Twitter attempted to draw a new line in the sand as to what is acceptable on the platform yesterday evening, suspending a host of right-leaning satirical accounts. Popular British joke-accounts including ‘Jarvis Dupont’, ‘Supportourlefty’, and ‘Guy Verhoftwat’, were banned from the site altogether, while the fictional bestselling author Titania McGrath has her account currently restricted, unable to tweet. None have been given clear reasons for their bans beyond “platform manipulation and dissemination of spam”…
At the same time US satirical website The Babylon Bee had its Twitter account removed, although after widespread outcry this has since been restored. Notably more left leaning satyrical accounts from The Daily Mash to The Onion did not receive the same treatment. By banning obvious joke accounts, Twitter has shown its first steps of removing extreme political figures to have been the thin end of the wedge…
Jess Phillips wants the above tweeted parody headline banned. The outspoken Labour MP tweeted this morning
“Yesterday I was alerted to a completely fake headline that was being put on about me, that puts me my family and staff at risk of violence. It is completely fake. It had been shared 280 times by the time I saw it and reported it to @TwitterSupport reaching a possible audience of millions. I have no recourse to take further action as this was an anonymous account. It is designed only to incite hatred and I find that this often happens when I speak up against the powerful. People share in good faith without realising the sinister motives/organise efforts that struck the initial match. Had it been in any publication I could act but as it is I am left just to deal with the fallout and aggression. This has got to change.”
Guido’s not sure how it puts her and her staff at “risk of violence”, or convinced that it was designed to incite hatred, nor what it has to do with her speaking up against the powerful. Guido likes Jess Phillips, she speaks her mind and she doesn’t give a damn. Neither she nor her staff should be abused or threatened with violence. Jess certainly doesn’t deserve all the genuine threats and obscene abuse she gets. That all goes without saying.
Guido might be wrong about the motives of the anonymous tweeter who created and tweeted the fake headline, could it possibly have been to mock her and Labour’s position on Shamima Begum returning to the UK? Isn’t it satirical? If it was a gag on a comedy show would it have been inciting hate? If it appeared in the pages of Private Eye would she have any recourse in law? No, and nor should she.
Mocking politicians’ pretensions is an important part of a free democracy. Most of the fake Guardian headlines are dreadfully unfunny, cliched and boring. This one actually made Guido smile.
John Ryley, the Head of Sky News, has emailed everyone in the newsroom laying down the law on tweeting:
1. Tweeting should be confined to genuine news-gathering and promoting or reporting news stories, though first and foremost this should be happening on Sky News’ owned & operated platforms.
2. Anyone not involved in stories related to UK politics should not be Tweeting about it.
3. Analysis and interpretation are fine if that is part of your role at Sky News. Commentary on political/economic/industrial issues — in which a view or opinion is detectable – is not.
4. For the avoidance of any doubt arguing, swearing and giving a political opinion are all completely unacceptable. Reasonably correcting an erroneous statement or factual error about oneself is allowed.
5. Retweeting for the purposes of reportage is fine – but be very conscious that retweets are sometimes scrutinised for signs of bias or seen as an endorsement of the original Tweet.
6. Liking social media posts that are at odds with Sky News’ obligations and values will be considered a breach of our Editorial Guidelines
7. Avoid Tweeting about disputes on editorial policy or decisions at other news organisations.
8. All staff will need to complete a training e-module on the Editorial Guidelines including social media .
9. If you’re in any doubt about what and what not is OK to post you should speak to your line manager.
Please adhere to these rules – this is a requirement not a choice.
Yesterday Adam Boulton and mild-mannered Iain Dale kicked off, Kay Burley doesn’t ever hold back on telling people where to go on Twitter and has featured often and amusingly in “Twitter Bitch Fight of the Week“. Things will be more bland, though this was inevitable, regulated broadcasters’ impartiality was being stretched on Twitter.
A good rule of thumb after being selected a parliamentary candidate is to go through your social media and at least prune out controversial Tweets, if not blanket delete them all just to be safe. At the weekend, Rob Roberts switched his old account, ‘@TransparentRob‘, to private after Owen Jones called out old Tweets describing David Lammy “the most racist politician in Britain”. Luckily, Guido managed to comb through all 5 year’s worth before he made the change…
Rob’s blunt colleague reviews include:
In 2018 he also Tweeted “Thanks a lot “Call me Dave” Cameron. You have screwed everyone over.” Sentiments he presumably didn’t repeat when recently using David Cameron to try and solicit dates with a young Tory activist…
The emergence of these less-than-diplomatic feelings will no doubt leave Rob Roberts red-faced the next time he visits Parliament’s Tea Room. Though he may want to steer clear of the Tea Room for a while, as Guido is told his North Wales colleagues have been overheard there plotting how to steal Tory wards from the gaffe-prone MP’s constituency during the boundary review…
Following the PM’s Downing Street press conference this was tweeted from the official Civil Service account. It was 11 minutes before it was deleted. Looks like someone will be resigning after all…
Could Mark Sedwill, the head of the Civil Service who is famously at loggerheads with Dominic Cummings, have got his Whatsapp and Twitter accounts muddled? It was posted from an iPhone which suggests it was from an existing user. It will be relatively straight forward to identify the tweeter…
UPDATE: Sense of humour failure:
An unauthorised tweet was posted on a government channel this evening. The post has been removed and we are investigating the matter.
— Cabinet Office (@cabinetofficeuk) May 24, 2020
For Valentine’s Day Twitter UK have rebranded as the #DatingTwitter Advice Bureau. Hold on a second, remember when CCHQ rebranded as Factcheck UK, didn’t Twitter themselves tell us during the election that rebranding trickery like this is against their terms of service for blue tick verified accounts on Twitter?
“Any further attempts to mislead people by editing verified profile information – in a manner seen during the UK Election Debate – will result in decisive corrective action”.
Isn’t it misleading for a social media platform to masquerade as an advice bureau? Will they take away their own blue tick?
