Tag: united kingdom

Starmer Announces Yet More Censorship

Even more censorship is on the way. The Government has announced plans to force AI chatbots to comply with malicious communications laws – and to give itself Orwellian powers to bring in yet more speech restrictions without Parliamentary oversight. Toby writes about the moves in the Telegraph.

The Government intends to bring forward amendments of its own to the schools Bill that will supposedly close a loophole in the Online Safety Act to make sure AI chatbots comply with Britain’s draconian censorship laws. That will mean that if Grok says something in response to a user prompt that breaches, say, the Malicious Communications Act 1988, which was designed to protect women from obscene phone calls, Ofcom can fine its parent company £18 million or 10% of its annual global turnover. Whichever is the highest.

This will be the death knell of Britain’s burgeoning AI sector, particularly as chatbots become more autonomous. What tech entrepreneur will risk setting up an AI company in the UK, knowing that if a chatbot shares an anti-immigration meme or misgenders a trans person, it could mean a swingeing fine?

Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if xAI, along with OpenAI and Anthropic, decide to withdraw access to their chatbots from UK residents. At the very least, we’ll be saddled with lobotomised versions that trot out progressive bromides whenever they’re asked a political question.

In addition, the Government has said it will pass a new law to stop children sending or receiving nude images. Needless to say, that’s already a criminal offence under the Protection of Children Act 1978, so what does the Government have in mind?

It has not said, but I fear it means embedding surveillance software in every smartphone to enable the authorities to monitor users’ activity, no doubt accompanied by mandatory digital ID so no one will be able to hide. Not even the People’s Republic of China does that.

The Government unveiled some other Orwellian measures, but rather than bring them in as revisions to the schools Bill, it will put through amendments that will enable it to make further changes to Britain’s censorship regime via secondary legislation, i.e., it will grant itself sweeping Henry VIII powers.

It’s worth bearing in mind that secondary legislation cannot be amended and allows little time for debate. The Government’s excessive reliance on secondary legislation has been criticised by the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

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UK Government Plans to Use Delegated Powers to Undermine Encryption and Expand Online Surveillance

The UK government wants to scan people’s photos before they send them. Not just children’s photos. Everyone’s.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall spelled it out on BBC Breakfast, floating a proposal to “block photographs being sent that are potentially nude photographs by anybody or block children from sending those.” That second clause is the tell. Blocking “anybody” from sending potentially nude images requires scanning everybody’s messages. There’s no technical path to that outcome that doesn’t involve reading content the sender assumed was private.

Kendall said the government is conducting a consultation on “whether we should have age limits on things like live streaming” and whether there should be “age limits on what’s called stranger pairing, for example, on games online.” The consultation, she said, will look at all of these. That list now covers messaging apps, photo sharing, gaming, and live streaming. Any feature that lets you share an image with another person potentially falls inside it.

This is how the mandate grows. The government announced a push for new delegated powers on February 16, framing them around age verification for social media and VPNs.

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EPSTEIN FILES FALLOUT: UK Police ‘Assessing Information’ on Stansted Airport, Suspected To Have Been Used for Sex Trafficking Young Women Into Britain

Sex traffickers’ entry gate?

The UK is reeling over the allegations that the Jeffrey Epstein trafficking ring would have used Stansted airport with impunity, trafficking women into Britain.

The issue has even been taken up by a former Prime Minister who is calling for a full investigation.

By now, Essex Police has said it is ‘assessing information’ about private flights coming and going from Stansted Airport, after it was featured in the US DOJ’s Epstein files.

This ‘assessing information’ ruse may well mean that the whole business will be quashed.

BBC reported:

“Last year a BBC investigation found 87 flights linked to the convicted sex offender had arrived at or departed from UK airports between the early 1990s and 2018.

Ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in the New Statesman last week that police ‘urgently’ need to re-examine whether Jeffrey Epstein’s victims were trafficked within and outside of the UK.”

