I'm not a follower of Twitter, in my view it is open to all sorts of abuse and it seems to be yet another bad habit this country has picked up from the USA - despite that, it does have a few twit followers on this bulletin board so I thought it might be a good idea to start a TWIT thread where twits could post various twit comments without clogging up other threads with utter twit nonsense.

Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling quits Twitter after user abuses his 14-year-old son by calling him a 's**** goalkeeper' 
Soccer Saturday presenter said Twitter user had described son as 's****'
Told his 415,000 followers the original tweet had been deleted
Others on Twitter said user had scored against Stelling's son in youth game 
Stelling wrote: 'It is not banter. It's abuse. My son is 14'
Target later apologises to Stelling and adds 'your son is class' 
Star apologised to fans for his own use of bad language and quits site
Says he did not trust he could respond to people 'in the correct way'
Cricket presenter Jonathan Agnew has also quit twitter over 'bullies' 

Daily Mail

By Nicola Harley
8:22AM BST 16 Oct 2014
Chloe Madeley hits back at Twitter trolls who threatened to rape her following her mother Judy Finnigan's comments

Chloe Madeley has hit back at Twitter trolls who threatened to rape her in a backlash over her mother Judy Finnigan's claims that a rape committed by footballer Ched Evans was "less serious" because it did not involve violence.

The 27-year-old has described the abusive remarks she has received on the social media site as "cowardly" and "extremely chilling and lewd".

Her mother made the controversial remarks on TV chat show Loose Women where she suggested the offence by former Sheffield United player Ched Evans was less serious because it was non-violent and the victim was drunk.

One tweet read: "Judy’s given me her blessing to rape you. Naturally, I have to acquire a paper bag first. It’s not to suffocate you with or to hide one’s identity, it’s to cover up your rat-like face with the humongous nose."

She said she received the message when she woke up and checked her phone in bed, she wrote in the Daily Mail: "This week I was confronted by a man who said he was going to rape me. He didn’t leap out, knife in hand, from a dark alleyway to issue the chilling threat...Instead, he cowered anonymously behind his computer screen and sent me the vile threat through Twitter.

Good thread db.

This twitarse lark shows how fast an initially good idea can go down the toilet.

Richard Madeley in warning to Twitter trolls over rape threats
4 hours ago
From the section UK

Media caption
TV presenter Richard Madeley has warned Twitter trolls
TV presenter Richard Madeley has said people who sent "sick rape threats" to his daughter are in "deep trouble".
Chloe Madeley received threats on Twitter after defending her mother, Judy Finnigan, who caused controversy when she described a rape committed by footballer Ched Evans as "non-violent".
Mr Madeley tweeted "prosecution awaits" for the culprits but refused to comment on whether he had contacted police.
The Met Police said they were not aware of any complaint about the matter.
However, a spokesman added it could have been reported to any police force.
In an email to BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat Miss Madeley said she wanted to stand up to "vicious attention seekers."
She added: "I always ignore the disgusting troll tweets I get because I honestly do not want to give them any attention, but the tweet in question took it to another level."
Evans was jailed for five years in 2012 for raping a 19-year-old woman, but has served half of his sentence and is expected to be released on Friday.
'Horrendous crime'

Speaking on Monday about the possibility that Evans could return to professional football, Ms Finnigan said the 25-year-old had "served his time".
On ITV's Loose Women, she said: "The rape - and I am not, please, by any means minimising any kind of rape - but the rape was not violent, he didn't cause any bodily harm to the person."
"It was unpleasant, in a hotel room I believe, and she [the victim] had far too much to drink."
Following criticism of her comments on Twitter, Ms Finnigan said: "I apologise unreservedly for any offence that I may have caused as a result of the wording I used."
In a statement, she said she was discussing what should happen to prisoners after their release.
"I absolutely wasn't suggesting that rape was anything other than an horrendous crime," she added.
Reacting to the situation with her own Twitter post, Miss Madeley wrote: "To believe my mother is pro 'non violent rape' is ridiculous and I am shocked that so many people have jumped to this conclusion.
"To the trolls wishing rape on me, stop, you are utterly pathetic."
Football return?
One of those who criticised Ms Finnigan was Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Vera Baird, who said: "No bodily injury has little relevance; it doesn't have to do physical damage to be rape and it is the essence of violence to force himself upon her."
Evans was not sacked by his club, Sheffield United, when he was sent to prison - but the club allowed his contract to expire in June 2012.

