A short thread on bias at university. In my course on ‘The Protection and Management of Privacy and Reputation’ we use the Laurence Fox defamation case as a case study. It’s a technically interesting case: I teach it for that reason, not because of the political aspects. 1/6 I would give bad marks to anyone who said ‘Fox lost because the judge refused to define racism’ not because I’m politically biased, but because that would not be true. Fox lost because his legal team were unable to demonstrate that the relevant tweets caused serious harm… 2/6

Do you remember when we told you the laws against protest were authoritarian?

Do you remember when we told you the Online Safety Bill was a threat to free speech?

Do you remember caring?

No. Because you didn’t care.

Thread… 1/4 You didn’t care because you didn’t like the protestors & wanted them stopped.

You didn’t care about the Online Safety Act because you only thought evil trolls would be caught by it.

Newsflash: a tool to control can be used by people you don’t like, as well as those you do. 2/4

This past week has shown (once again) that the biggest harms of social media are not the ‘trolls and bots’ but the big accounts that magnify, corral and spread the harm. (Short thread) 1/4 These are not anonymous accounts, these are not ‘foreign’ accounts. These are our mainstream media people, our politicians, our ‘influencers’ and ‘commentators’. Amongst other things, this is yet another demonstration of how badly focussed the Online Safety Act is. 2/4

A few points about Starmer’s majority on a small vote share - and a comparison with Johnson’s situation in 2019. First thing to remember is that *as of this moment* it doesn’t matter how many votes they got, but how many seats. 1/7 That’s the problem with FPTP - a seat is a seat is a seat. In terms of governance, that means Starmer’s position is incredibly strong. He can basically do what he wants - just as Johnson could do whatever *he* wanted. 2/7

I have a little theory about Sunak. There are many reasons he’s in the mess he is, but one of them is his decision to go ahead with the Rwanda Scheme. He had a chance to step back from it, to abandon it. Instead he chose to push it. 1/4 He knew it was batshit. He knew it was unworkable. He just thought it would resonate with the nutters and the racists, and give him credibility with the far right. With the GBeebies audience, with the Braverman fans. 2/4

A few small points on ‘serious harm’, which was the crux of the Laurence Fox defamation actions. Firstly, the requirement for serious harm was added in the Defamation Act 2013 - the most recent reform of defamation law. 1/6 It was brought in specifically to make it harder to succeed in a defamation action. To stop trivial cases from succeeding. To help free speech. It adds an overall requirement before you even look at the words at issue. 2/6

A short and somewhat simplified thread on defamation law and the Laurence Fox case - and why it’s currently proceeding as it is. There are a number of key issues about the way the law works that need to be understood. 🧵 1/12 After Fox’s appearance on BBC’s Question Time in 2020, a number of people called him a racist on Twitter - and he responded by calling them paedophiles. They sued him for defamation for saying that, and he counter sued them for calling him a racist. 2/12

A question for @peston, @bbcnickrobinson, @bethrigby, @bbclauraK and other members of the ‘inner circle’ of political journalists. (Short thread) 1/6 As the COVID inquiry has gone on, it’s become increasingly evident that what was going on in Number 10 Downing Street was chaotic and disastrous in pretty much every way 2/6

Once upon a time there was a man who played golf rather well. He had a handicap of two. A golf club, exclusively for people with handicaps less than five, let him join. He was a bit of a tool: rude, boring, nasty about other members, but his game was good enough… 1/4 …and kept up the club’s standard well. After a few years, his standard declined - maybe it was the beer, maybe his age was catching up on him, maybe his sacking of his coach for being a foreigner, but for whatever reason his handicap went up and up. 2/4

A short thread on the Voter ID requirements, as I see the old myths are spreading again. Firstly, just to be completely clear, there’s plenty of evidence that the kind of voter fraud that this aims to prevent is *so* rare as to be negligible. It basically doesn’t happen. 1/8 The voter fraud that there *is* evidence of - though also relatively rare - surrounds postal voting, which the new Voter ID requirements do not address at all. This is a phantom menace, and should make it clear that the whole thing isn’t really about addressing a problem. 2/8

