Forum Topic

John Dale suspension and Meta

A few days ago I was reading in Private Eye about how the looser moderation policy at Meta has resulted in a dramatic increase in anti-semitic comments and a corresponding increase in attacks culminating in the murder of the young couple who worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington.I am not accusing Meta of being anti-semitic as I'm sure their new regime has resulted in a rise in hate speech against a wide range of communities.The banning of John Dale's site could therefore be some sort of target driven operation which means that they still have to suspend some accounts to give the appearance of doing something but without a human actually looking at what they are blocking.His page is the only thing I look at on Facebook these days but I am familiar enough with the platform to know it was exceptionally well run compared to man other groups which are totally lawless. My only criticism of him would be why is he effectively giving his time and effort for free to such a terrible company.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 16d17 Comments

AGree Eric. To me the worst thing is that his site is blocked without a clear reason. Same goes for Anne being blocked. Years ago we had a dispute on ChiswickW4 which led to a few people being banned for flimsy reasons. A few of us including STeve Bonnici who was/is a tech guy (Chiswick Computers) started an alternative site as a kind of protest but it never took off. Personally I detest Facebook, but as John says it is the best platform for the kind of stuff he does. I am using a website made by WIX but all I do there really is blogs of various types. Not brave or clever enough to do videos!

Guy Lambert ● 7d

I very much agreed with Jeremy's original post and his 6 June follow up. I was also amused that John Dale seems to be a prolific banner himself, of people with less angry views than his. But Meta is on quite another level, with little moderation and fairly routine automated banning for no stated reason. I once had a long review banned by Tripadvisor on the grounds that one must not report physical assults in a review. If a human had read it they would have seen 'the blaring musak round the pools assulting our ears'. Is that too complicated for a bot to understand?

Eric Baker ● 8d

'It is thought possible that a third party maybe exploiting weaknesses in the Meta reporting and moderation systems to interfere with the operation of the group.'Now who on earth would do that!?!

Anne England ● 8d

You are still confusing what was an archaic registration system to qualify for cheaper postage with a generalised regime for newspapers. Registration of media always was and continues to be associated with authoritarian regimes and it is employed by governments such as the Chinese Communist Party which is currently using it to suppress dissent in Hong Kong and is being introduced by Orban in Hungary. British governments dating back to the Victorians have been wise to this danger.The two bodies you mention are not statutory bodies and have real bearing on media regulation. The NPA (now the News Media Association) is an industry lobbying group and IPSO is the self-regulatory body of some newspaper groups - basically a formalised complaints procedure which replaced the Press Complaints Commission which was discredited during the phone hacking enquiry.Through the Levenson Commission, the government has attempted to introduce statutory regulation of the press but basically the industry dodged this by setting up IPSO.This means that only effective regulation of media is the law of the land, which is as it should be. It is not the case that there is any difference between online and print - they are subject to the same rules and benefit from the same exemptions in law such as qualified immunity. This broadly means that they can't be sued for libel for a story published in good faith when the subject has been offered the opportunity to respond.  There are no set criteria for qualified immunity but John Dale would benefit from it otherwise I would imagine his site would have been shut down well before this latest outrage.Just as there was never a regime of newspaper registration that controlled who could publish, I don't believe there was ever a golden age of local newspaper journalism. I used to pay my 30p for the Brentford, Chiswick and Isleworth Times when it was a broadsheet. As you admit it was not an outstanding publication and its successors were little better. There were some flashes of good journalistic work that I recall but once non-council advertising started to disappear and the titles survived on public notice revenue, they stopped bothering trying to be interesting to readers. I feel better served in terms of being kept informed by BrentfordTV and BrentfordTW8.com which survive on much thinner resources but maintain journalistic standards just as high and consistently provide balanced and relevant coverage. I believe your contention is totally false. Residents of Brentford are far better informed about local matters than they have ever been and our democracy remains robust or at least it did until John's suspension. Unfortunately your pessimistic analysis may be correct for other parts of the country.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 8d

It's OK, I have just read that access has been suspended once again by Meta.

Joan Adamson ● 9d

For the last few days when I log on to the Brentford Today and TV site I am not seeing the latest postings.  The first posting I see is dated 26th May. Has anyone else had this issue with the website?

Joan Adamson ● 9d

It is not " Remarkably out of date". But it has been changed in more recent times. The requirement for registration ended only when Mail trains finished as bulk transportation of newspapers qualified for a 2nd class rate.  Satellite printing and distribution changed to road rand that down to almost nothing and the Post Office requirement was evolved in 2007.  This is because Newspapers had already signed up to other bodies to oversee legal and journalistic standards. The NPA and IPSO being the most prominent.The requirement for each edition of a paper to have the registration at the Post Office as a Newspaper to be printed in the very small print only ended recently and replaced with details for IPSO and the Publishers Holding company etc.The code of Conduct remains the same but there are differences between Print Media and Online.  It does not relate purely to libel laws but in reporting standards and procedures, trespass, intrusion and public interest justifications.Ones doe not have to watch or read a paper of a TV channel to support the ethos of free reporting. Nor agree with it. But it is important that journalists as long as properly accredited and trained can ask probing questions and can investigate without hindrance.Hence my support for Brentford TV who is at least doing something where others have failed or faded away.Newspaper/Media owners are a different issue.  And you are right, very poorly paid for what is a vocational job and often a dangerous one, even on local papers.I thought the Dimbleby Papers were as dull as dishwater, but others were not.What is sad is that we and democracy are far worse off without good quality local papers and those well trained people who produced them every week.

Raymond Havelock ● 9d

You rascal!

Steve Bullman ● 11d

I got a 30 day ban for commenting on the Councils climate change commitments

Paul Fisher ● 11d

Yes he's a sensitive flower isn't he? I got banned for referring to him as a plonker he got someone's name wrong.

