Tag: united kingdom

UK Quietly Passes “Online Safety Bill” Into Law

Buried behind the Brand-related headlines yesterday, the British House of Lords voted to pass the controversial “Online Safety Bill” into law. All that’s needed now is Royal assent, which Charles will obviously provide.

The bill’s (very catchy) long-form title is…

A Bill to make provision for and in connection with the regulation by OFCOM of certain internet services; for and in connection with communications offences; and for connected purposes.

…and that’s essentially it, it hands the duty of “regulating” certain online content to the UK’s Office of Communications (OfCom).

Ofcom Chief Executive Dame Melanie Dawes could barely contain her excitement in a statement to the press:

“Today is a major milestone in the mission to create a safer life online for children and adults in the UK. Everyone at Ofcom feels privileged to be entrusted with this important role, and we’re ready to start implementing these new laws.”

As always with these things, the bill’s text is a challenging and rather dull read, deliberately obscure in its language and difficult to navigate.

Of some note is the “information offenses” clause, which empowers OfCom to demand “information” from users, companies and employees, and makes it a crime to withhold it. The nature of this “information” is never specified, nor does it appear to be qualified. Meaning it could be anything, and will most likely be used to get private account information about users from social media platforms.

In one of the more worrying clauses, the Bill outlines what they call “communications offenses”. Section 10 details crimes of transmitting “Harmful, false and threatening communications”.

It should be noted that sending threats is already illegal in the UK, so the only new ground covered here is “harmful” and/or “false” information, and the fact they feel the need to differentiate between those two things should worry you.

After all, the truth can definitely be “harmful”…Especially to a power-hungry elite barely controlling an angry populace through dishonest propaganda.

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Actor who plunged to his death while partying with Pete Doherty in London flat was likely ‘pushed’ FBI expert says – as man’s heartbroken mother hits out at police investigation

An actor who fell from a balcony to his death at a London party after an argument with Libertines frontman Peter Doherty was likely ‘thrown’, an expert has claimed.

Mark Blanco, 30, died in 2006 after falling from a block of flats at an event attended by a number of friends and the then-Babyshambles singer-songwriter. 

Police investigated the case, and Doherty was implicated after an inquest into the actor’s death, but there have been no charges to date.

Doherty wrote in a blog post in 2011, now inaccessible, that neither he nor anybody else was with Blanco just before he died. 

‘When he fell or jumped he was alone,’ he wrote, according to NME.

But CCTV analyst and FBI instructor Grant Frederick has now alleged, based on fresh analysis of footage of the fall, that ‘there couldn’t be just one person on the balcony’.

He told The Mirror: ‘What I would see is that Mark has come out and somebody has taken Mark and is putting him over the balcony. 

‘If the measurements and the distance are correct, then Mark was thrown over the balcony, Mark was murdered.’

Frederick claimed he had asked the Metropolitan Police to perform his analysis ten years ago, but they had failed to.

Blanco’s mother has continued to seek answers to the unresolved questions around her son’s death, reportedly spending £100,000 on her own investigation.

Sheila Blanco believes the Met made mistakes in the investigation, including missing key evidence, and will feature in a new Channel 4 documentary, ‘Pete Doherty, Who Killed My Son?’, on September 25.

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UK Parliament sends letters to social media platforms demanding demonetization of Russell Brand

The UK Parliament has sent letters to TikTok and Rumble expressing concerns that comedian Russel Brand could be profiting off the platforms.

“I am writing concerning the serious allegations regarding Russell Brand, in the context as a user of TikTok with more than 2.2 million followers on the platform,” the letter to Theo Bertram, TikTok Director of Government Relations, Europe, began.

The following day after TikTok was sent the letter, Rumble received a similar letter from Dinenage, noting Brand’s 1.4 million followers on the platform, and asking whether Rumble “intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr. Brand’s ability to earn money on the platform.”

“The Culture, Media and Sport [Committee] is raising questions with the broadcasters who previously employed Mr. Brand or production companies who employed him, to examine both the culture of the industry in the past and whether that culture still prevails today,” Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage MP wrote.

Dinenage noted that while Brand no longer appears on television, he has amassed a following on various social media platforms, “including on TikTok where this weekend he republished his pre-emptive response to the accusations made against him by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches.”

“While we recognize that TikTok is not the creator of the content published by Mr. Brand, and his content may be within the Community Guidelines set out by the platform, we are concerned that he may be able to profit from his content on the platform.”

