This is perhaps a unique example...
Katie Hopkins, whose writing has sparked high profile complaints, 'won' with her complaint against the Mirror.
It's pithy apology has gone viral though, noting they were wrong to link her with drug abuse ... when it was racist abuse instead!!
https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2018/05/24/the-mirrors-apology-to-katie-hopkins-is-absolute-gold/
The UK (Tory) government backtracked on pledges to get tough with the junk food industry, letting the industry instead come up with limited self regulation. Sounds familiar...
This is a lengthy report on moves toward a class action lawsuit against manipulation of children through marketing based on neuroscientific research. The ad industry regulator (limited power...) states it annually reviews advertising to children.
Food firms could face litigation over neuromarketing to hijack brains https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/25/food-firms-may-face-litigation-over-neuromarketing-to-hijack-brains?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
Pussycat Dolls sue Daily Mail owner over 'prostitution ring' story https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/23/pussycat-dolls-sue-daily-mail-over-prostitution-ring-story-kaya-jones?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
This on the same day they paid out, and removed a story (BUT note that they did not accept liability in doing so)
Daily Mail to pay Kate Maltby £11,000 costs over negative article
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/23/daily-mail-to-pay-kate-maltby-11000-over-negative-article?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
There are 2 key points from this:
It's a great example of Chomskian flak AND anti-left-wing (anti-communism when the Manufacturing Consent book was originally published)
The legal case was taken up only after IPSO had ruled on the complaint. The IPSO response was deemed unsatisfactory.
Sunday Telegraph pays damages to mosque chief over Corbyn article https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/09/sunday-telegraph-pays-substantial-damages-to-london-mosque-chief?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
An excellent video guide to the extraordinary story of how the US Catholic church gained control over US cinema content. They were able to block any item from scripts or costume design deemed morally unacceptable. Any studio (in the 1930s a big five controlled production and cinema through to a 1948 Supreme Court antitrust ruling) who dared defy the papal censor's pen and get a C rating (A for Acceptable, B for some morally dubious content, C for Condemned) faced a mass boycott. Millions of Catholics swore an oath not to view any C movies upon pain of losing their immortal soul!!!!
The short film asks WHY WOULD HOLLYWOOD ACCEPT THIS?!?!
The answer is the same reasons why the UK film industry set up the BBFC a century ago:
- fear of national governmental regulation
- trying to sidestep the many LOCAL censorship codes that were making distribution complex and expensive
The early years of UK TV regulation saw a similar level of pre-broadcast censorship, with shows details scrutinised before filming, and schedules also subject to tight control by the regulator.
The press ditched such controls several centuries ago!
https://youtu.be/HXZGKhpv8eg
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
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
(placeholder for now, TBC)
IMDB Parents Guide. Note the 12 rating in France.
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| MelonFarmers. |
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
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
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/