Ched Evans is expected to be released on Friday
Current manager Nigel Clough has confirmed he has spoken to club officials about the possibility of Evans returning after his release.
"We've had one or two discussions and the owners will make a decision on it," Clough told BBC Radio Sheffield.
"It is above a football level. If he comes back then we [the coaching staff] will decide whether to play him or not."
More than 140,000 people have signed an online petition calling on Sheffield United not to let Evans return.
Evans, who was refused leave to appeal against his conviction in 2012, began a fresh attempt in July, asking the Criminal Cases Review Commission to review his case which could lead to a new appeal.

New laws about to be proposed to increase the prison sentence from six months to two years for online trolls.

Crackdown on the cyber-mobs poisoning Britain: Sentence for web trolls to be quadrupled to two years after shocking high-profile online abuse cases
Maximum six month sentence for internet trolls to be quadrupled
Comes after model Chloe Madeley received rape threats on Twitter
Model's mother Judy Finnigan had shared view on release of Ched Evans
Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said trolls 'poisoned our national life'

ByGlen Owen for The Mail on Sunday

Published: 22:00, 18 October 2014 | Updated: 23:17, 18 October 2014

The change has already been dubbed Chloe's Law after Justice Secretary Chris Grayling made reference to the case of Chloe Madeley (pictured)

Internet trolls who subject victims to vile abuse are to be jailed for up to two years under a tough Government crackdown.

Harsher sentences are to be introduced following a series of shocking, high-profile cases, including rape threats made against model Chloe Madeley last week.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling revealed to The Mail on Sunday that the maximum six month sentence for internet abuse will be quadrupled.

Miss Madeley, who was targeted after her mother Judy Finnigan made controversial remarks about the footballer and convicted rapist Ched Evans, last night welcomed the move, saying that the most sickening comments amounted to ‘online terrorism’.

The tougher new legislation is already being dubbed ‘Chloe’s Law’ after her public stance against the disturbing messages.

Mr Grayling said: ‘These internet trolls are cowards who are poisoning our national life.

‘No one would permit such venom in person, so there should be no place for it on social media. That is why we are determined to quadruple the current six-month sentence.

‘As the terrible case of Chloe Madeley showed last week, people are being abused online in the most crude and degrading fashion.

‘This is a law to combat cruelty – and marks our determination to take a stand against a baying cyber-mob. We must send out a clear message: if you troll you risk being behind bars for two years.’

Currently, offenders who subject their victims to sexually offensive, verbally abusive or threatening material on the internet can only be prosecuted in magistrates courts under the Malicious Communications Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of six months.

But the planned changes will allow magistrates to pass on serious cases to the crown courts, where offenders would face a maximum sentence of 24 months.

Miss Madeley, 27, was targeted with what she described as ‘extremely chilling and cowardly’ threats after she defended her mother for suggesting on a TV panel show that Mr Evans’s offence was less serious because he had not physically harmed the teenager he attacked.

Last night Miss Madeley said it was right for Mr Grayling to update the ten-year-old law, since it pre-dates Twitter.

She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The current law obviously needs to be reviewed. It needs to be accepted that physical threats should not fall under the “freedom of speech” umbrella.

'It should be seen as online terrorism and it should be illegal.’
Her remarks come after her father, TV presenter Richard Madeley, warned the trolls: ‘Prosecution awaits you.’

The changes will be made as an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill currently going through Parliament.

They would also give the police more time to collect enough evidence to enable successful prosecutions to be brought.
Earlier this month, 63-year-old Brenda Leyland, who subjected the family of missing Madeleine McCann to online abuse, was found dead in a hotel after being confronted outside her home by a Sky News reporter.

Mrs Leyland was one of a number of trolls who compounded Gerry and Kate McCann’s distress by abusing them on social media.

One tweet read: ‘#mccann To Kate and Gerry, you will be hated by millions for the rest of your miserable, evil, conniving lives, have a nice day!’

Mr McCann commented at the time: ‘Clearly something needs to be done about the abuse on the internet. I think we probably need more people charged.’

Miss Madeley explained last week why she had gone public with the threats, saying: ‘I always ignore the disgusting troll tweets I get because I honestly do not want to give them any attention.

Kate and Gerry McCann have been abused on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook over the disappearance of their daughter in 2007

‘But the tweet in question took it to another level and I wanted to stand up against it.

‘There is a line where rationality ends and criminality begins. The person who threatened me crossed that line.’

Dr Az Hakeem, consultant psychiatrist at The Priory Hospital, Roehampton, south-west London, told The Mail on Sunday: 'The sadistic pleasure derived by trolling may have an addictive quality to it and the sense of power for the troll may be difficult to resist.

