POPULAR SOCIAL MEDIA APPS FROM THE LAST DECADE!
The facts on that are hard to argue against. Together with Google they control 90% of the global online advertising market, a fact which is devastating the print industry and undermining the broadcast industry too. Furthermore, Facebook owns the 4 most popular social media apps of the last decade (FB, FB Messenger, Instagram + WhatsApp were the most-downloaded from 2010-19: BBC).
UK TO REGULATE GOOGLE/FB USE OF MEDIA 'SNIPPETS' WITH POWER TO FINE UP TO 10% OF GLOBAL REVENUES
That this is coming from the most right-wing government in British history (therefore ultra free market, anti-regulation) makes it doubly astonishing. The lobbying power of the 2 global titans is immense, and the US government under Trump and Obama has threatened European governments with retaliation for any restriction on these US corporations. The UK government is desparate to make a free trade deal with the USA.
This is NOT law yet, it is a proposal from the government industry regulator:
'The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which will host the new dedicated Digital Markets Unit (DMU), has advised the government that the new regulator must have the power to impose huge fines as a final “backstop” or it will be unable to ensure tech companies abide by the new rules, which are designed to create a fairer market for smaller rivals, newspaper and magazine publishers, and consumers.'
'The CMA proposals were published as it was revealed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that Mark Zuckerberg, the social network’s founder and chief executive, threatened to withdraw investment from the UK if the government did not soften its “anti-tech” stance towards his company.
The recommendations on the scope of the new DMU’s powers also includes beefed-up rules regarding mergers and acquisitions by tech giants. The report points out that between 2008 and 2018 the big tech giants – Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple – made 400 acquisitions but “only a handful” were reviewed by competition regulators and none were blocked. The new rules will not allow the DMU to “implement full ownership separation” by breaking up a tech giant, that will be for the CMA, if necessary.'
OFCOM CENSURE RADIO STATION OVER COVID CONSPIRACY + FORCE BROADCAST OF RULING
A fine is being discussed too (Guardian). The contrast with IPSO (have given themselves the power to fine the papers that signed up... but have never used it) is striking. If the likes of the Mail were forced to feature rulings on its front page/lead story on the app/web page would they really continue to break the Editors Code? That would be very damaging.
NOV 2020
A SLAPPPPPP IN THE FACE
Exaggerated to emphasize the SLAPP detail...
Guardian. Is the UK STILL being used for defamation censorship???
MAIL ACCUSED ASIAN PROFESSOR OF INCITING RACE WAR ... FORCED BY COURT TO PAY £25K. NO IPSO...
The irony of the Mail accusing someone of racism backfired as they lost a libel case, with the judge setting £25k of damages.
Professor Gopal sought remedy from the courts, NOT IPSO - a clear-cut example of failed regulation. Clause One of the Editors' Code required newspapers to observe ... Accuracy!
Given that UK newspapers openly flout their political bias, it is immediately clear that the regulator fails to meaningfully impact on this basic expectation or issue.
QUOTE>>>>However ... the Mail covered this defeat by putting a short correction statement within its corrections column, buried well inside.
Platell’s false claims appeared in the Saturday edition of the Daily Mail, which is by far the biggest-selling edition of any print newspaper in Britain, with more than 1.5m sold every week. The apology appeared in a substantially smaller position in the newspaper’s corrections column on Friday.
IPSO's main 'power' (as a voluntary, not statutory, regulator, it cannot enforce this; remember The Guardian and FT simply refuse to join it!) is arguably to require front page apologies and acknowledgement of IPSO rulings.
Even this is really a missed opportunity. If these cases took up all or most of the front page instead of small portions, the deep reputational damage to a newspaper's brand would force actual behavioural change.
Note that IPSO, which replaced the PCC in 2014 (a successful attempt to undermine pressure from the Leveson Inquiry for tougher regulation), gave itself the power to fine up to £1m in 2016.
Like the 1960s law that required the government to approve the sale of any newspaper business (they have NEVER refused ANY!), this isn't (yet?) evidence of any real change as IPSO hasn't been using this power.
Guardian on the Gopal libel ruling.
The pressure group website HackingInquiry.org had this to say about IPSO's much-hyped power to fine (March 2020):
IPSO has not fined a newspaper so much as 50p, let alone a million pounds.
The reality is that IPSO was set up as a sham from the outset: a body designed to provide the perception of accountability, whilst shielding its members from any meaningful regulation.
...
