Political Correctness News

Sweden's Advert Censor (RO) has criticized a Stockholm company for sexism after it used a popular meme alongside a recruitment advert.

The image, known by online communities as the Distracted Boyfriend Meme, is based on a stock photo of a man turning away from his appalled girlfriend to look at an attractive woman. Swedish ISP Bahnhof used the image alongside a jobs advert; in their take on the meme, the boyfriend was turning away from your current workplace to stare at Bahnhof.

The censor claimed that the use of the meme was gender-discriminatory, both due to presenting women as interchangeable and sex objects and presenting a stereotypical picture of men seeing women as interchangeable. Saying that it seems a little discriminatory to stereotype men as always seeing women as interchangeable.

The original posts shared to Bahnhof's Facebook and Instagram pages received hundreds of comments. Many of these criticized the alleged sexism of the image, and the advert was reported to the advert censor.

Twitter is consulting its users about new censorship rules banning 'dehumanising speech', in which people are compared to animals or objects. It said language that made people seem less than human had repercussions.

The social network already has a hateful-conduct policy but it is implemented discriminately allowing some types of insulting language to remain online. For example, countless tweets describing middle-aged white men as gammon can be found on the platform.

At present it bans insults based on a person's: race ethnicity nationality sexual orientation sex gender religious beliefs age disability medical condition but there is an unwritten secondary rule which means that the prohibition excludes groups not favoured under the conventions of political correctness.

Twitter said it intended to prohibit dehumanising language towards people in an identifiable group because some researchers claim it could lead to real-world violence. Asked whether calling men gammon would count as dehumanising speech, the company said it would first seek the views of its members. Twitter's announcement reads in part:

For the last three months, we have been developing a new policy to address dehumanizing language on Twitter. Language that makes someone less than human can have repercussions off the service, including normalizing serious violence. Some of this content falls within our hateful conduct policy (which prohibits the promotion of violence against or direct attacks or threats against other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease), but there are still Tweets many people consider to be abusive, even when they do not break our rules. Better addressing this gap is part of our work to serve a healthy public conversation.

With this change, we want to expand our hateful conduct policy to include content that dehumanizes others based on their membership in an identifiable group, even when the material does not include a direct target. Many scholars have examined the relationship between dehumanization and violence. For example, Susan Benesch has described dehumanizing language as a hallmark of dangerous speech, because it can make violence seem acceptable, and Herbert Kelman has posited that dehumanization can reduce the strength of restraining forces against violence.

witter's critics are now using the hashtag #verifiedhate to highlight examples of what they believe to be bias in what the platform judges to be unacceptable. The gammon insult gained popularity after a collage of contributors to the BBC's Question Time programme - each middle-aged, white and male - was shared along with the phrase Great Wall of Gammon in 2017.

The scope of identifiable groups covered by the new rules will be decided after a public consultation that will run until 9 October.

Ps before filling in the consultation form, note that it was broken for me and didn't accept my submission. For the record, Melon Farmer tried to submit the comment:

This is yet another policy that restricts free speech. As always, the vagueness of the rules will allow Twitter, or its moderators, to arbitrarily apply its own morality anyway. But not to worry, the richness of language will always enable people to dream up new ways to insult others.

The PC authorities banned the use of background allegiances as a convenient tag or adjective for terrorists. Now the high priestesses of PC have taken umbrage at replacement tags.

Media outlets had for instance tried to downplay the common denominator of islam by suggesting that terrorists were 'lone wolves'. Now the word police are claiming that the adjective 'wolf' has a positive tone, and so the media should find a new less positive term.

The #WordsMatter campaign also complains about the use of the term 'mastermind' and nicknames such as the Beatles only glorifies them. The campaign also asks the media to avoid publishing images of terrorists in combat gear and using war terminology such as soldier, which serves to legitimise them.

The group has produced a series of short films just released on social media to air their opinions. The films have been produced by the Tim Parry Johnatha n Ball Peace Foundation, set up in memory of the two child victims of the 1993 IRA bomb attack in Warrington. The foundation has also helped compile a Counter-Daesh dictionary.

The dictionary also warns care over using words such as jihad, jihadi, and jihadi bride which often ignore the complex religious meanings of jihad. If reporting insists on its usage, ensure it is distinguished as violent jihad.

But forcing people to use the 'correct' words doesn't really work as intended. Artificial replacement words often emphasise obviously missing words more loudly than if they had used the originals. Eg a news report obviously trying to avoid referencing islam shouts the unspoken connection as loudly as if it had been directly stated. Similarly the use of 'correct' PC terms emphasises the user's political correctness, and distracts from what they are trying to say.

