As I woke, the World Service news was telling me that a BBC programme had been trying for a couple of years to talk with Facebook about some material the BBC felt was offensive; Facebook said, “OK we’ll talk about it: send us what you are on about?” so the programme went onto Facebook, collected the material (which was still there) and sent it to them. Facebook then reported them to the police.
Something there sounds decidedly off-key.
It’s headline news. Yet again FB rejecting any call to be socially responsible.
What was worrying me was that Facebook were apparently under the impression that the people who should be reported to the police were the BBC programme-makers. How did they think that made any logical sense whatever?
It sounded to me like a pure, defensive, no-brain, unthinking move, by FB to me - “This is against the law, so we’ll cover ourselves by reporting it to the police”, but it’s blown up in their faces now.
Good on the BBC reporter for being determined. Poor children.
No-brain has to be a good description for reporting someone to the police for quoting what is on your own pages!
Under the new laws it didn’t even have to be something from Facebook anyhow; they could be prosecuted for having been sent something illegal, or so I was told while I was boggling about this earlier today. That is pure Tudor legality: Richard III’s illegitimate son John was executed for having been sent a letter from Ireland (which he hadn’t even seen because it was intercepted on the way to him) as far as I remember.
Many years ago a group of us lived in a large house in Bayswater under licence from Westminster City Council. One Saturday morning at dawn we were raided by the Excise, awfully nice chaps, only moderately aggressive. It turned out man-in-basement (licensed separately) had been sent a dodgy parcel from Furrin Parts. We never found out exactly what it was but drugs was our guess. We hadn’t had any problems of that sort or any reason to have had it. We were raided, not because of anything we had sent, nor because of anything we’d been sent, but because of something somebody else with a separate entrance, a different PO address, and no access to our house had been sent. It’s a surreal world we live in.
BTW Richard III was a Plantagenet not a Tudor (a Stark rather than a Lannister if you will).g
Richard was dead and nothing was Plantagenet any more when a Tudor killed off his son using Tudor justice to do it: legality invented by Henry Tudor, not Plantagenet legality. Plantagenet legality involved inventing enlightened things like circuit judges, and not allowing it to be the law that witnesses to an offence should routinely be put to the question (ie tortured) to test their evidence, as had been done before Richard III got the throne and was done again afterwards.
During the reign of Henry VII, an average of three people per day were executed in London. He liked to go and watch, apparently. Tudor legality at its best.
Bring back the good old days, I say.
Yes, well, granted. I wasn’t talking about the system though you are perfectly correct. By the standards of the time Richard IMO was a good egg. Henry VII would appear to have cases to answer, and strong ones, regarding, well, everything the Tudor spin doctors (including Shakespeare) attributed to Richard III. Richard, using his own law, is innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. So of course is Henry, but his son eighth of that ilk’s deplorable behaviour is more readily understandable given the “might is right” lessons in statecraft bearing the Tudor hallmark handed down for many generations (and taught to me in didactic fashion when I was at primary school).
Good thing that can’t happen now. Oh, wait. Receiving illegal pornography is an offence, and a strict liability offence at that: if it’s on a machine you own, you are Guilty, with no excuses allowed.
Funny how when the police search suspects’ computers they often seem to turn up illegal pornography.
Recently I saw posters on the Underground saying something along the lines of “if you think it’s dodgy, closing the window won’t make it go away; report it”. Felt like adding underneath “and you too may be done for it, depending on how the police feel that day”.
Of course there was far less porn on computers back in Tudor days.
“Filthy harlots show their ankles. Pay the minstrel for more.”
Of course the main problem, was the Sinclair ZX(14)81 computer of the time, only had a loose wobbly memory-pack which plugged on the back.
Ohhhh, now I understand! I always wondered what ‘The Scotchman and his Pack’ pub on St Michael’s Hill, Bristol, was all about. Something about droving, people are normally told.