I see the ‘we’re criticised by both sides, so we must be doing OK’ analysis of the BBC is doing the rounds again. Please don’t do this - it’s a logical fallacy. Either or both sides criticising you may be wrong (and often are) or may be arguing in bad faith (and often are). 1/6 They may be wrong just by being wrong - but also because we are all *less* likely to see bias in our favour (it seems ‘right’) and *more* likely to see bias against us (it seems ‘wrong’), and hence focus on the bias against us, and think the bias is almost all against us. 2/6

A few points about Harry and privacy. I haven’t read Harry’s book, and don’t intend to, but I will defend his right to tell his story however he wants to. First point, though, is about privacy. 1/8 It’s *not* hypocritical to claim to want privacy and then to reveal all kinds of private information in a book like Spare. Privacy *isn’t* about hiding, it’s about having as much influence as you can over what information about you is available to whom. 2/8

Elon Musk learning the limits of free speech is fascinating to watch - but entirely predictable. The people who claim to be champions of free speech are some of the least likely to actually champion free speech. Wanting your mates not to be censored doesn’t make you a champion of free speech. It just means they’re your mates. The test is what you do for your enemies.

Anyway, my tuppence worth on Musk and Twitter. He’s in for a rocky ride, and the question for me is whether his ego is going to make him destroy Twitter. Right now, what’s pretty clear is that he doesn’t understand what makes Twitter work. 1/10 There are three things he doesn’t seem to grasp. Firstly, he seems to think he’s bought a tech company (‘not enough coders, too many managers’) when what he’s really bought is a community of users. 2/10

A short thread on ‘conspiracies’. Some good stuff (e.g. by @davidallengreen) has been written on ‘cock-up’ vs conspiracy. In general, it’s a very good rule of thumb that cock-up is more likely than conspiracy for all kinds of ‘bad’ things. There’s another dimension… 1/n That is, it’s also true - for a different kind of thing - that ‘consensus’ can be more likely than conspiracy. That is, if you see *scientists* or other experts agreeing, it’s much more likely that there’s a good reason for that, a consensus, rather than a conspiracy. 2/n

If you think a university place is a ‘birthright’, why build a system where you pay through the nose for it?

https://twitter.com/JohnNemoBell/status/1559770173258846208

Oh, you meant a ‘birthright’ for Freddie and Olivia whose parents can afford it.

A question for those who think, like Liz Truss, that British workers need more ‘graft’: what do you think needs to be done to make them work harder? The whip? Lower wages? Higher prices, to motivate them? It’s always been an underlying belief amongst certain people that the British are lazy. Boris Johnson wrote that “blue collar” men are likely to be drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless and hopeless” (fact checked here): fullfact.org/online/Boris-J…

When they invoke the ‘left blob’ all they mean is they had a shitty, impractical idea, and someone dared point out that it was shitty and impractical. Which is their job. ‘I want wave machines in the channel to blow the dinghies back!’ ‘But that won’t work and will be illegal’ ‘Damn you, left blob!’

So the #OnlineSafetyBill has been delayed until the Autumn. That’s a good thing. What is also good is that at least some of the ‘free speech’ people on the right of politics have realised what a disaster the bill is to free speech. Everyone should. A thread. 1/n A lot of focus has been on the ‘legal but harmful’ content and the ‘hurt feelings’ aspect that is covered by the #OnlineSafetyBill, but the real problems are much deeper. I’m just dealing with freedom of speech here, but there are other problems! 2/n

A short thread on the #OnlineSafetyBill. I hope I’m wrong, but I get the impression that the bill is still getting effective support across most of the political spectrum: it really shouldn’t be. Opposition politicians all over have recognised many of the government’s bills… 1/n …as being authoritarian, incoherent, insular, badly written, inappropriate and capable of massive misuse. We see it over policing - Steve Bray and ‘noisy protest’ - over the NI Protocol bill, over things like voter ID - but we don’t see it enough over the #OnlineSafetyBill. 2/n

No, Sinn Féin’s victory hasn’t ‘reignited’ Brexit problems. Those problems never went away. The reverse: Brexit reignited Northern Ireland’s problems, because those behind Brexit couldn’t give a toss about Northern Ireland. Or, in some cases, worse than that. The people who the Brexiters threw under the bus are trying to find a way. Sinn Fein seem to be offering at least some kind of way.