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Keir Starmer Considers VPN ID Checks as UK Expands Online Safety Act Powers

Having already installed itself as the nation’s digital nanny with its online censorship law, the Online Safety Act, the government is now peering into the last remaining corner of online privacy and wondering whether it, too, might benefit from a sturdy padlock.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has confirmed that ministers are examining new powers to move beyond social media age limits and into the architecture of private browsing itself. The latest idea involves ID checks for VPN use and chatbots.

Naturally, this is all for the children.

A VPN, or virtual private network, is often treated like a villainous contraption, but it’s actually a tool that encrypts your internet traffic and masks your location. In plain English, it stops internet providers, advertisers, and sometimes governments from tracking what you read, watch, or search.

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Demented: Councillor Pushes Kids To Send VALENTINE’S CARDS To Illegal Male

A Green Party councillor in the UK has sparked outrage by announcing plans to take her young grandchildren to deliver handmade Valentine’s Day cards to adult male asylum seekers at a migrant camp.

This comes amid widespread local opposition to the government’s decision to house hundreds of illegal migrants in a former military base, and fresh revelations about horrific crimes committed by similar arrivals.

Anne Cross, an East Sussex County councillor, made the announcement at a heated public meeting, claiming it would help “dispel fear” by encouraging people to “hear the stories” of the migrants. “There is nothing like getting to know people and hearing their stories in order to dispel fear,” she said. “My grandchildren and I painted some Valentine’s Cards at the weekend which we are going to be presenting to the men at Crowborough as a welcome.”

The camp in Crowborough, a former army cadet training site, has been repurposed by the Home Office to accommodate up to 540 male migrants who arrived via small boats. Local residents have protested the move, with demonstrations highlighting concerns over safety and community impact. The additional policing costs alone are projected at £5.62 million, according to Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne.

Cross urged community representatives to “stand with all those who share the love,” but her plan has been met with fierce backlash. Sussex Weald Conservative MP Nus Ghani called it “disturbing” and “highly irresponsible,” pointing to “widespread concern locally” and a lack of “regard for safeguarding” when involving children with “single adult men.”

Unfazed, Cross insisted the cards would be anonymous and that “there has been much misinformation about the men who will be housed in the camp and this has created a climate of fear.” She added, “But there is no evidence children or women are at a higher risk from people seeking asylum than other sections of our society.”

This naive stance ignores a pattern of sexual crimes linked to asylum seekers across the UK. Just days ago, details emerged of a chilling case where Ahmed Müller, a 23-year-old Afghan national who arrived illegally by small boat four months prior, was convicted of abducting, raping, and filming a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton.

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UK Regulator Ofcom Proposes Second Fine Against US Platform 4chan

Britain’s speech regulator, Ofcom, has proposed another financial penalty against 4chan under the Online Safety Act, deepening a censorship dispute that stretches from London to Washington.

4chan is an American platform, hosted in the United States, with no presence in Britain. Yet under the Online Safety Act, Ofcom believes that this falls under its authority.

Tensions increased after Ofcom declined to provide 4chan with a copy of its provisional decision before announcing the outcome publicly. According to the platform’s legal team, this decision limited its ability to respond in real time.

Preston Byrne, counsel for 4chan, stated that the regulator’s refusal was intended “to deny us the opportunity for a public rebuttal.”

He further accused the regulator of engaging in “domestic narrative control” by withholding advance access to the decision while preparing to publish its conclusions.

Ofcom announced that it has escalated its enforcement action against 4chan, stating: “In accordance with section 130 of the Online Safety Act 2023, we have today issued 4chan Community Support LLC with a provisional notice of contravention.”

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UK Fines US Platform Imgur For Lack of Age Verification

Imgur’s decision to suspend access for UK users in September 2025 was an early signal that regulatory pressure was building. The platform’s parent company has now learned the financial cost of that pressure.

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has fined MediaLab, which operates image hosting company Imgur, £247,590 ($337,000) for violations of the UK GDPR.

According to the regulator, the company processed children’s personal data without a lawful basis, failed to implement effective age assurance measures, and did not complete a required data protection impact assessment.