Dinenage requested that TikTok confirm whether Brand is able to monetize his content on the platform, and tell “what the platform is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate or potentially illegal behavior.”

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The UK passes massive online safety bill

The UK’s Online Safety Bill is ready to become law. The bill, which aims to make the UK “the safest place in the world to be online,” passed through the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday and imposes strict requirements on large social platforms to remove illegal content. It will be enforced by UK telecom regulatory agency Ofcom.

Additionally, the Online Safety Bill mandates new age-checking measures to prevent underage children from seeing harmful content. It also pushes large social media platforms to become more transparent about the dangers they pose to children, while also giving parents and kids the ability to report issues online. Potential penalties are also harsh: up to 10 percent of a company’s global annual revenue. The bill has been reworked several times in a multiyear journey through Parliament.

But not only does online age verification raise serious privacy concerns — the bill could also put encrypted messaging services, like WhatsApp, at risk. Under the terms of the bill, encrypted messaging apps would be obligated to check users’ messages for child sexual abuse material.

Depending on how the rule is enforced, this could essentially break apps’ end-to-end encryption promise, which prevents third parties — including the app itself — from viewing users’ messages. In March, WhatsApp refused to comply with the bill and threatened to leave the UK rather than change its encryption policies. It joined Signal and other encrypted messaging services in protesting the bill, leading UK regulators to attempt to assuage their concerns by promising to only require “technically feasible” measures.

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The Mass-Media Memory Hole – Blair, Ukraine and Libya

A key function of state-corporate media is to keep the public pacified, ignorant and ill-equipped to disrupt establishment power.

Knowledge that sheds light on how the world operates politically and economically is kept to a minimum by the ‘mainstream’ media. George Orwell’s famous ‘memory hole’ from ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ signifies the phenomenon brilliantly. Winston Smith’s work for the Ministry of Truth requires that he destroys documents that contradict state propaganda:

‘When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building’.

(Orwell, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, 1949, Penguin edition, 1982, p. 34)

The interests of power, hinging on the domination of an ignorant population, are robustly maintained:

‘In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct, nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.’

(Ibid., p. 36)

As the Party slogan puts it:

‘Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’

(Ibid., p. 31)

In today’s fictional ‘democracies’, the workings of propaganda are more subtle. Notably, there is a yawning chasm between the rhetoric of leaders’ professed concern for human rights, peace and democracy, and the realpolitik of empire, exploitation and control.

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PfizerGate: Tragic Truth of COVID Vaccines reveals 50k Brits Died Suddenly in just 8 Months due to the 5-Month Countdown to Death caused by C-19 Vaccination

As the death toll rises, a dark shadow has been cast over Britain.

Official data reveals that since April 2022, 407,910 deaths have occurred, with 47,379 excess deaths against the 2015-2019 five-year average.

As the investigation deepens, it has become increasingly clear that the Covid-19 vaccines are the most likely cause of the unprecedented loss of life in Britain. The evidence is damning, with a startling correlation between the rollout of the vaccines and the spike in deaths.

We were told the vaccines would bring hope and healing in the midst of an alleged global pandemic. But now, it seems that they have instead brought even more devastation and pain.

The Office for National Statistics has released weekly figures on deaths registered in England and Wales, and the most recent data reveals a troubling increase.

In the week ending on December 11th, there were 11,694 deaths, with 687 excess deaths against the 2016-2019 + 2021 five-year average and 999 excess deaths against the 2015-2019 five-year average.

While Covid-19 is often blamed for such increases, this time the numbers tell a different story. Out of all the deaths, only 326 were attributed to the alleged disease – a mere 2.8%.

So what is causing this surge in fatalities?

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How the authorities might decide your dog is an XL Bully: Key characteristics that could put your pet at risk of the ban

Following the announcement that the American XL Bully dog will be banned by the end of the year, dog owners are wondering how their pets could be affected. 

Dog expert Stan Rawlinson has proposed a Spain-type plan, taking after the Perros Potencialmente Peligrosos (PPP) scheme.

It requires any dog owner that owns a dog with particular characteristics, such as a muscular build, heavy weight over 20kgs, with a wide skull and jaw, muscular neck or convex cheeks to have a paid licence for the dog.

The PPP scheme also requires owners of these dogs to have insurance, proof of vaccinations and attending training classes, for the dog to be microchipped, for the owner to have a clean criminal record, and they can be required to show proof of the licence on the spot or face a fine.

‘The difficulty is we’ve got to understand what makes an American Bully – they’re a crossbreed and a mongrel, the crossbreeds with one other dog, with the base an American Pitbull, which is banned in this country, so [identifying] it shouldn’t be difficult [on that basis],’ he said.