'The most useful intervention is to be reminded that the emotional pain inflicted is real and that they are not able to hide behind apparent anonymity, and to be held legally accountable for the actions for which they have mental capacity and intend to make.'

He said that the illusion of anonymity 'facilitates for some callous and wounding attacks upon people which for the Intranet troll provides sadistic pleasure combined with the false reassurance that the attack is 'not really real' due to the lack of real face to face contact of the 'hit and run' style of encounter, often hidden behind the camouflage of the screen name.'

The move by Mr Grayling follows the announcement he would include a measure in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill to make it an offence to post so-called ‘revenge pornography’ online, which would also carry a maximum jail term of two years.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2798573/crackdown-cyber-mobs-poisoning-britain-sentence-web-trolls-quadrupled-two-years-shocking-high-profile-online-abuse-cases.html#ixzz3Gal7gpXI
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

By NICHOLAS CHRISTIAN
THE Queen has been targ­eted by Twitter trolls after sending her first royal tweet.


It came as she passed a technological milestone by tweeting her first message on the micro-blogging site to declare a new Science Museum gallery open.

The official @BritishMonarchy account she used saw its followers grow by tens of thousands, but was attacked by trolls sending abusive messages such as “F*** off and die”.

The first royal tweet was sent with the press of a butt­on on a tablet computer, and read: “It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R.”

A Buckingham Palace spokes­man said: “We were fully cognisant of the nat­ure of Twitter, where anyone anywhere can express their opinion, but we were delighted that so many 
people – in their tens of thousands – responded pos­itively.

Scotsman
26 October 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11206398/Britains-spy-chief-says-US-tech-firms-aid-terrorism.html

By Jamie Bartlett

8:40AM GMT 04 Nov 2014

The head of GCHQ has warned that firms such as Facebook and Twitter are "in denial" about the use of their sites by terrorists and criminals. And he's right: extremists of all kinds have indeed "embraced the web".


This is only natural. The battle for hearts and minds is a vital part of any conflict. To be seen as on the side of right; to create a groundswell of popular support; to reach new supporters. Whether it’s Isil or the extreme Right, the aim is to convince people to take your side. If not on the battlefield itself, then emotionally, morally, vocally, financially – and now, digitally. This battle used to be waged from on high: propaganda air dropped from governments and media broadcasters. Now it’s on Facebook and Twitter.


It barely needs saying that social media has been a boon to society – allowing anyone with a message or campaign to reach out to millions of people at almost zero cost. That includes charities, campaigning groups, political dissidents, and the rest. But for angry or violent groups social media is the perfect vehicle to spread a message and win new fans: a free and open way to share and disseminate propaganda to millions of people. What’s more, the cost of producing high-quality videos and multimedia content is now practically nothing. This means that small groups can exaggerate their influence and extend their reach more easily than ever before. And that’s exactly what they are doing.

Let’s start with Isil. So far, they have organised hashtag campaigns on Twitter to generate internet traffic. They then get those hashtags trending, which generates even more traffic. They hijack other Twitter hashtags – such as those about the World Cup, and more recently the iPhone 6, which they use to start tweeting Islamist propaganda – to increase their reach further still. They have posted real time footage from the battlefield, and directed it against their enemies. They use social media "bots" to automatically spam platforms with their content. In short, they are very active indeed: social media is an important part of their modus operandi.


Although we’re constantly told that Isil are marketing geniuses, this is all pretty standard for any second-rate advertising company. And why wouldn’t it be? Many Isil supporters are young, Western men for whom social media is second nature. What they have done, crucially, is to create the impression of a much larger groundswell of popular support than they have – and generate enormous amounts of free publicity from the world’s media. (They do this quite deliberately too – directing tweets at the BBC and CNN in an effort to get coverage).


It goes something like this: this media mujahideen – most of whom aren’t even in Syria – post lots of tweets, attaching a hashtag to their tweets to ensure it reaches more people (such as #iphone6). People notice, and start using the same hashtag to criticise the group. Journalists write about how much support and traffic Isil is generating on Twitter, which then gets them mainstream media coverage. Isil will often include the Twitter accounts of major media outlets when they post. @BBCWorld and @BBCTrending were important Twitter accounts through which word spread about the threats Isil made to America. Between 3 and 9 July a BBC article, Americans scoff at Isil Twitter threats was the most shared article in tweets containing the tag #CalamityWillBefallUS. We’re doing their work for them.

