POLICE CHOMSKIAN censorship of journalists

I've read about this story, a UK journalist secretly labelled a left-wing extremist by police + barred from attending major events to do his job, on various alternative news sites. It's somewhat reassuring to see it covered in the Grauniad too.

By taking legal action against the police, who refuse to detail or justify their decision and whose allegedly arbitrary profiling may be illegal, the wider institutional ideology of anti-left-wing (reflecting 1 of the propoganda model's 5 filters), linking police and secret services and seen in employment blacklists and actions such as the extraordinary demand that The Guardian physically destroy computers used for reporting the Edward Snowden leaks, may be exposed to unexpected scrutiny. If reported by the rest of the press and mainstream media that is, as opposed to firing flak at the journalist who has brought the case, seeking to undermine his reputation and image.

A free press? I’m a UK journalist, but the police labelled me an extremist https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/30/free-press-uk-journalist-police-extremist-legal-action?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

DISTRIBUTION MONOPOLY do not pass go

This is another example of why a narrow focus on content alone is clearly not capable of producing effective newspaper regulation.

Wider law, the Competition and Mergers Authority, might step in, but a lack of competition in newspaper distribution and the poor quality service, with delivery times by freelance drivers making customer delivery difficult, is leading to some newsagents to just give up.

Newsagents are suffering in a sorry game of monopoly https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2018/apr/22/newspaper-wholesaler-delivery-corner-shop-closures?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

BBFC Red Sparrow gets favourable 15

(placeholder for now, TBC)

See also 
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/19/hugh-jackman-logan-most-complained-about-film-2017-bbfc

$69m IP/star vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence (based on hit novel optioned + adapted by Fox).
The BBFC judged the original cut an 18, but advised on a specific cut (to a garroting scene) to get a 15.

The marketing for the film caused another controversy over JL's low cut dress. (IndieWire)

BBFC.
Wiki.
RtnTmts.
IMDB.
IMDB Parents Guide. Note the 12 rating in France.
Official site.
Trailer.
MelonFarmers (be aware of dubious links on this site)

Reviews: Guardian (Observer); Ebert; TheAtlantic;

Perhaps surprisingly, The Daily Mail didn't manage to get outraged by the movie:

MelonFarmers.

YOUTUBE Are Google kidding with parental control?

Google to improve YouTube Kids app to let parents control what children watch https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/25/google-youtube-kids-app-parent-control-what-children-watch?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

FACEBOOK DEFAMATION if proven as publisher

Another front opens up on the growing backlash against the American social media behemoths...

The electioneering and data gathering scandal, EU data privacy laws (GDPR), the UK government apparently seeking tougher child protection, the press campaign to have Facebook (and Google) treated like publishers with the regulations that brings and to pay for their content...

Now comes an attack on their revenues, a defamation case brought by a businessman whose name was used in fake ads despite his attempts to get Facebook to take them down. The ad regulator, ASA, has no real sway here, it is once again Facebook self-regulating itself as it sees fit. There is a clear parallel with the recent Google scandal over its placing of racist, extreme right-wing ads.

The pressure grows to act on GAFA's protected status as American companies (the US safe haven laws) not governed by national regulation (never mind taxation!) in the many territories it operates in.

Martin Lewis sues Facebook over fake ads with his name https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/22/martin-lewis-sues-facebook-over-fake-ads-with-his-name?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

SOCIAL MEDIA CHILDREN regulation disgrace says UK gov

Coming from the party that never objected over the topless page 3 pics in the non-age restricted tabloids (Sun, Star, Mirror, and formerly Sport; a social media campaign successfully harassed Murdoch into ditching it from the sun); is tough on ... calls for tough press regulation and refused to hold Leveson2; historically allowed cable and satellite TV channels to enjoy minimal content regulation (and accepted Murdoch's claims for Sky as a Luxembourg-centred operation thus beyond even much of that minimal restriction) leading to the likes of L!ve TV's Topless Darts On Ice, a degree of scepticism may be exercised over former Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt (pushed out as his extraordinary links with Murdoch were exposed while he was in position to rule on his BSkyB bid - which only failed after the NoTW phone hacking scandal hit...

