Solidarity with those boycotting Twitter for #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate. But there are concrete things we can do & need to shout about. We cannot rely on a US-based company to police itself. We know this. But we have laws! Why are they not enforced? #AskPriti bbc.co.uk/news/uk-535449…
I joined boycott y'day because registering protest & solidarity = important. But having spent 4 years reporting lack of accountability of tech giants, it won't work. And even if did, it's only 1 individual among 10000s on here spreading hate.
BUT there are things we can do..
Every few months I draw attention to @DrDavidDuke, an actual Ku Klux Klan grand wizard with 53k followers. But UK is not the US. We have existing hate speech laws. CPS said in 2017 it would take same 'robust' stance to hate online as offline..
Anyway, I'll shut up now. The point is that we as social media users are powerless. It's why it's so critical that we enforce the laws we have. And why it was such a total & abject moral failure that the government failed to back parliament in demanding Zuckerberg testify in UK.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I noticed Charlotte Owen, the junior aide Boris Johnson controversially ennobled, has a new gig with - shock! - Boris Johnson. But that’s only the start. There’s also uranium, Iran, Steve Bannon..& a LOT of qs
Boris Johnson has gone into business with this chap - Amir Adnani. He’s a uranium entrepreneur. And the photo he’s shared is the VP of his company meeting Johnson in parliament when he was still prime minister. 🧐
At some point - 4 days before he left office to put a number on it - Boris Johnson got *very* bullish on nuclear energy & committed £700m to the endlessly controversial Sizewell C reactor
You’ll remember from your science lessons that nuclear reactors run on…uranium
Yesterday I wrote a piece about Elon Musk for @ObserverUK, a free speech warrior so committed to the cause he serially sues his critics for libel. Today he responds to an untrue tweet about my own libel case. 1/
This is the article.
What I said in this ‘hateful’ piece is that Elon Musk believes in free speech in the same way he believes in free Teslas. Free for him & very expensive for everyone else.
NEW: I'm seeking permission to appeal in the Supreme Court. There's no meaningful free expression in this country if after proving your speech is lawful, you're hit with £££ costs: a devastating ruling that will chill public interest journalism
by @_EmmaGH theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/m…
This was filed today in the Court of Appeal. If the Supreme Court rejects it, we believe there’s a strong case to take it to the European Court of Human Rights.
Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights puts an obligation on states to ensure freedom of expression. According to the ruling in this case, it's very far from free: even if you can prove your speech is lawful, it'll still cost you hundreds of thousands of pounds...
It's been a long time but v happy to be back in @ObserverUK today with 2 pieces, both close to my heart. And to launch a new project with @allthecitizens.
1/ An astonishing new claim that MI5 refused to investigate Russian spy's infiltration of Tory party theguardian.com/politics/2023/…
2/ Delighted to profile the fierce & brilliant @pevchikh for @ObsNewReview. If you've seen the Navalny doc, she's the woman sitting by Navalny's side as he calls one of his FSB poisoners & gets him to confess to Novichoking his underpants. theguardian.com/world/2023/jan…
3/ Finally, the story of how the Kremlin captured Britain. And how the UK government covered it up. If you've wondered why no British broadcaster has told the real story behind the Russia Report, please watch this & consider contributing.
My jaw hit the floor when I discovered Boris Johnson left an emergency NATO meeting after the Kremlin’s chemical warfare attack on Britain & flew to an off-the-books meeting with an ex-KGB spy.
In July 2019, Johnson had just been made PM. And @nickhopkinsnews published 2 extraordinary stories about Foreign Secretary Johnson flying from a NATO meeting to a party in Italy at the height of the Skripal crisis.
The party was at Evgeny Lebedev’s villa. The owner of Independent & Evening Standard.
Hopkins’s first story suggested he’d given his security detail the slip to fly to Italy. Then a Guardian reader supplied photos of him leaving: hungover & dishevelled 3/