According to Ali Fisher, a specialist who has been monitoring how Islamists use social media for the last two years, these Jihadist propaganda networks are stronger than ever. "They disseminate content through a network that is constantly reconfiguring, akin to the way a swarm of bees or flock of birds constantly reorganises in flight. This approach thrives in the chaos of account suspensions and page deletions’. Fisher calls this a 'user-curated' swarmcast."

The UK’s far-Right is possibly even more impressive than Isil. Although it might be politically convenient to draw moral equivalences, they are quite different to Isil in their values, radicalism, brutality and threat to national security. Nevertheless, in September the BBC suggested that the far-Right is on the rise in the UK, as a result of Islamic State and sex abuse stories involving men of Pakistani descent. According to a senior Home Office official, the UK government underestimates the threat. He claimed that, since last year, at least five new far-Right groups have formed.

I’m not sure exactly what "far-Right group" means anymore, because the far-Right are also very gifted at using the net to give the impression they are bigger than they really are. For the most part the UK’s far-Right is relatively small and disjointed. Online, though, it's different. Just like Isil, the modus operandi of much of the far-Right has moved online: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, forums, and blogs. There are hundreds of pages and forums dedicated to every shade of extreme nationalism. New groups pop up and disappear every day, and it’s very hard to work out if they are legitimate or not.



Just with Isil, it’s often a handful of people making a lot of noise, without it necessarily becoming a significant force in the real world. The latest far-Right movement is called Britain First. They've been around for a while – and are perhaps the most cunning users of Facebook of any political movement. They have half a million Facebook "Likes" – far more than the Tories or the Labour Party. They produce and share very good content online: campaigns about the armed forces, about animal cruelty, about child sex abuse. Things that people with little interest in politics would share.

But according to Hope Not Hate, an anti-fascist campaign group, these general campaigns mask a more sinister motive. They argue that Britain First have been involved in intimidating British Muslims, including invading mosques, and call them "confrontational, uncomprising and dangerous".

According to Hope Not Hate, Britain First has a core membership of only around 1500 people – most of whom were followers of former leader Jim Dowson, an anti-abortion campaigner. There are, reckons Matt Collins (a former National Front member who now works for Hope Not Hate) around 60 – 70 hardcore activists who are "willing to put on their badges and march on the street". But, Collins claims, their use of Facebook to increase their reach is "far beyond" anything he’s seen before. He also claims some of their Likes have probably been paid for. That’s the problem: it’s very hard to know.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has complicated this story considerably. Since his revelations, there has been a significant growth in the availability and use of (usually free) software to guard freedom and keep internet users anonymous. There are hundreds of people working on ingenious ways of keeping online secrets or preventing censorship, designed for the mass market rather than the computer specialist: user-friendly, cheap and efficient. These tools are, and will continue to be, important and valuable tools for democratic freedoms around the world. Unfortunately, along with journalists, human rights activists and dissidents, groups like Isil and the far-Right will be the early adopters.

Censorship is not the answer. The Home Secretary has called for more action on tacking extremism – and I agree that it's necessary – but it's far easier to say than to do. Online, groups and organisations can be shut down and then relaunched quicker than the authorities can phone Facebook’s head office. And here’s the Gordian knot: the more we censor them, the smarter they get. When Isil was kicked off Twitter, some went to Diaspora, which is one of several new decentralised social media platforms run by users on their own servers, meaning, unlike YouTube or Twitter, their content is hard to remove.

The answer is found in riddle. Extremists are motivated, early adopters of technology – and their ideas and propaganda spread person to person, account to account. The battle for ideas used to be waged from on high. But today it’s more like hand-to-hand combat, played out across millions of social media accounts, 24 hours a day. Censorship doesn’t work in this distributed, dynamic ecosystem. But the same tools used by extremists are free to the rest of us too. That gives all of us both the opportunity and responsibility to defend what it is we believe. Unthinkable three years: you can now argue with an Isil operative currently in Syria, via Twitter or a Britain First activist on Facebook – all from your own home. The battle for ideas online can't be won, or even fought, by governments. It's down to us.

The Telegraph

Edward Snowden should feel very proud of himself as he enjoys the comfort of his Russian safe haven. Not only has the whistle-blower’s treachery in revealing how America and its allies spy on their enemies made him the darling of the liberal Left. It now transpires that Snowden’s exposé has educated a whole new generation of extremists about how best to exploit the power of the web to peddle their militant ideology.