The new head of the Police Federation John Apter, who represents 120,000 rank and file officers across England and Wales, has said his members were incredibly frustrated because they have been assigned to sorting out social media spats rather than tackling more serious crimes like burglary.

The new head explained that while resourcing remained the main issue facing policing, there was also a lack of common sense when it came to priorities.

Last week it emerged that Yorkshire Police had asked people to report insults on social media, even if they were not considered to be a hate crime. Other forces have been criticised recently for using computer programmes rather than experienced officers to decide whether a burglary is worth investigating. Such initiatives have led to criticism of the police and the observation that the service is out of touch with the public.

But Apter said nobody was more frustrated than police officers when they were prevented from attending burglaries and other serious crimes. Burglary is one of the most intrusive, horrible crimes that a householder can go through. It makes you feel incredibly vulnerable, but people can sometimes wait days for a police response, Apter said.

Philosophers out seeking the truth on the Durham campus

A student editor at Durham university has been fired in a transphobia row after he tweeted that women don't have penises.

Angelos Sofocleous, assistant editor at Durham University's philosophy journal Critique , was sacked from his post for writing a tweet deemed claimed to be transphobic by fellow students.

Sofocleous faced disciplinary action last month after he re-tweeted an article by The Spectator on his Twitter titled Is it a crime to say women don't have penises?, with the comment: RT if women don't have penises.

The postgraduate philosophy and psychology student was dismissed from his position at the university after the tweet sparked 'outrage'. He was also fired from his position as editor of Durham University's online magazine The Bubble , and ironically forced to resign as president of free speech society Humanist Students.

Sofocleous bravely stood by his comments, he wrote:

I may be wrong and women might indeed have penises, although I don't believe that to be the case. But the backlash that took place after my comments, particularly within the organisation, convinced me that, unfortunately and surprisingly, there are certain issues within the humanist movement which are undebatable.

No effort was made, beyond name-calling, derogatory comments, and ad hominem statements, to convince me of the truth of the other side's position.

Australia's Herald Sun newspaper has republished its cartoon of tennis star Serena Williams on a defiant front page in which it attacked its critics and foreshadowed a future where satire is outlawed. The front page reads:

WELCOME TO PC WORLD

If the self-appointed censors of Mark Knight get their way on his Serena Williams cartoon, our new politically correct life will be very dull indeed.

The page features a collection of Mark Knight cartoons, including the depiction of Williams spitting a dummy and stamping on her racquet.

The cartoon, first published on Monday, was Knight's take on the tennis star's bad behaviour insulting the umpire calling him a thief.

The cartoon caused a reaction in the PC worlds some how suggesting that it is not allowed to mock the bad behaviour of a black woman.

Knight has rejected such suggestions saying:

I saw the world number one tennis player have a huge hissy fit and spit the dummy. That's what the cartoon was about, her poor behaviour on the court.

I drew her as an African-American woman. She's powerfully built. She wears these outrageous costumes when she plays tennis. She's interesting to draw. I drew her as she is, as an African-American woman.

South Yorkshire Police first tweeted a straighforward poster about reporting hate crime:

SouthYorkshirePolice @syptweet:

Hate can be any incident or crime, motivated by prejudice or hostility (or perceived to be so) against a person's race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability. Hate hurts and nobody should have to tolerate it. Report it and put a stop to it #HateHurts

A couple of hours later the police outrageously tweeted again suggesting that people should also report non crimes like online insults:

SouthYorkshirePolice @syptweet:

In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing. Hate will not be tolerated in South Yorkshire. Report it and put a stop to it #HateHurtsSY

I wonder if they they then explain to burglary victims that they are too busy to investigate such crimes because they are busy investigating non-crime internet insults.

[The trouble with discriminatory laws such as this is that they encourage hatred of others rather than diffusing the issue. Identity politics is very aggressive. Lynch mobs gather to push for for the most severe punishments for the most trivial of transgressions. Police and the prosecuting authorities always seem to side with the complainant and the resulting injustice is noted by more or less everyone in society. It succeeds only in winding everybody up and chipping away at any remaining respect for the way that the authorities run our lives. In an equal society everybody should have exactly the same rights to be protected form the ill intent of others].

The Labour MP Stella Creasy has put forward an amendment to the upskirting bill, due to be debated in the Commons this Wednesday, that would add misogyny as an aggravating factor in England and Wales. This would enable courts to consider it when sentencing an offender and require police forces to record it.

Creasy hopes this will be the first step towards recognising misogyny as a hate crime. Creasy said:

Upskirting is a classic example of a crime in which misogyny is motivating the offence. We protect women in the workplace from discrimination on grounds of their sex, but not in the courtroom -- with upskirting, street harassment, sexually based violence and abuse a part of life for so many it's time to learn from where misogyny has been treated as a form of hate crime and end this gap.