Now an extremely unpopular Health Secretary he has suggested that social media need tougher regulation to safeguard children from excessive screen time, cyber bullying, psychological distress from body shaming content, etc. He says their age rating and restriction systems are inadequate, which few would argue with.

It would be somewhat surprising for such a laissez-faire free market party to bring in legislation (statutory regulation) rather than seek a voluntary code, but then this is the party of music video age ratings (voluntary) and the 1980s broadcast ban, blocking the voice of 'terrorist sympathisers' (including MPs from Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland), plus the scrapping of the IBA and replacing with the ITC when the commercial (non-BBC) regulator refused Thatcher's demand to ban the Death on the Rock documentary which exposed state-sanctioned murder (coincidentally, the only ITV company to lose its franchise in the ITC auction system was Thames TV, producer of the doc)...

Governments from both major UK parties have shown a willingness to go beyond democratic norms in restricting the 'free press' (in the wider sense of media). Blair's Labour eviscerated the BBC for its coverage of Blair's 'dodgy dossier' used to justify the invasion of Iraq, and Blair oversaw a Communications Act that included what was generally referred to as the Murdoch Clause (deregulation of restrictions of ownership of TV companies).

With the Brexit shambles, funding crisis across government, notably health, the Windrush scandal and the PM's role in this, a spot of Daily Mail-friendly pro-censorship, traditional values campaigning is a good strategic move.

Given the habit of the press to breach it's Editors' Code guidelines on children (and the rest), it is curious that this sudden interest in social media isn't reflected in a similar interest in print media. That wouldn't be so Daily Mail-friendly.

Whatever the motivation, this is a sign of the pressure building to enhance the currently lax, minimal regulation of the social media giants, a disparity that is arguably unfair to the film distributors, press publishers and broadcast companies that all labour under more restrictive regulation and/or the economic challenges of the digital disruptors not just sucking up their advertising revenue but also profiting from their content with very low levels of compensation for this.

Safeguards for social media ‘inadequate’, says Jeremy Hunt https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/22/jeremy-hunt-social-media-firms-failing-safeguard-children-online?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

CHOMSKY SYRIA propaganda model in effect

28 and 7 years ago, with the 8-year Gulf War 2 starting in between 15 years ago, we got classic case studies of the propaganda model in full effect. From the neutral-by-law BBC to the 'centre-left' Guardian in the UK, and across the US media (and every one of Murdoch's huge global empire of newspapers) government military action in the middle east, launched without UN legal approval, received supportive coverage. Huge public anti-war demonstrations received minimal mainstream coverage.

Chomsky himself has spoken at length on how the (then threatened) attack against Syria fitted his model (easy enough to find from a simple search). The alternative news media paints a very different picture from the mainstream, mass media of the UK, US, French and Israeli bombings.

Here's two contrasting examples, one unpicking the rhetoric of coverage in major US and UK media, the other a piece from The Guardian, whose centre-left readership will be broadly hostile to military action abroad (but seen as persuadable if it's for 'humanitarian' causes), and certainly hostile to the Tory PM who is uncritically quoted at length (source strategies) until the end of the lengthy article when Corbyn's objections are mentioned.

'No alternative': Theresa May sends British jets to join air strikes on Syria https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/14/theresa-may-britain-air-strikes-syria-chemical-weapons-raf?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/major-papers-urge-trump-to-kill-syrians-risk-world-war-iii/

DAILY MAIL in RACISM row IPSO third party rejection

From Zelo-Street blog

Tad sardonic there, but whether Quentin Letts' direct question (was actor cast because he's black [is it cos he's black to paraphrase Ali G, a no more preposterous voice one could argue]) is racist or not what is also noteworthy is that ...

... Once again there's no mention (yet, at least) of IPSO, this is largely a Twitter-based row.

Guardian: Daily Mail's Quentin Letts accused of 'racist attitude' in theatre review.

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QUENTIN LETTS THEATRE RACISM ROW -

IPSO reject third party complaint

Daily Mail columnist accused the RSC of politically correct tokenism for casting a black actor in a Shakespearean role. This quickly led to a Twitter-based argument, and in turn to an IPSO complaint. Somewhat surprisingly (to me anyway), IPSO rejected the complaint (of breaching editors’ Code Clause 12: Discrimination) as it did not come from the actor highlighted by Letts.