As far as Islamist terrorists fighting in Iraq and Syria are concerned, to have a “Snowden-approved” security system on their mobile phones and personal computers is to possess the ultimate in internet accessories. During his work as a contractor at America’s National Security Agency (NSA), Snowden gathered information about how it and its British equivalent, the GCHQ listening centre at Cheltenham, accessed social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to monitor the activities of criminals and terrorists.


As a result, groups that use the internet for their own sinister purposes have changed the way they communicate so as to evade detection by Western security agencies. Aided by the increased use of encryption software by the leading internet service providers, terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have found that, simply by adding freely available security programs and apps to their devices, they can conceal their activities from prying eyes.


It is not just about organising terrorist attacks. Winning the propaganda battle is vital in any conflict – and thanks to Snowden, Isil has proved adept at using its new-found mastery of the internet to advertise both the dramatic success it has enjoyed in capturing large swathes of Syria and Iraq, and the barbaric methods it employs to strike fear into the hearts of its enemies.


As Robert Hannigan, who took over as GCHQ’s new director earlier this week, has pointed out, the way today’s Islamist extremists use the internet is fundamentally different to the antiquated approach of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, which saw it primarily as a means of communication between different terror cells. According to Mr Hannigan, Isil has “embraced the web as a noisy channel in which to promote itself, intimidate people, and radicalise new recruits”.


Isil is the first terrorist group whose members have grown up using computers, and the group has demonstrated a high level of sophistication both in the way it produces its propaganda videos and in how it expertly exploits social media networks to ensure they attract a large following.

For example, the gruesome execution videos of Western hostages such as the US journalist James Foley are carefully stage-managed, in order to capture the full horror of the crime without explicitly showing the exact moment when the captive is decapitated – thereby staying within the social media guidelines that ban the dissemination of acts of extreme violence.

Isil has also proved adept at making sure its cheap, home-made videos reach the widest possible audience. One successful tactic is to hijack popular Twitter hashtags, such as those relating to the recent referendum on Scottish independence or last summer’s World Cup in Brazil, which enables its hateful message to reach a far wider audience than its traditional following within the radicalised Islamist community.

Preventing Isil, as well as other criminal organisations such as paedophile rings, from exploiting the internet in this manner would be perfectly feasible if the intelligence agencies still retained the ability to track the location where the material originated. But thanks to Snowden, renegade groups are now well-acquainted with the techniques that organisations such as the NSA and GCHQ have employed in the past to identify potential terrorist cells – including accessing social media websites and private emails alongside the more traditional interception of phone calls.

In the post-Snowden world, this has become immeasurably more difficult – not least because the whistle-blower’s revelations prompted many of the world’s leading social media companies to tighten up their security arrangements, primarily to reassure customers that their private activities were safe from the activities of intelligence-seeking eavesdroppers.

Both Apple and Google have recently changed their default settings to make encryption an opt-out rather than an opt-in feature. Moreover, the cosy relationship that existed pre-Snowden between the service providers and the spooks, which meant the agencies were given details of the access codes, is now dead: it ended the moment Snowden’s revelations provoked a public outcry on both sides of the Atlantic about the alleged mass surveillance this allowed.

Subsequent attempts to heal the rift have foundered over the internet firms’ erroneous belief that their interests are best served by putting a higher priority on protecting their customers than on preventing acts of terrorism.

But if, as Mr Hannigan contends, these companies have become the unwitting “command and control networks” for groups such as Isil, it is very much in their interests to cooperate. Otherwise, when the next bomb goes off in London or New York, they could have some difficult questions to answer.

The Telegraph

By Steven Swinford, Senior Political Correspondent Canberra
4:48AM GMT 14 Nov 2014
PM warns tech companies that internet cannot remain an 'ungoverned space'

Facebook, Google, Twitter and other technology giants must “live up to their social responsibilities” and do more to take down extremist material from the internet, David Cameron has suggested.

Mr Cameron said that the internet cannot remain an “ungoverned space” and that technology companies must be “more proactive” in helping authorities remove “harmful” material.

His intervention came after Robert Hannigan, the new head of GCHQ, warned last month that Facebook and Twitter have become “command and control centres” for Isil terrorists.

The security services are increasingly concerned that jihadists are exploiting social networking websites to spread their propaganda.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police is currently taking down one terrorist-related posting every ten minutes from the internet, equivalent to 5,000 a week.

Mr Cameron disclosed that after negotiations lead by Downing Street, internet service providers including Virgin, Sky, BT and Talk Talk have agreed to incorporate a button enabling the public to report extremist material on their websites.

They have also agreed to ensure that their child protection filters protect young people from being exposed to jihadist material online.

