https://twitter.com/pornokitsch/status/560895973174820865
My novella The Good Shabti was launched last night. I did a short reading and spoke to the many people who bought copies. Incredibly, this included people to whom I am in no way related. Continue reading
Month: January 2015 (Page 1 of 3)
Cartoon by Dave Brown
Here’s a fantastic feature article by Gillian Orr in today’s Independent, detailing the brilliant Draw The Line Here project. Yrstrly is quoted endorsing the book:
“It’s fantastic that these cartoonists are using their own right to free speech, to defend and advance the free speech of others,” says English PEN’s Robert Sharp.
Its a crowdfunded project. Head over to the Crowdshed website to support English PEN ands the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
We’re 100 days out from the election, and the Sun has launched a manifesto – a #Sunifesto – for Britain.
Their last bullet point is about free speech. Incredibly, this is not about press regulation, the harmonisation of our libel laws, extremism ‘banning’ orders or police abuse of RIPA to track down whistleblowers. This is odd because The Sun is at the heart of all these issues.
Instead, it’s about the dangers of Twitter mobs.
The paper complains about the police “wrongly” acting against those who have caused offence. “Unless it’s illegal, it’s NOT police business”.
The problem with this is that causing offence is illegal. Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 expressly criminalises ‘grossly offensive’ messages. And of course, what constitutes gross offence is in the eye of the beholder. So the highly subjective test in the law enables and encourages abuse.
The Sun blames political correctness for this and implores us to #forgawsakegrowapair. But it’s not political correctness that causes the mischief here. The principle of free speech permits not only the right to offend, but the right to say that you have been offended, even on Twitter. For many people it takes courage to speak out and tell a powerful newspaper columnist that they’re being crass and prejudiced. For many, politically correct fury is indeed “growing a pair” (we’ll ignore the sexist overtones of that phrase for now).
Appallingly, people in the UK are given prison sentences for making tasteless comments online. The Sun claims to stand up for Free Speech, but (as is perhaps inevitable, given the name of the paper) it’s a fair weather friend. Where was the Sun when Robert Riley and Jake Newsome were jailed for unpleasant social media postings?
For social media, the free speech policy must be reform of s.127. Free speech cannot just be for the newspapers. It must be for the Tweeters, too.
Well, that was a short lived celebration, wasn’t it? After a just week, the Sun has reversed its editorial policy, and the topless models are back on Page 3.
This rather dates my post from only yesterday, which begins talking about the ‘success’ of the No More Page 3 campaign.
I stand by the post itself, though, and repeat the core point: no law, no police, no threat of violence were part of the decision over whether the pictures should be published. The choice to publish or not remains free. Freedom of expression prevails! Note that the Sun suffers no sanction as it resumes publication. All this gives the lie to the ridiculous idea that this country had succumbed to politically correct censorship. We had not.
Though I remain of the view that Page 3 is a bad thing for society and am privately disappointed that it has returned, one cannot help but be wryly amused at the Sun’s tactics here. What label should we give it? ‘Machiavellian’? ‘A false retreat’? Trolling? The editors must be laughing their bellies off right now.
Happily, the No More Page 3 campaign understands that the debate is unlikely to end in the near term. They are happy to deploy their own right to free expression to continue their campaign. Here they are on Twitter, promoting their petition and welcoming new followers.
At first blush, the success of the No More Page 3 campaign does not look like a victory for free speech. After all, a thing that was being published, is no longer being published. The prudish censors have prevailed, right?
Look again. No law has been invoked to stop Rupert Murdoch from printing nipples on Page 3 (or, for that matter, Page 4 or 5). MPs did not vote on a new Bill. No lawyers have filed a complaint, no judge has granted an injunction. The law is not involved. Freedom of speech means a choice over whether to publish, and Mr Murdoch has chosen not to publish pictures of topless women any more. Continue reading