Sectarianism, the internet, and the choice to delete.

I'm always interested in the opinions and views of Iain Macwhirter, political columnist for the Sunday Herald, and rector of Edinburgh University. Today, in his own blog, he's been discussing the Scottish Government's plans to 'clamp down' on internet bigotry as part of their pledge to 'eradicate sectarianism in Scotland'.

He writes:

'Technology has given fresh energy to old hatreds and pustulent sectarianism' Alex Salmond told the Scottish Parliament last week.

Iain continues:

  
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter operate within a jurisdiction, and are therefore subject to the law of the land, otherwise it could be prevented from operating here.  The problem here isn't one of law, but of enforcement.  So far the police, politicians and crucially the law officers have not sought to enforce the law on the net.  But the truth is that no one has really tried.  I’m not sure why - they know where they live.

Furthermore:


The police relentlessly pursue paedophile rings that work over the internet with the co-operation of hosting sites and service providers.   If it is possible to trace and prosecute child pornographers it is possible, surely, to pursue anyone who breaks the law, given the will.
 
You can find the full article here.


It's a subject that needs discussing, that's for sure, and so I responded with a comment of my own:


Iain, do you honestly believe that the way to eradicate sectarianism as a social issue in Scotland is for the police to spend their time scouring Facebook and Twitter for 'sectarian language' amongst the deluge of inane conversation?

If you want my opinion, political rhetoric in the press is never the most informed place to start when researching any issue that involves the internet. A knowledge gap exists that I suspect will only close when more politicians have grown up with the technology themselves. Although by then, I imagine there will be another scapegoat/hobby horse to replace it with!

I'd have to disagree with you, about current police presence online. They don't have a strong record when it comes to dealing with, using your example, child pornography either. The bulk of arrests appear to originate more from accident than by design - victims/aquaintances/colleagues reporting the crimes, as oppose to any orchestrated 'clamp down' involving Internet Service Providers, who continue to maintain that it's not *their* job to police the web.

When the police have tested civil liberties, and moved aggressively, the results have been disastrous eg Operation Ore. Innocent people had their lives ruined.

If they are pressured into adopting a similar strategy with regards sectarianism, I fear the worst.

As much as I admire Alex Salmond, this recent rhetoric appears to me to be simply a way of appearing 'tough' on sectarianism by picking easy targets, that yield quick (if inconsequential) results, and that make few waves.

For example, are we to take it for acceptable that sectarian songs are regularly sung by huge numbers at football grounds, as long as the clubs involved express regret and vow to change? Flippant remarks made on social media are on the other hand pounced upon without mercy, because it's very much simpler to make an example of isolated individuals than to actually tackle the inherent culture itself.

Why am I seemingly defending bigots on Facebook/Twitter? Because we all say stupid things we don't mean in the heat of the moment. Comments made on social media are not set in stone, they should not be taken as someone's final word on the subject.

It is akin to comparing a well considered and heavily researched article like the sort you would publish in a newspaper, to a throwaway piece of drunken banter we might overhear down the pub. Are we to hold pub banter to the same standard as an article in the mainstream press? Higher, even? I don't see anyone pulling the Daily Mail up with regards their constant irrational bigotry towards our current crop of immigrants.

That paper carries much more influence than some wee gadge on Twitter ever will. Too often we forget that the likes of Twitter only has relatively low 'circulation', and that the only way these insignificant, and for the most part unread, comments ever have a chance of infamy in the first place, is by reproduction in the press.

Policies that affect social change are the only way forward in my opinion. It can be no coincidence that the areas of Scotland and the UK where bigotry thrives, are also those in most urgent need of rejuvination in general. Give people a better quality of life, and they will stop blaming their problems on the other tribe.

A simplification, but you get my point.

The trouble is that social change is affected slowly, even when done effectively. Too slowly for it to be considered 'sensational', or lend itself to headlines a First Minister might want at the beginning of his term.

Instead the debate is reduced to soundbites and rhetoric about policing the internet. Meanwhile, the real work to eradicate sectarianism continues behind the scenes, we hope.

For whatever reason, my comment was removed. I'll give Iain the benefit of the doubt, and assume there was a software issue. It did occur to me though, that had Iain simply deleted my comment because it was something he disagreed with, such an act perfectly illustrates the very nature of freedom of speech online.