However, Mr Cameron indicated that he wants to see major technology companies go further.

In his address to the Australian Parliament ahead of the G20 summit, Mr Cameron said: "A new and pressing challenge is getting extremist material taken down from the internet. There is a role for government in that. We must not allow the internet to be an ungoverned space.

"But there is a role for companies too. In the UK we are pushing companies to do more, including strengthening filters, improving reporting mechanisms and being more proactive in taking down this harmful material.

"We are making progress but there is further to go. This is their social responsibility. And we expect them to live up to it."

The Metropolitan Police is host to a counter terrorism unit dedicated to identifying and removing extreme graphic material from the internet.

In an average week the unit removes over 1,000 pieces of content that breach the terrorism act, 800 of which are related to Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “We will now need to do further work with industry to implement this in practice. And we will keep pressing internet companies to be more proactive given the scale of threats and persistent propaganda from the terrorist groups.”

Mr Cameron made the announcement after unveiling a series of new anti-terror laws, including the power to bar terror suspects from returning to Britain for at least two years.

Earlier this month Mr Hannigan warned that Isil terrorists have “embraced the web” and are using it to intimidate people and inspire “would-be jihadis” from all over the world to join them.

He urged the companies to work more closely with the security services, arguing that it is time for them to confront "some uncomfortable truths" and that privacy is not an "absolute right".

He suggested that unless US technology companies co-operate, new laws will be needed to ensure that intelligence agencies are able to track and pursue terrorists.

His comments represent some of the most outspoken criticism yet of US technology giants by the security services, and come amid growing tensions following leaks by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

He highlighted the eruption of extremist jihadi material online on websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp, and said that terrorists are now able to hide their identities using encryption tools which were once only available to states.

He said that in the past, al-Qaeda and its terrorists have used the internet as a place to anonymously distribute material or "meet in dark spaces".

Isil, however, has taken a much more direct approach, using social networking services to get their messages across in a "language their peers understand".

He highlighted the production values of videos in which they attack towns, fire weapons and detonate explosives, saying that they have a "self-conscious online gaming quality".

He said that even the groups grotesque videos of beheadings highlight the sophistication of their use of social media. "This time the 'production values' were high and the videos stopped short of showing

the actual beheading," he said.

By Dan Hodges
9:42AM GMT 25 Nov 2014
The Left's rhetoric has become as toxic as that of the hard-Right

This morning I got up, made myself a cup of tea, got myself a bowl of cereal and logged onto Twitter. That’s how the out of touch, metropolitan media class starts its day.

At the top of my messages was a post from someone called Mike Campbell. To the best of my knowledge I haven’t come across Mike before. We don’t correspond regularly, or follow each other. But according to his biography he's an RMT trade union rep and a socialist.

His message referred to the Guardian columnist and food blogger Jack Monroe. “She didn't tweet about Cameron's son. She tweeted about Cameron. Even you should be able to work that out”, he said.

This was a reference to a tweet Monroe had herself sent as part of the “#CameronMustGo” Twitter campaign. Her tweet read: “Because he uses stories about his dead son as misty-eyed rhetoric to legitimise selling our NHS to his friends: “#CameronMustGo”.

When I saw Monroe’s message I thought “that’s horrible”, said so, then carried on working on yesterday’s post about Ukip and their repatriation policy. Then I pottered about a bit, did some work on a book I’m writing, then returned to have another browse on Twitter.

By this point my timeline was filling up with two distinct threads. The first related to my Ukip post. It basically consisted of a few Ukip supporters claiming I’d made up the whole thing, (I didn’t, read the post), and a lot of others coming up with stuff about me being a race traitor, a member of the LibLabCon, and inviting me to combine sex with travel.

The second was from people defending Jack Monroe. They were posting about me being a traitor to the Labour Party, a closet Tory, and comparing me to various intimate parts of the male and female anatomy.

So I leapt into the Twitter mosh pit, and began happily tweeting my responses. After a while, I noticed something weird. The Kippers and the CamMustGoers started to merge. I was literally sending the same responses to both groups of people. “No, I’m not a traitor to my race. I just don’t like racists”. “No, I’m not a traitor to the Labour Party. I just don’t like people who play politics with other people’s dead children”. And then I realised I wasn’t as happy as I thought I was.

I write a lot of critical stuff about Ed Miliband and the Labour Party. And a lot of the people who read it desperately, desperately want them both to prevail at the next election. So when they dish out the “you’re a traitor stuff”, I get it. I don’t think they quite understand what the job of being a political commentator entails, but I used to be a Labour Party member, so I grasp the tribal antipathy.