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I’m terrified my 18 XL Bully puppies will be put down after Government ban: Owner says it would be ‘soul destroying’ if they are put to sleep

The owner of an XL Bully said he is ‘terrified’ that 18 of his dog’s puppies will be put down after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a ban on the breed. 

Jamie, from North Lanarkshire in Scotland, said he owns a three-year-old female XL Bully which just gave birth to a litter of pups despite having no plans for her to be bred. 

He said that his dog mated with his sister’s pet, who is also an XL Bully, and gave birth to a ‘rather large litter’ which he says he will now struggle to find homes for. 

Jamie said it would be ‘absolutely heartbreaking’ to have to give away the dogs to a rescue centre and is even more fearful that they might be put down, which would be ‘soul destroying’ for him. 

It comes as Rishi Sunak yesterday announced a ban on the dangerous dog breed by the end of the year following a series of horrific attacks. 

Jamie told LBC: ‘I’m an owner of a female XL Bully who wasn’t planned to be bred but my sister’s dog – also a Bully – mated with her and resulted in a rather large litter.

‘My plan was to neuter her and I actually enquired about it but it was too close to her season.

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My doctors insist it’s time I died – but I will fight them: Extraordinary case of 19-year-old woman suffering from Charlie Gard condition battling medics’ attempts to ‘condemn her to death’

‘By the time you read this, I could be dead. That’s according to my doctors who, for the last year, have repeatedly told me that I have had only days to live. But I am a fighter and will continue to fight.’

These are the devastating words of a seriously ill — yet inspiringly defiant — 19-year-old girl who argues that she will be condemned to almost certain death if NHS doctors are successful in their bid to withdraw her life-preserving treatment.

Painstakingly dictating her thoughts to me from an intensive care unit, it’s clear her will is utterly undimmed by the many obstacles she faces in her battle for survival.

For she is now not just fighting her extremely rare degenerative disorder, but also the medical and legal establishment, which she feels has marshalled against her.

Despite the profound importance of her case, the Mail cannot even tell you her first name, nor any details of her family, nor the hospital that treats her.

Instead, her identity has been reduced to the initials ‘ST’ by a draconian court order preventing her from putting her name to her heartbreaking account.

‘They’ve done everything they can to stop me telling this story,’ says the brave teenager of her remarkable legal battle with the NHS Trust which has tried to place her in palliative care.

‘I have found myself trapped in a medical and legal system governed by a toxic paternalism which has condemned me for wanting to live.’ Determined to expose her ordeal she has, together with her parents and brother, spoken — anonymously for now — exclusively to the Mail.

She tells me how her condition — mitochondrial depletion syndrome (MDS), a genetic disorder which limits the functioning of the body’s cells — was made worse by a bout of Covid in August last year, resulting in her being hospitalised.

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Cars That Don’t Meet London’s Emissions Standards Now Subject to Daily Fines

Drivers in London will now face financial penalties if their cars don’t meet emissions standards. While the proposal isn’t without merit, it’s unlikely to make a difference even as it penalizes motorists.

In April 2019, the British capital instituted an Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in central London. The rule required all vehicles to meet certain emissions standards. Certain vehicles, including taxis or certain historic vehicles, were exempt; for most noncompliant vehicles, drivers would face a fine of 12.50 pounds ($15.56 USD) per day. The rule is enforced by cameras that capture license plates.

Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office touted the rule as “the world’s toughest vehicle emissions standard.” Khan referred to the city’s air quality as an “invisible killer” that is “one of the biggest national health emergencies of our generation.” At the time, Silviya Barrett, research manager at the Centre for London think tank, told the BBC, “The ULEZ is really needed especially to help poorer Londoners who live in urban areas with high pollution,” though its effect was “limited at the moment due to its small area.” It was later expanded in 2021 to cover about one-fourth of the city.

Transport for London (TfL), the city’s transportation authority, expanded the ULEZ to the entire city on August 29, 2023. All noncompliant vehicles traveling within the city—including those not registered in the U.K.—will now have to pay the daily fine. Notably, the city already assesses a 15-pound ($18.69 USD) daily Congestion Charge to all motorists who drive in central London during peak hours.

The city is bullish on the proposal: In 2020, Khan’s office released a report showing that at the end of the ULEZ’s first 10 months, measured concentrations of nitrogen dioxide were 44 percent lower than was projected without the ULEZ, with an average compliance rate of 79 percent.

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