The ICO’s findings focus on how children under 13 were able to use the service without verified parental consent or “any other lawful basis.”

The regulator also determined that the company lacked meaningful age checks. That means the platform did not reliably verify whether users were children before collecting and processing their data. Additionally, MediaLab did not conduct a formal risk assessment to examine how its service might affect minors’ rights and freedoms.

“MediaLab failed in its legal duties to protect children, putting them at unnecessary risk,” said UK Information Commissioner John Edwards. “For years, it allowed children to use Imgur without any effective age checks, while collecting and processing their data, which in turn exposed them to harmful and inappropriate content. Age checks help organizations keep children’s personal information safe.”

He added, “Ignoring the fact that children use these services, while processing their data unlawfully, is not acceptable. Companies that choose to ignore this can expect to face similar enforcement action.”

The ICO says it has the authority to impose fines of up to £17.5 million or 4 percent of an organization’s annual global revenue, whichever is higher. In setting the penalty at £247,590, the office stated that it “took into consideration the number of children affected by this breach, the degree of potential harm caused, the duration of the contraventions, and the company’s global turnover.”

This enforcement action sits within a broader UK policy change toward mandatory online age verification.

Lawmakers and regulators have increasingly pressed platforms to deploy age assurance tools that can include document checks, facial age estimation, or third-party verification services. All-privacy invasive.

While positioned as child protection measures, these systems often require users to submit government-issued identification or biometric data simply to access online services.

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UK RELEASES Dangerous Bomb Plot Terrorist From Prison EARLY

The UK continues its slide into absurdity, where convicted terrorists plotting to bomb British targets get early release or even run for office, while citizens daring to post about grooming gangs or question mass migration face prison time.

The latest insanity comes in the case of Zahid Iqbal, one of Britain’s most dangerous terrorists, who is poised for release just weeks from now—a full three years ahead of schedule.

Jailed in 2013 for plotting to bomb an Army base in Luton using instructions from an Al-Qaeda manual titled “How to make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom,” Iqbal admitted to engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism.

Recordings revealed Iqbal suggesting an IED attached to a remote-controlled toy car to target a TA centre. He also facilitated travel for extremist training abroad. Despite expert advice against it, the parole board has greenlit his freedom under strict conditions, even ignoring warnings from his prison and community offender managers.

Reform UK’s crime adviser Colin Sutton called it a “baffling decision,” noting that Iqbal’s prior early release in 2021 was revoked for non-compliance, and questioning why he’d behave now.

“You know, there’s an expectation we’ve all got. These are the most serious offences that you can commit against our society,” Sutton urged, adding “this wasn’t a guy in his bedroom cooking something up. This was somebody who arranged training. He had links with al-Qaeda. He was a proper terrorist. And he was released early in 2021 and had to be called back in because he wasn’t complying with the conditions.”

This isn’t isolated. As we previously covered, Shahid Butt, convicted in 1999 for conspiring to bomb the British consulate in Yemen, is standing for election as a pro-Gaza independent in Birmingham’s Sparkhill ward. Linked to an armed Islamist group and past violence, Butt urges Muslim youth to “work out at the gym and learn to fight” against “disbelievers.”

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Labour MSP defends ‘loyalty and care’ friendship with convicted paedophile that cost her the party whip

A Labour MSP has defended her relationship with a twice-convicted paedophile after she was suspended from the party.

Pam Duncan-Glancy said she was ‘deeply disappointed’ by Scottish Labour’s decision to remove the whip and said it was not yet clear why the party chose to do so now.

Party leader Anas Sarwar told reporters at Holyrood that the Glasgow MSP had been suspended after ‘new information’ came to light.

It is not yet clear what the information is or when the party found out about it.

Ms Duncan-Glancy was sacked as Scottish Labour’s shadow education secretary by Mr Sarwar in December following revelations about her friendship with Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray who held indecent images of children.

In 2017, he was convicted for possessing indecent child images as well as extreme pornography of animals.

He was convicted again in January 2025 for possessing indecent images of children and breaching a sexual offences order and was given a 16-month sentence.