In fact, I’ve still got a little bit of that tribalism lurking someone deep down inside of me. I must have. Because yesterday, when I saw the Right an the Left engaged in the same desperate attempt to defend the utterly indefensible, I thought to myself: “Hang on. You’re on the Left. Aren’t you supposed to be better than that?”

It would be a stretch for me to claim some of my best friends are Ukip supporters. But I know several people who work in the party who are good, decent, honourable, people. When I went to the party’s conference in Doncaster I met several ordinary Ukip activists who were funny, warm, generous and clearly believe passionately in their party and its cause.

But I’m not going to lie. I think Ukip is a thoroughly racist, thoroughly prejudiced, thoroughly reactionary party. And I think the majority of its core supporters reflect that. Racism. Islamophobia. Homophobia. Misogyny. Rightly or wrongly, those are the values I associate with Ukip.

It may sound ludicrously simplistic, but until recently I genuinely thought people on the Right were the bad guys and the people on the Left were the good guys. In my mind’s eye, the Left still retained a semblance of moral authority. Yes, the Right were good at running the economy and taking the hard choices and all the usual “firm but fair” clichés. But it was still the Left who had cornered the market on compassion and fairness and basic humanity.

Then I saw Jack Monroe’s tweet. Or, even more tellingly, the response of the Left to Jack Monroe’s tweet.

The Left is losing its way. Not in an “Ed Miliband isn’t going to win Stockton South”, kind of way. In a “where the hell did we put that moral compass of ours?” kind of way.

When people can’t look at a tweet publicly taunting a man over the death of his six-year-old son and realise there is something deeply, horribly wrong, then they have a problem. If they can’t understand that a tweet like that transcends the most basic laws of human decency, they have a problem. And if they can’t simply and unequivocally condemn that tweet, without constructing straw men, throwing deflections and trying to draw spurious moral parallels, then they have a serious, serious problem.

That is the Left’s problem this morning. “Oh what, the whole Left?” someone will no doubt ask, facetiously. No, not all of the Left. In the same way not all of Ukip’s supporters advocate repatriation, or stigmatising people on trains who don’t speak English, or whipping up moral panics about Romanians. But enough. Too many.

Yesterday, the organisers of the #CameronMustGo campaign were boasting of their success. Their message was being tweeted 100,000 times a day, they claimed. So where were the tweets of condemnation for Jack Monroe? Where were the angry voices denouncing her for hijacking their campaign, or distorting its message? The answer, of course, is nothing had been hijacked or distorted. Cameron has to go. By any means necessary.

Now the sharks of the Right are circling themselves. Jack Monroe is receiving her own vile online abuse. In response her abusers will be abused. And the whole tawdry, vicious spiral will continue.

Perhaps I’m being naive. Maybe the Left never occupied the moral high ground. When I worked for the Labour Party maybe I was one of the people who unwittingly helped negotiate its surrender.

I don’t know. What I do know is some of the stuff the Left is coming out with at the moment is as toxic and malign and devoid of basic humanity as anything I’ve ever seen from the hard-Right. Both are now equally blinded by their own brand of narrow, ideological hatred.

So let me respond to Mike Campbell. Jack Monroe did tweet about David Cameron’s son, Mike. The words “he uses stories about his dead son as misty-eyed rhetoric” are the giveaway.

You’re an RMT official and a socialist. She was wrong. Wasn’t she?

What is a troll?

Chris Carson

Sounds like anyone who disagree's with another persons opinion.


wtf?

No somebody who follows someone around on a social platform making nasty spiteful and aggressive comments after another has posted.

Sometimes it can be of a sexual nature.

Who's after your ass gf?


Hint...it's not me sweety!

Errrr Mike740, Goldfinger, Mick TARQUIN (don't you just love that) Kipper, Disco Dave, Purple etc etc etc LOL!!!

THURSDAY 11 DECEMBER 2014 India , UK
Unmasked: the man behind top Islamic State Twitter account


The most influential pro-Islamic State Twitter account to be followed by foreign jihadis - Shami Witness - is shut down after a Channel 4 News investigation uncovers the identity of the man behind it


He spent his mornings, afternoons and evenings sending thousands of tweets of propaganda about the Islamic State militant group, acting as the leading conduit of information between jihadis, supporters, and recruits.

His tweets, written under the name Shami Witness, were seen two million times each month, making him perhaps the most influential Islamic State Twitter account, with over 17,700 followers.