If something is written online that you disapprove of, it can be deleted in an instant. It's not a bomb that requires careful defusing. At worst, you never revisit that page. You never need to look at it again. You filter your own content. You supervise your children's online behaviour. You take responsibility.

I have read sectarian remarks on football forums, even newspaper comment sections. The response they receive is often so overwhelmingly negative that the culprit will certainly think again, and this I find encouraging, rather than worrying. Most forums self-regulate, and will ban and/or block users who indulge in such behaviour. This can be done quickly and easily, and is. The police are not involved, but if someone is ostracised by their peers, that acts as a deterrent in itself.

Meanwhile, on the supposedly 'unregulated' Facebook and Twitter, there is a high degree of self regulation too. Public debate is normally conducted within relevant user groups or pages, and is monitored by at the very least an admin.

Even if remarks are not removed, the speed at which social media moves, coupled with its relatively small scale, ensures that their exposure is limited. It's the equivalent of daubing a wall with offensive graffitti, only for an hour later, something completely different has been painted over. And this wall, is only visible to a tiny portion of the population in the first place.

Posting an unrehearsed throwaway comment online cannot be considered the same as publishing an article. It simply does not have the perminance. If you are sectarian on a forum, they will ban you. If you are sectarian on a comment section, it will most likely be deleted. If you are sectarian on Facebook or Twitter, very few people will likely be subject to it, but if you violate their Terms and Conditions, you could lose your account.

So if the argument is that throwaway, off the cuff remarks should carry consequences. They do. Sectarianism online doesn't need to carry a jail sentence. All it requires is for the rest of us to collectively hit 'delete'. And that is, for the most part, what happens anyway.

Only when such behaviour is reproduced for sensational effect in the mainstream media, does it suddenly obtain any kind of powerful influence. Because then it is published for all the world to see, and we no longer have a choice.

______________________________________________________________


As an addendum, here is an article from STV news reporting on two recent arrests for online 'sectarian breach of the peace'.

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/244843-police-raid-homes-after-sectarian-abuse-appears-online/

The two men arrested, a 23-year-old and a 27-year-old, were held after the raids in Paisley and Dalmarnock in the east end of Glasgow. Both of the men have been charged with sectarian breach of the peace.
 
Police are continuing to investigate more than 50 people in a bid to crack down on "violent and hate-filled" comments being posted on the internet.

Speaking after the raids, Superintendent Kirk Kinnell of Strathclyde Police's Anti-violence directorate told Radio Clyde: "We have been working in the background, from both the internet sites for approximately six to eight weeks and it's culminated in all of the inquiries getting to the point where we obtained warrants late last night and went through the doors first thing this morning.

"We obtained three warrants last night and they relate to sectarian abuse towards Neil Lennon and also some racial abuse towards El-Hadji Diouf.

"We have evidence from around 50 internet postings so far and they will eventually culminate in us going through people's front doors.

What this hopes to achieve, beyond grabbing a few headlines, is anyone's guess. I am quite confident that when the term 'breach of the peace' was coined, it wasn't intended to be used as a means of confiscating a person's hard drive, simply because they made an offensive remark online.

Conspiracy theory? What are STV playing at?

I don't have much time for conspiracy theories. That is to say, I don't dislike them, I just find them entertaining rather than enlightening. This week has seen a great many thrown around, what with the announcement by President Obama, of Osama bin Laden's death at the hands of US forces. Any discrepancy has been pounced upon by an online community hungry for intrigue.

Obama's announcement was on Monday. It's now Thursday, and today, here in Scotland, we the public, have two ballots to consider. The Scottish Parlimentary Elections, and also the Referendum on Alternative Vote (AV). So in keeping with this week, here's my own little conspiracy theory.

Throughout the day, STV (the brand ITV uses in Scotland) have been posting links to promote their election coverage, on Twitter. Below is one.

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/247075-voters-go-the-polls-for-scottish-parliament-election/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

I'm reading the article, and what do I see alongside? 'Vote Labour. Vote NO to AV'. Wait, what?

The box you see on the bottom right of the image is an advert. Clicking on it takes you to the site below.

http://www.no2av.org/

The site itself contains the standard rhetoric the 'No to AV' campaign have been employing, but with an added twist. It purports that AV would be not only bad for the country, but 'bad for Labour'. There is a video of John Prescott, the Labour peer who has been campaigning for a 'no' vote in the referendum.