My surprise comes from IPSO’s apparent resolve to do better than its predecessor the PCC with third party complaints (ie, someone other than the subject of press content complaining), which had been repeatedly and specifically highlighted by the Culture Select Committee as a key failing of the PCC. That issue was also highlighted over the Stephen Gateley/Jan Moir case (also Daily Mail, generally the most-complained about paper).

ANTITRUST REGULATION Should new media giants be broken up?

Google, Facebook not playing by the rules, News Corp tells ACCC

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/04/google-facebook-not-playing-by-the-rules-news-corp-tells-accc?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

TERMINOLOGY - very useful neologism/mnemonic below: GAFA...

UPDATE: MURDOCH'S FOX RAIDED BY EU ANTI-TRUST AUTHORITY OVER SPORTS RIGHTS
The Murdoch press enjoys a dominant market position in the UK with no hint of any regulatory action (unless left-wing Labour leader wins the next election) from government or the self-'regulator' IPSO. Yet his corporation's handling of sport rights once more sees clear evidence of the tough regulatory environment for broadcast media compared to 'print' media.
Guardian: 21st Century Fox's London office raided in market abuse inquiry.

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A useful primer, including a quote from Adam Smith, on the history of and current clamour for enforcement of antitrust laws.

In a nutshell these exist to combat market dominance by single companies (or colluding cartels), seen as to the detriment of customers.

Elliot, the Guardian Economics editor, references historical cases of oil, and 1980s action on AT+T (US equivalent of BT in the UK or Post in Luxembourg), but he could also have referenced action against a forerunner of the modern cinema big six, forced to vertically DE-integrate before gradual deregulation allowed this dominance to return.

Microsoft were desperate for Apple to survive during its 90s crises, as it helped put off antitrust action against them.

Elliot cites the GAFA crew, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, but Comcast and Disney also are worthy of such consideration as they clamber above even global media barons such as Murdoch, who faces Disney buying his film empire and Comcast his prized TV empire.

(See Guardian article, Is it time to break up the tech giants such as Facebook?, for more on this)

The argument goes like this. Data is as vital to the modern digital economy as oil was a century ago. The tech giants have the same sort of monopoly power that Standard Oil once had (Google and Facebook accounted for two-thirds of online advertising spending in the US last year and Amazon was responsible for 75% of online book sales). Mark Zuckerberg might wear chinos rather than the top hat sported by Rockefeller but a robber baron is a robber baron. It is time for anti-trust legislation to be used to break up Facebook, Google and Amazon.

The charge sheet is a long one: the tech giants are exploiting their monopoly power to stifle competition; they are spreading fake news; their fantastically rich owners portray themselves as right-on yet go to a great deal of trouble to minimise their corporate tax bills; they are ripping the heart out of communities through the closure of bricks-and-mortar retailers. To the list can now be added (in Facebook’s case) the harvesting of the personal data of 50 million Americans and its use for political purposes. 

No question, Big Tech is more vulnerable to a backlash from Washington than it has ever been. Companies have outgrown management systems that were not designed for systemically important businesses and have used their market power to gobble up rivals. It is this charge – that the disruptive startup companies of yesteryear are today’s anti-capitalists – that creates the biggest risk of anti-trust action.

HACKING ex-PM Brown wants Times prosecution

Interesting to see if anything happens over this. A 'confession' of criminal activity is now in the public domain, though The Times' last statement on this illegal 'blagging' of Brown's financial details, from 2011, denies culpability.

Leveson2 might have unpicked and exposed systematic, anti-democratic abuse of power like this, but has been blocked by a government supported by Murdoch's papers.

The parties are different, but the interference in the democratic process has parallels to the Sun's destruction of Culture (then 'Heritage') Secretary David Mellor's career by publishing a classic 'sex scandal' that forced his resignation and killed his career.

Mellor's' crime'? He infamously pronounced the press was "drinking in the last chance saloon" - but after his sacking his Tory government refused to engage with Lord Calcutt's review (recommending statutory regulation). A familiar story.

Guardian: Gordon Brown calls for police inquiry into Sunday Times story 

BBFC Should smoking require age rating?