Two thirds of all foreign fighters on Twitter followed him. When a fighter's Twitter account is suspended, he often promoted the new one and urged people to follow it.

He spoke to British jihadis regularly, before they leave to join the Islamic State, after they arrived, and if they died he praised them as martyrs.

He has until now been able to remain anonymous, avoiding questions about his motives and his central role in the Islamic State's propaganda war, but a Channel 4 News investigation can today reveal that the man operating the account is called Mehdi and he is an executive in Bangalore working for an Indian conglomerate.

Channel 4 News has chosen not to reveal his full name as he says his life would be in danger if his true identity was made public.

Mehdi said he would have gone to join Islamic State himself, but his family were financially dependent on him: "If I had a chance to leave everything and join them I might have.. my family needs me here."

On his Facebook pages he regularly shares jokes, funny images and talks about superhero movies, posting pictures of pizza dinners with friends, and Hawaiian parties at work.

Elsewhere on Facebook there are indications of his Islamist ideology, in conversations about Libya and Egyptian uprisings.

After being contacted by Channel 4 News, Mehdi shut down the Shami Witness account.

Social media conflict
A recent report by the Brookings Institute found social media to be one of the key organizational strengths of the Islamic State, finding that it uses such channels "to spread and legitimise IS's ideology, activities, and objectives, and to recruit and acquire international support."

The man behind Shami Witness posted thousands of updates to the @ShamiWitness Twitter account every month, usually from his mobile phone.

Using the @ShamiWitness account he five times tweeted the video of the execution of US aid worker Peter Kassig, and dozens of Syrian soldiers within minutes of it being uploaded to the internet.

"May allah guide, protect, strengthen and expand the Islamic State ... Islamic State brought peace, autonomy, zero corruption, low crime-rate", he wrote on Twitter in November.

Mehdi said of Iftikhar Jaman, one of the British jihadists from Portsmouth killed fighting for Islamic State, that: "you bros [brothers] talked the talk, walked the walk".

And he said to British fighter Mehdi Hassan "May Allah give you brothers decisive victory there". Hassan later died fighting in Kobane.

To another British fighter he said: "may Allah reward you" and quoted one British fighter's suggested that the rebel Islamic Front poses a greater risk to the Islamic State than the secularist rebels of the Free Syrian Army.

ShamiWitness seemed to express glee at the deaths and rapes of Kurdish fighters on Twitter, but later said that this comment was taken out of context.

He had written and later deleted the tweet where he said: "@ArjDnn I should thank PKK for recruiting female fighters, specially the ones caught alive by rebels. lol".

But in his real life, he had spoken out against rape on Facebook.


— Shami Witness (@ShamiWitness) December 10, 2014

By Agency
9:34PM GMT 06 Jan 2015
A Labour councillor has been suspended after she tweeted a parody of a Conservative poster which had been doctored to include an image of a Nazi death camp

A Labour councillor has been suspended by the party for sharing on social media a parody of a Conservative election poster doctored to include an image of a Nazi death camp.

Rosemary Healy, who represents the Mapperley ward on Nottingham City Council, insisted she had not spotted what the picture was of when she sent it on to more than 1,500 followers on Twitter and expressed "profound apologies".

But the party confirmed that the council's executive assistant for community protection had been suspended amid closer-than-ever scrutiny of politicians' internet postings in the run-up to May's general elections.

The original post shared by Ms Healy was an altered version of a Tory poster - the original of which was mocked after it emerged the photo of a country road featured above the slogan "Let's stay on the road to a stronger economy" was of one in Germany, not the UK.

It was posted by the @ThomasPride account but replaced the road with a picture of the railway lines leading into the notorious Auschwitz camp where more than a million people - almost all Jews - died during the Second World War.

"The new Tory campaign poster featuring a German road's a bit controversial" the post quipped - adding the slogan "more people on zero hours, more tax cuts for the rich, no more NHS".

Ms Healy quickly deleted the Tweet and posted: "Profound apologies for that retweet which was a genuine mistake and would never have been retweeted had I recognised it for what it was."

The Conservative group leader on Nottingham City Council, Cllr Georgina Culley, told the website: "This trivialises the horrors of the holocaust and I think Councillor Healy and her party should be ashamed.

"The city council should also act to distance itself from the perpetuation of these tweets, such remarks are offensive and a public representative should know better."

The user of the Thomas Pride account defended the image against complaints from others on the social media network that it was "deeply ignorant" and "belittles the Holocaust" - insisting it was legitimate satire and that he was of Polish descent.