After viewing some of the responses to my article on Tom Daley and Twitter trolls, I have been thinking some more about this issue, and the wider problem of people posting offensive and threatening things online.
Many responders felt that I was too lenient on @Rileyy_69, when I said that “This appears to be the kind of outburst that is commonplace in a noisy, modern, and connected society.”
https://twitter.com/UrsulaWJ/status/230343421506768896
In their view, the level of abuse was not an ‘outburst’ as I put it, but something more sustained. The same person posted threatening videos on YouTube, and the invective he posted on twitter was not limited to the Daley tweets on the day in question. If this behaviour is systematic rather than a heat-of-the-moment slip of the finger, then it should be treated as threatening behaviour. Or so the argument goes. Continue reading
Category: Diary (Page 114 of 301)
Things that happen to me, or things I do
Away from the Olympics, there has been a massive rush for lottery tickets ahead of tonight’s £105 Million Euromillions Draw.
Its not really new or interesting to point out how irrational playing the lottery is. Playing the lottery is often called “a tax on stupid people”. It is not only irrational in the sense that people pin their hopes on something extremely unlikely to happen, but also economically irrational. The ‘expected return’ (a function of the probability and the amount invested) is much less than other types of gambling too. The odds of winning the UK lottery jackpot are 13,913,816 to one, which suggests thatyou should win at least £13,913,816 on a £1 stake, should your six numbers come up. Instead, the lottery jackpots are usually much lower (typically about £2 million). That’s like getting only £15 winnings after putting a quid on a 100/1 horse at the Grand National!
However, playing the UK lottery does become economically rational if the rollover jackpot goes over £14 million, because then you’re actually taking a bet with a better return than the odds would suggest. This happened frequently in the past, though less so in recent years as the popularity of the Lotto decreases.
There’s no such benefit with EuroMillions however. The odds are one in 95,344,200, and the price of a ticket is £2 in the UK. That means it is only economically rational to play EuroMillions when the jackpot is £190 million or more. This has not happened yet. the biggest win so far was £161 million. In fact, rules for that lottery cap the jackpot at €185 million.
The smug designer with the skinny t-shirt and a fixed gear bike.
The mother in blue track suit with an empty child seat fixed to the pannier.
The ill-prepared lad in the baggy jeans on mountain bike with the seat set way too low.
The hobbyist with orange glasses and Lycra that matches his titanium frame.
The dreadlocked courier with a thick chain wrapped around his chest.
The woman with frayed ginger hair crawling out of her helmet.
The two Japanese tourists, inexplicably on Boris Bikes (miles from a docking station, surely?)
Could I discern
The same eager twitching as the red lights wane,
The same grit of the teeth as clear road opens up ahead
The same extra power on the pedals as the bike overtakes a bus
The same glance over the shoulders, to check the gap between the person behind,
The same confident gait of the one who imagines himself to be wearing a yellow jersey,
As I perceived in myself?
At the four way pedestrian crossing at Ludgate Hill,
When the red lights rudely put the brakes on our makeshift peloton,
Did I perceive in the tall old man in a linen suit,
In the girl in a flowing white dress and flat sandals
In the woman in the business skirt and trainers,
In the sweaty man in shorts, now carrying his fold up bicycle,
A quicker step
A longer stride
A firmer tread
As if the noise that heralded the green man
Was no longer a high-pitched beep
But a starters’ gun?
According to Sunny Hundal’s new web service Rippla, Joseph Harker’s Guardian article, about racism and the demonisation of communities, was the most shared article in the UK yesterday.
And quite right too. It’s a truly sublime piece of analysis, comparing recent news sources, real demographic data, and an apt turn of phrase, to analyse the differing media coverage given to the same crimes, when committed by different perpetrators. When Muslims are convicted of sex crimes, the stories receive much more attention than when generic white Englishmen are found to have done the same deed. Worse, the actions of wayward Muslims are deemed to be somehow inspired by their culture. This same extrapolation never happens for white people.
This article feels like the definitive statement on the issue of how the media treats minorities. It raises its head in various guises all the time. Like many people, I have been mulling it for years. Back in 2003, when I was part of The LIP Magazine‘s editorial team, we published ‘Do You Belong To A Community?‘ by Aisha Phoenix which begins with a bite: “Whenever the media describes someone as coming from a ‘community’, you know they are not white.” Almost a decade later, and I see the same anxieties in this comment from the novelist Kamila Shamsie to the columnist David Aaronovich: “Could we have a moratorium on the phrase ‘Muslim leader’ please?”
Much rhetoric in politics is of a kind where the speaker (or writer) claims that his or her special interest group are being treated unfairly, and if they were of a different skin colour or religion (or whatever) they would be treated better. This is often an incorrect assumption, which betrays a lack of understanding of the society in which we live.
Harker makes precisely this kind of argument in his article, too. However, instead of making a vague assumption, the nature of the issue means he does have the ‘data’ to back up the rhetoric, and the article becomes akin to a scientific experiment. Since the two prosecutions he examines are so similar, it is almost as if one is the control group for the other, in one of those attitude surveys invented by psychologists: Keep the details similar but change the ethnicity of the person, and see how attitudes change.
I would love to see other scientific analogies used in political discourse. In particular, I yearn for an equivalent of dye tracing or radio-active marking when a controversy flares. This would be very useful during some of the free speech arguments I follow, when some kind of institution has to decide whether to support or withdraw an offensive text, event or artwork. It would be great to trace the decision-making process in such a way as to perceive the point where the support for the principle of free speech breaks down. That would help us identify where these values should be reinforced. Unfortunately, I cannot quite imagine how one might set the ‘tracer’ off… short of manufacturing an argument. So, if Anjem Choudary is reading this, perhaps he would give me advanced warning of his next stunt? Then I can track the reactions he provokes with academic precision.
First posted over at the English PEN site.
In her monthly column for MediaShift, Jillian York (Director of International Free Expression at the EFF, and a Global Voices board member) turned her attention to online campaigns for imprisoned bloggers. In particular, how can a campaign be effective in a country like Syria, which has recently become impervious to international pressure?
As part of the piece, Jillian asked several free speech campaigners for their views on the question, and I responded on behalf of English PEN:
When a blogger is imprisoned, it is not just his voice that is silenced. Those who share his point of view are discouraged by his example, and choose to keep quiet. A public solidarity campaign on social media can have the opposite effect, emboldening others to speak out and fill the void left by their imprisoned comrade … so while the text of a message may be “Free Hussein Ghrer,” the subtext is “We Have Not Forgotten Hussein Ghrer,” which is a powerful message to send to the authorities. Sending letters or (as English PEN does) books to these prisoners carries a similar message.
You can read more of my comments, alongside those of several bloggers who are on the frontline of activism, at the MediaShift website. You can leave comments there too.