Out of curiosity, I check to see who the domain is registered to.

http://www.whois.net/whois/no2av.org

Charlotte Vere is a Conservative politician who achieved 3rd, standing in the 2010 general election for the Brighton Pavillion constituency. She's probably best known for being quoted in The Economist, describing the Green Party as 'hard left eco-fascists'.

Now, given that the 'no' campaign has recieved support from politicians across the spectrum, I don't think it can really be considered abnormal for Labour and Conservative polticians to be working together on this issue. Some might even cite it as a positive example of bi-partisanship in UK politics.

What I do find surprising is that a website paid for with Conservative funds, is actively promoting not only a 'no' vote, but encouraging Scots to vote Labour. And doing this by posting an ad on the pages of one of the main broadcasters of electoral coverage in Scotland, no less.

Regardless of how you view the Alternative Vote debate, regardless of whoever you vote for in Scottish or indeed UK politics, you must admit that this is all a bit odd.

Of couse, it's not unusual to find the impartiality of broadcasters being discussed online. Anyone with an interest in politics will no doubt have reason at some time in their life, to feel that their view is being under-represented by a particular broadcaster. Sometimes an interviewer can appear biased. Or a programme might seem to allocate a disproportionate amount of time to differing views.

But this is not what I am describing today. What STV have done is accept money from the Conservative party in order to tell voters in Scotland  to 'Vote Labour. Vote NO to AV'. On election day.

If that doesn't scream 'unionist conspiracy' to some people, I don't know what will. But the question I find most puzzling is what the hell are STV playing at? Surely campaigning this blatantly on behalf of a political party (whether you consider that to be the Conservatives or Labour) is against their constitution? Being subjectively biased is one thing, but actively telling us how to vote on the day of an election, and on the very pages of their supposedly impartial election coverage, is quite another.

The Legend of Gordon Brown's Gold

Between 1999 and 2002, Gordon Brown sold 60% of the UK's gold reserves. I've noticed it has become something of an accepted wisdom held among those on the centre-right of UK politics, that this auction was a clear example of unforgivable incompetence on the part of Brown, and that it possibly even contributed to our country's current financial predicament.

Now, I'm personally no fan of Brown or New Labour, but the logic itself appears seriously flawed to me.

In 2010 the Telegraph argued:

"The price of gold has quadrupled since Gordon Brown sold more than half of Britain’s reserves.

The Treasury pre-announced its plans to sell 395 tons of the 715 tons held by the Bank of England, which caused prices to fall.The bullion was sold in 17 auctions between 1999 and 2002, with dealers paying between $256 and $296 an ounce. Since then, the price has increased rapidly. Yesterday, it stood at $1,100 an ounce.

The taxpayer lost an estimated £7 billion, twice the amount lost when Britain left the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992.The proceeds from the sales were invested in dollars, euros and yen. In recent years, most other countries have begun buying gold again in large quantities."

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/gold/7511589/Explain-why-you-sold-Britains-gold-Gordon-Brown-told.html

So according to the Telegraph's theory, if the gold hadn't been sold between 1999 and 2002, the current Con-Dem coalition government would be able to sell it now, for an increased £7billion more than Brown got for it. That money could be used to ease the UK's current sovereign debt, something which is of major concern to the present government following the global economic crisis of 2008, as they try to maintain interest payments with a relatively low GDP at their disposal.

And given that this hypothetical gold doesn't exist now, solely because of Brown's decision, such a theory is of course useful in the context of the coalition justifying, for example, public sector cuts eg 'we don't wish to cut, but by selling the gold when he did, Gordon left us with no option'.

So why did Brown start selling our gold in 1999?