There are tight legal limits to tobacco advertising (ditto alcohol) in the UK, but influence is greatest when audiences consume media texts they don't consider advertising.

A new content analysis study of smoking representations in the most popular US network and Netflix shows highlights the continued glamourisation of smoking through TV and film, with other studies pointing the finger at Disney and Fox for smoking scenes in a high proportion of PG-13 releases.

Should the BBFC (and MPAA) act on this to enforce restrictions?

Stub it out: Netflix criticised for too many smoking scenes https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/20/netflix-criticised-for-too-many-smoking-scenes?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

OFCOM No tomorrow for Russia Today

See also. Russian voices in western media leave regulators with new type of headache

https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2018/mar/18/russia-uk-us-media-rt-free-speech?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

This could be seen as undermining OfCom's notional separation or independence from government, though as a quango that's only quasi-autonomous.

Reports claim the news channel Russia Today could lose its license not because of breaking any content regulation but because of politics and foreign relations. If the UK government of Tory PM May pushes for sanctions against Russia for its alleged poisoning attack on British soil then the Russian state links to RT will mean its license is expunged (removed).

OfCom has taken this before with an Iran-spinsored, sorry, sponsored, channel - but that was over multiple content regulation breaches, not directly because of the link to Iran.

The RT story comes at a time when US president Trump has attacked RT as state propoganda, though then again he uses 'mainstream media' as a term of abuse and lumps just about all US domestic news outlets into his beloved 'fake news' category. Fox News and a few far-right outlets get a pass. Is this the 'special relationship' with the UK showing itself?

Labour, the more left-wing UK opposition party, has also joined in the attack, suggesting it's MPs should not appear on RT.

I wonder if Facebook (and Twitter) will effectively enforce any ban? I'd argue that this is how RT is most widely consumed, as video clips posted by mostly leftist Facebook groups and campaigners, such as the former (expelled) Labour MP George Galloway. HOW would that work?

Then there's the very simple technology of VPN, making your IP appear as from another country, which could get round any UK ban. With major channels such as BBC3 now online only there is clearly industry recognition of the online migration of viewing habits; 'time-shifting' is becoming the norm in the Netflix, iPlayer era.

Russian broadcaster RT could be forced off UK airwaves https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/13/russian-broadcaster-rt-hits-back-at-threat-to-uk-licence?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

PLURALISM OWNERSHIP Liberal left media a myth?

The online challenge to mass media consensus

Interesting 'radical' take on the British media, linking the structural power of a bank to the shrinking of any notional counter-hegemonic, leftist voice.

I was surprised to learn that The Guardian is the biggest recipient of HSBC advertising, not the Telegraph, which notoriously spiked a critical column to, it was widely seen, protect it's crucial ad revenues. Moreover, it is no longer owned by a charitable trust - must check on that, as that claim (this is a detailed article with many hyperlinked sources) fatally undermines the identity of the paper as a bulwark against the billionaire press barons.

[Jonathan Cook article]

From the intro:

When I and others accuse the British media of systematic and consistent bias in favour of corporate power, and point out that the media is structurally part of that system of corporate power, we typically receive emails from readers arguing that not all parts of the media are subject to such pressures. Britain, we are told, is privileged to have two “liberal” media outlets, the BBC and Guardian, that are seen either as neutral or as a leftwing counterbalance to the rightwing agenda of the rest of the media.

Occasionally, it is also claimed that Britain’s media regulator, Ofcom, is there to prevent bias, ensuring that minimum standards of objectivity are maintained in news coverage.

Here are three illuminating articles and a short video that should help to dispel any such illusions about a healthy and diverse British media. Rather, the media in the UK is embedded in the corporate world, and therefore incapable of fulfilling its self-declared role as watchdog against abuses by the powerful.

Arguably more elevated than 'citizen journalism', but another good example of a freelancer puncturing the bubble of mainstream mass media through his efforts, primarily distributed through blog and other social media platforms such as Facebook.

See also the likes of Another Angry Blogger, The Canary and Jonathan Pie... more influential than the press to a younger generation?

Part of the Jonathan Pie online operation, with Facebook arguably his most impactive platform