Steve Bullman ● 11d

Thanks Guy for the heads up about ianvisits.

Keith Iddon ● 11d

Had a quick look yesterday and see that I am still banned. The offensive remark 'Gets tedious, doesn't it?' in response to somebody else commenting on John's relentless negative reporting around the Labour Party during the last bi-elections is wot done it!

Anne England ● 11d

I agree with you Jeremy. I dislike some of John Dale's approach which seems to me to be click-seeking via controversy and attracts people from a long way from Brentford who like to have a pop at the council (and sometimes councillors 😱).But as I have said, it is a very important source of info, as is Neighbournet in its various flavours - I use this and ChiswickW4 - and also Chiswick Calendar.Neighbournet had a very rocky period including reducing its staff but has survived and may be more stable now judging by public accounts at Companies House.It is very easy to bemoan there is not enough local media but there is little money in it. BBC have been extorted to pay for some local news but it has been gobbled up I think by Reach (Mirror, Express as well as MyLondon) and as far as I can see provides little or nothing locally.Somebody just alerted me to Ian Visits which provides really useful brief info about local events etc.Of course, there is nothing to stop Raymond having a crack at this, as all those mentioned have done, putting their money and their time into providing good (if  of course imperfect) local info.

Guy Lambert ● 14d

Your information appears to be remarkably out of date. The requirement to register a newspaper ended in 1865 and it had more to do with qualifying for discounted postal charges when mail was a primary means of distribution. There was a requirement for the publisher to give their name but the ending of registration did not change publishers responsibilities regarding the libel laws. All online news providers and you and I remain subject to them.I'm not sure how you can reach a judgement on John's efforts whilst admitting you have never visited his site. He may not produce much that is original but the way he curates the information available makes it an invaluable resource for living in the area.You are also guilty of a very rose tinted view of media as it used to be. Maybe in the post war period their may have been a golden age of local news coverage in this part of London but, even 25 years ago, it was never particularly impressive. I've been around long enough to remember the local Times Series when it was run by the Dimbleby family and these papers were uninspiring with unmotivated poorly paid staff rarely providing any interesting coverage of local matters. BrentfordTW8.com does a good job of basic reporting of the area with obviously much more limited resources and there seems to me to have been no slippage in journalistic standards. The only shortfall between the media we have now and 25 years ago is the lack of decent sports coverage of local teams.I also disagree with you strongly regarding the BBC. There are dozens of world class journalists working for the organisation both domestically and abroad. Obviously with such a broad range of output, sometimes deficiencies will become apparent, but they are more noticeable because of the generally high standards. Similarly, our national print media, while much smaller than it used to be, still manages to consistently provide stories of the highest interest and quality. If you are missing all this, you are looking in the wrong place.We live in a misinformation age and proper journalists are a bastion against the rising tide of populism. It is very dangerous to conjure up an misremembered past and claim that things used to be much better. Yes, fewer people are in the profession than before but that is not a good reason to denigrate those that remain.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 15d

I'm in a minority of not liking social media in the vein of Facebook and so on.So I don't do it, and, much to my surprise my kids and their pals - not kids anymore, don't do it either. Nor do they trust anything they read on their devices. So there is hope that they are not all sucked in...yet!So whilst I am aware of Mr Dales efforts, I'm not a viewer.But his being banned is an outrage given what is permitted. It demonstrates the way in which control is in the hands of faceless remote organisations.We have enough of that in other areas of life here. And news media ought to be the first line of defence. Not controlled by it.What this really underlines is the need for a fully independent proper free press. Something that has eroded over the past 25 years to virtually nothing to the extent of infecting Regional and National Newspapers to little more than spoon fed clickbait.Good Papers  (and West London had several really good local papers ) are the bedrock of democracy and a thorn in the side of any authority or dodgy business or corporation. They have all slid into mediocrity and what passes on the internet is simply dreadful.Even the BBC is pretty awful and that's about as good as it gets for mainstream reporting.All long gone,  with good solid, well trained, incisive, clear, articulate and impartial journalists and reporters are now nudging retirement age.  The vacuum this leaves may never be replaceable.News based publications have to be registered as a Newspaper at the Post Office - who oversaw communications.That meant that what is published had to be ( supposedly ) true, accurate and impartial. Along with other guidelines.  But it also means that they can be sued for libel. That in itself meant the reporting had to be thorough, checked and double checked and notes and recordings kept.That was most adhered to by local Newspapers as the consequences would be loss of credibility and close the publication.The rise of Press Officers and PR Companies, briefed to control flow of information and usually made up of a mix of fortune seeker and failed journalists has contributed to the loss of credibility to news media.  That had been a significant blow to Press freedom prior to the arrival of the Internet.The arrival of web based does away with all that and it has become the Wild West with no credibility.Maybe Mr Dale should register as a Newspaper and use a different platform online.

Raymond Havelock ● 15d

Having been banned twice from Brentford Today & TV, I couldn't possibly comment! I used to enjoy looking at (and contributing to) the site but had near enough reached the conclusion that it was occupying too much of my time at the time of the second banishment. It has been several months now. Maybe if John's site is reinstated he will do the same for me.

Anne England ● 15d

Faceboke has alas abandoned its original function of keeping in touch with friends in favour of pushing fraudulent sellers and other scammers. An example: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61575243871195 would seem to be a London based fashion outlet. Their website: https://lindenandco.uk/ Appears to be a somewhat pricy London fashion outlet but is in reality a Chinese based outlet selling the usual (think Temu) Chinese poor quality rubbish at vastly inflated prices. The first indication of this is delivery times which magically stretch way into the distance until 12 — 14 days later a piece of absolute tat lands on your doorstep. I fell for it, make sure you don't.

Ben Halloren ● 16d