The price of gold previously spiked in 1981, but had since been in decline. Our gold reserves were losing  value by the year. In 1999, the question would have been 'why on earth didn't we sell them in 1981?' After all, for most of the 20th century, government bonds had out-performed gold. So in 1999, Brown sold the gold for government bonds, diversifying the UK's investment porfolio, meaning all our eggs would no longer be in one proverbial basket. Apart from being more stable in value than gold, these bonds also had the advantage of accruing interest. With the price of gold in decline, it would have seemed like the obvious thing to do.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/GoldReserves.PDF

Of course, the precious metals industry were bitterly disappointed with Brown's decision, especially so when in an ill-advised attempt at transparency, Brown publicly announced his intention to sell, which resulted in the price dropping even further. Pierre Lassonde, Chairman of Franco Nevada Mining told the BBC in 2008: 


"Gordon Brown came and said 'Well, yep, I'm going to be selling gold' so the market just caved in and the market went down to $250."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/06_june/13/gold.shtml 

But it's also worth remembering that gold had been trending downwards for almost twenty years prior to Brown's announcement, too.

How did the gold market recover then? Shouldn't Brown have predicted it would?

It's been claimed that the gold market was bound to recover eventually, that 'experts' knew it would. But the fact is that the gold market did not fix itself.

In September 1999, the International Monitary Fund (IMF) met in Washington, and signed the Central Bank Gold Agreement in response to gold sales by Switzerland (around four times the amount Brown had sold), Austria, the Netherlands, and of course the UK. Their issue was that Brown's announcing of his sale in advance had in particular, they believed, unsettled the market. Countries like Belgium and the Netherlands had always been more discrete about their gold sales in the past. The Central Bank Agreement meant that:


"the 11 national central banks of nations then participating in the new European currency, plus those of Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, agreed that gold should remain an important element of global monetary reserves and to limit their sales to no more than 400 tonnes (12.9 million oz) annually over the five years September 1999 to September 2004, being 2,000 tonnes (64.5 million oz) in all."

http://info.goldavenue.com/info_site/in_mark/in_offgold_wa.htm

The immediate effect of this was to re-establish confidence in gold, and its market value rose accordingly. In 2004, an extension was signed, and gold's value has risen ever since, leading to the Telegraph's figure of $1,100 an ounce.

The irony is that it was Gordon Brown's announcement of his gold auction, criticised as a mistake, because it led to a drop... that eventually led the IMF to make their decision... which in turn led to the price rising again for the first time in years.

This is a major hole in the argument to villify Brown for selling in 1999. If he hadn't sold the way he did, the value of gold wouldn't have been set to recover in quite the way it has either. One can't have it both ways!

Did Brown sell the gold so that he could indulge more money in the public sector?

Not at all. In 2000, Brown raised £22.5billion from the sale of the 3G mobile phone spectrum to Vodafone, Orange, BT Cellnet and One2One. That's £22.5billion. Not the Telegraph's hypothetical £7billion, but a real £22.5billion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/727831.stm

Brown used this money to address the UK's sovereign debt. He actually did what the Telegraph suggest doing now (hypothetically, of course) with their imaginary gold (IMF limitations on auctioning gold, not withstanding!). He reduced our sovereign debt, which meant that our interest payments became lower. Money saved was then used to bolster the NHS.

So why do politicians and commentators of the centre-right in the UK persist in scapegoating Brown over the gold?

Recently, news articles concerning a rumour that Gordon Brown was applying to be head of the IMF were flying around. Cue unbridled disgust from the centre-right of UK politics, and a torrent of accepted wisdom about how Brown singlehandedly 'wrecked the economy'.

Now, it's probably true he didn't help matters by continuing a policy of deregulating the banking sector. You could argue his lassez-faire approach enabled investment banks in this country to take hugely irresponsible risks, with disastrous consequences.

But it's difficult for those on the centre-right to criticise Brown too harshly in this way because pre-2008, while he was deregulating the banks, the Conservatives were screaming at him for not deregulating far enough.

Of course there are plenty of other reasons I can think of to be annoyed at Brown (and Labour):


1) entering into an illegal war.

2) using Private Finance Initiatives.


3) introducing tuition fees for students.

Off the top of my head. But again, the trouble for the centre-right, is they can't criticise too harshly on these issues, without appearing hypocritical, because:

1) the Conservatives strongly supported the war in Iraq.


2) PFI was their initial idea (admittedly, George Osborne was critical of PFI during his election campaign, but has since extended contracts worth £6.9 billion.)


3) the Con-Dem coalition have subsequently increased the cap on tuition fees in England to £9,000.

And thus, any time Gordon Brown is even mentioned in the press, you can be sure that the legend of the gold he apparently sold for peanuts won't be too far behind.