In her statement, Ms Duncan-Glancy said that while she did not condone Morton’s crimes, he remains someone who is vulnerable and in need of support.

She said: ‘I am deeply disappointed that the Party have taken the decision to remove the whip. The details of their decision to do this now are not yet clear to me.

‘My personal relationship with someone who grew up with me, who stayed with my family for periods of time during our childhood, and who is to all intents and purposes, family, has never affected my work.

‘When he was convicted of these very serious crimes, the justice system, rightly, dealt with him. I have never condoned his crimes and have always been clear that his actions were wrong.

‘He, however, was and remains someone requiring support, and my family and I, as is often the case, ensured his welfare.

‘There is no doubt this is difficult. I accept that not everyone will understand my reasons for doing what I did.

‘My actions arise from loyalty and care. I was providing support to a highly vulnerable person. Loyalty and care are values that I think make me a good representative and for which I believe others know me for.

‘I am also hugely grateful for the outpouring of support I have been shown, from constituents, colleagues, family, friends and indeed strangers alike.

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Why was a dog-humping paedo treated like a saint?

Journalism takes you to some strange places. Alas, to date in my career, I have yet to be asked to review a luxury hotel or a Michelin-starred restaurant. Instead, my lot is to probe the creeps and the criminals, the dregs and the drag queens. Today’s specimen, the convicted child rapist and popular drag queen, Darren Moore (full name Darren Haydn Meah-Moore), ticks every box.

When the entertainer’s body was found in an alleyway in Cardiff city centre in January 2023, his death prompted a frenzy of speculation. The BBC ran multiple pieces on the investigation and even covered a vigil held at Windsor Place, Cardiff.

‘It’s rocked the community, that’s all I can say, no one’s safe anywhere’, his friend, Richard Smith, told a BBC reporter. Drag performer Myky Webb warned it was ‘very worrying for Cardiff as a city and for queer people in Cardiff on the scene, to think that this kind of thing still happens in 2023’. Rob Llewelyn said he had watched Moore sing in Cardiff over the past 20 years. ‘Everyone in the gay community knew him, he was just liked by everyone’, Llewelyn said.

The unspoken assumption in the BBC’s reporting was clear: that the dead gay man, who was found in a luminous green dress, blonde wig and diamante heels, had been the victim of a hate crime. Amid the public outpouring, popular children’s drag entertainer Aida H Dee helped raise funds for Moore’s funeral. On the day of the funeral, Cardiff Council and the police went so far as to close roads across the city to accommodate a horse-drawn cortège.

Now, two years on, an inquest has revealed the truth about Moore’s death. And it is grisly. The coroner ruled that this, er, beloved pillar of the community might have died from an allergy to dog semen. I don’t think I have ever written a sentence as grotesque – so that’s a first.

The 39-year-old certainly went out with a bang. He had been on a night out in Cardiff, performing under one of his monikers – Crystal Couture and CC Quinn. He had ‘spent time… with two men’ before leaving a nightclub. Shortly before 6am, he encountered a man walking his dog. The pair went to an alleyway together. The dog went with them. The last man to see Moore alive said he and Moore had sex, before Moore ‘encouraged’ the dog to ‘join in’. The coroner found that ‘at some stage between 5.52am and 6.38am, the man’s dog penetrated Darren’. Although he couldn’t confirm precisely which of the men had goaded the dog, he added that it would have been ‘almost impossible’ for the dog to have performed the act without ‘guidance and encouragement’ from a human. The second man said Moore later fell asleep in the alleyway. This is where he was found dead the next morning.

As no one in recorded history has died from dog ejaculate, it was not possible for the coroner to confirm that this was definitely Moore’s cause of death. Nonetheless, he found that he was not able to rule out the dog’s semen – and Moore’s allergy to dogs – as a possibility. The official cause of death was registered as ‘sudden death in a man with bronchial asthma in the cold who had consumed alcohol and in a temporal association with sexual activity including intercourse with a dog’.

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