Much has been made in the media over the long weekend of the appearance of problematic comments in ‘Labour’ Facebook groups.
The groups are independently run and have no official connection to the Labour Party and the comments are needles in haystacks, but presumably the target audience of the articles is expected to be ignorant of how Facebook groups work.
Twitter user ‘@danofchester‘, however, took the initiative and did a check of the official Conservative Party Facebook page – and quickly found these little uglies:
Each of the comments seems to have been in place for around two weeks, so it’s not as if the Tories’ moderator hasn’t had a reasonable time to spot them.
If this kind of hate speech against a religious group had been found on a Labour-supporting page, let alone the official party page, the mainstream news programmes and front pages would be talking of little else for the next week.
But if you haven’t seen them mentioned, it’s hardly surprising – we’ve been unable to find them featuring either.
Comments by followers of unofficial Labour groups constitute headlines on front-pages and in the half-hourly broadcast news bulletins – but similar or worse on the official Conservative party page are seemingly not newsworthy.
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Surprised these sleuths haven’t found the LabourList cess pit. Not.
Excellent . We are not single groups to be picked off one by one we are united we are many http://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/social-media/the-truth-about-corbyn-supporters-facebook-groups/
The following is from the article linked to above:
The investigation uncovered 2000 incidents of ‘racist, antisemitic, misogynistic, violent and abusive messages’; this means that antisemitic incidents were fewer than 2000, probably a lot fewer but a breakdown is not provided. As a percentage of all the posts and comments on 20 of the largest groups, 2000 represents less than 0.05% of the total content on these groups. This figure is based on the number of posts and comments on posts in my medium-sized group each day multiplied by the number of days the group has been in existence (2.7 years). A conservative estimate is that the total number of posts and comments across all 20 groups is 4 million. This means that 99.95% of content is not problematic in any way. Taking into account the antisemitic content identified was less than 2000 incidents, and therefore less than 0.05%, we can see that the claim that antisemitic messages are routine or rife on these groups could not be further from the truth.
(Ends)
The article, by Wendy Patterson, who runs a JC supporters group on facebook, points out that a conservative estimate of the number of posts across the twenty groups is 4 million, and if you divide that by the 2,000 ‘hate’ posts, then according to my calculations that’s about one in every two thousand posts. And as Wendy points out, the Sunday Times article doesn’t give a breakdown of the FIVE categories that make up the ‘hate’ posts. And my point is this: We all know that time and time again on platforms such as facebook and twitter and youtube etc, you will often find that a couple of people will get into an argy-bargy and start abusing and insulting each-other. I don’t have a twitter or a facebook account, but I have come across such ‘exchanges’ on youtube on numerous occasions over the years, as I’m sure most people have. And given that THAT is the case, I have little doubt that the vast majority of the 2,000 ‘hate’ posts the so-called investigation came across were in fact made up of incidents such as this, where two people have a difference of opinion about whatever, and start laying into each-other and being abusive.
Would be interesting to get a list of the 2,000 or so posts the ST refers to and determine if THAT is actually the case, or at the very least get a breakdown from them of how many posts there were in each of the five categories.
Afterthought: And if I am right in my assertion that most of the 2,000 or so posts the ST refers to are “abusive” – ie two people having an argy-bargy and insulting each-other – then as most people know, such ‘exchanges’ can be made up of anywhere between a handful of posts to a dozen or twenty or more, neither one of the two involved wanting to back down. And my point is of course, that such ‘exchanges’ and the posts they generate (for want of a better word), are made up of relatively few people as such. Or to put it another way, if such exchanges between two people generate an average of ten abusive posts, for example, then a hundred such interactions would generate a thousand ‘hate’ posts.
Then there are the situations where one party is being abusive, but the other party remains calm and doesn’t take the bait and, as such, the abuse is all from one side, and a hundred such exchanges could of course generate four or five hundred or more abusive posts. And then there are the situations where someone responds to a comment with abuse, but the other party just ignores them completely and, as such, that’s the end of it.
And then of course there are different levels of abuse, some of which maybe many people wouldn’t even think of as abuse. I mean if someone responded to someone’s comment with: “You don’t know what you’re talking about”, or “You’re spouting complete and utter rubbish”, is THAT categorised by the ST investigation as abuse? Or if someone responded with “You’re talking out of you’re ar$e”, or “You stupid pillock”, do such comments constitute abuse in the eyes of the ST investigators? Unless we get to see the said posts we can’t know of course.
Things appear to be getting a little less obscure now.
After Lansman’s Damascene conversion today, proclaiming that anti-Semitism in the Party is worse than he thought. His reticence to confront the right wing/Zionsts is becoming clear – he agrees with them! He is probably one of those ‘soft’ Zionists advising Jeremy Corbyn to appease rather than confront.
Ever since Lansman expressed his closeness to Jeremy Newmark of the right wing JLM Zionist movement opposed to Jeremy Corbyn, Lansman’s loyalties have been in doubt. Now they have been confirmed, and it’s not to those of us in the Party who support Jeremy Corbyn!
Momentum members should now be looking for a way to get rid of Lansman or consider joining a more supportive group.
Who needs the wreckers when we have Lansman?
I really don’t think more in-fighting is going to help.
Of course it isn’t,but it is not the left creating it is it?Do you propose we continue offering the other cheek in perpetuity SteveH?
The right wing have been saying that same thing for years in the hope that they will be left alone to get on with it – and they did. Look where it got us before Corbyn, a pale imitation of the Tory Party. Remember the mantra from the public “they’re all the same”?
This is the chance of a life time to get the Party back, we can’t drop out now just because it’s a bit rough. It’s a war and there will be casualties but it’s a war we must win.
I was referring specifically to your references to Lansman I thought it a little premature. He will have ample opportunity to prove himself over the next few months and if he fails then I’m sure the members of Momentum are independent minded enough to put there own house in order.
As far as the ‘usual suspects’ are concerned the sooner the lot of them are gone the better for everyone. Hopefully before the next GE.
I don’t see Lansman doing or saying anything that justifies an attack on him. He is trying to bridge the gap which is the Corbyn strategy anyway. You have to talk to the enemy. You don’t have to jump into their camp. This is what we say about Corbyn and the IRA. We needed to talk – we didn’t have to support.
Well, yes, but never the twain shall meet. And both sides know it!
A halfhearted defence is worse than no defence.
When it comes to defending JC against the Tories, Lansman is full on but when it comes to defending him against ZIonists and their sickening accusations, Lansman, because of his ‘affiliations’ either goes missing or is equivocal.
PARTING THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE.
He rubbed his cheek against the Jewish Man’s.
It was a lovely human thing to do.
Then to that of the Indian delegate.
In front of an Heathrow Asian queue, deliberately.
And the thronging place it turned to silence.
Not having seen this before.
In the era of the Right Wing Barbarian.
Was this something to explore?
And as the racist on the bus moved from the Black person.
He moved and sat with them.
These socialists are dangerous human beings!
Glad to be one of them!
At least report it to The Mirror ffs, it may not give you your twitter gotchas but it could end up on the BBC.
It could end up on the bbc?
Errr, yeah, alright…And the toerags could end austerity at 12 noon.
Skwawkbox – Perhaps you could send the above evidence to BBC R4 Feedback. They are apparently going to cover this subject in tomorrows broadcast 13/04.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xp2g3
listen from 1 minute in to 5 min
Done