The Guardian understands that the Law Commission, which has called for a fundamental review of all hate crime legislation, supports the spirit of Creasy's amendment.

In Scotland, the Holyrood government will shortly launch a consultation on the reform of all aspects of hate crime legislation, after an independent report recommended including gender , as well as age, as a hate crime in law. Although the National Police Chiefs' Council rejected a proposal to extend the policy nationwide in July, it has set up a working group to examine the issue.

French lawmakers have voted to outlaw catcalls as part of repressive legislation on sexual misconduct. As of next month, catcalling on streets and public transportation can result in on-the-spot fines of up to €750, with more for increasingly aggressive and physical behavior. French junior minister for gender equality Marlène Schiappa said when the law was passed by France's highest legal authority, the Conseil d'Ã?tat, that harassment in the street has previously not been punished. From now on, it will be.

Included in the bill are new laws concerning consent for victims of sexual violence under 15, and an extension for underage victims to file complaints to 30 years after they turn 18.

The BBC no longer wants TV shows in which white, middle-aged men stand up and explain things, according to one of the corporation's senior executives.

Programmes that feature individual presenters imparting their knowledge of a subject to viewers are too static and no longer excite audiences, Cassian Harrison, editor of BBC Four, told the Edinburgh Television Festival yesterday

He said controllers of other channels, including BBC Two, had also taken against the outdated presenting format. There's a mode of programming that involves a presenter, usually white, middle-aged and male, standing on a hill and 'telling you like it is'. We all recognise the era of that has passed.

Folsom Street Fair, the annual BSDM fair in San Francisco, upset photographers in 2016 with its Ask First campaign that asked photographers to receive permission before taking photos of people on the public streets of the fair. This year, the same event organizers have released a warning that compares taking photos without consent to sexual assault.

The PSA image , was uploaded by Folsom Street Events to the page for Up Your Alley , a leather and fetish street fair held yesterday on Folsom Street in SF. It reads: Gear is not consent. Nudity is not consent. Ask first before photographing or touching someone. No means no.

Folsom Street Events' street fairs are on public streets, and even though the streets are closed to traffic during the events, the area is still a public place. On the flip side, nudity is prevalent during the extremely not safe for work street fairs, so it's a situation in which expectations of privacy collide with First Amendment rights to shoot photos in public places without permission.

Nathaniel Y. Downes , a freelance photojournalist who works for the San Francisco Chronicle commented:

The more harmful thing is that somehow the story has put photography and sexual assault in the same mouthful. No matter the intentions, this is not a positive direction for photography to be moving in the public eye.

I have been to the fair a few times and have never taken pictures. But as a photographer, it hurts me to think that some people see photography the same as sexual assault.

Over 100,000 people have signed a petition against the release of the Netflix TV show Insatiable , accusing it of 'fat shaming'.

But to date it is still unknown what exactly is the plot line and whether there is any 'fat shaming' going on. 12 hour-long episodes of Insatiable will be released on Netflix on August 10.

Netflix describes Insatiable as a dark, twisted, revenge comedy, but will also delve into topics such as bullying, eating disorders and body image.

It follows Ryan as the unfortunately-nicknamed Fatty Patty as she gets bullied for her weight by her high school peers. After having her jaw wired shut as a result of someone punching her in the face, she undergoes a transformation and becomes slim, hot, and vows to take revenge on the mean girls who tormented her.

Social justice warriots went on the warpath after Netflix released the official trailer for Insatiable. An online petition was subsequently created by a woman named Florence, calling for the programme to be banned. In the petition, Florence writes:

The toxicity of this series, is bigger than just this one particular series. This is not an isolated case, but part of a much larger problem that I can promise you every single woman has faced in her life, sitting somewhere on the scale of valuing their worth on their bodies, to be desirable objects for the male gaze. That is exactly what this series does. It perpetuates not only the toxicity of diet culture but the objectification of women's bodies.

There are campaigns calling for bans on gambling adverts, alcohol adverts, most food adverts, and now beauty services and products. It won't be long before someone realises that cars are hardy good for the world's ecological health, and then we'll be left with just washing powder adverts to fill the 5 minute slots.

In recent weeks, ITV has come under fire from both the NHS and the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons for adverts paced during Love Island. The campaigners claim that body image issues could impact the mental health of young viewers.

Now 'research' from feminist campaign group Level Up finds that 40% of women who watch the show feel more self-conscious about their body image afterwards. Level up claims that, after watching the show, 30% of millennial women have considered going on a diet to lose weight, while 11% have thought about getting lip fillers.

The campaigners questioned over 4,000 adults about their response to Love Island. 250 were female viewers aged 18 to 34. 8% of this demographic said watching the show had made them think about getting breast enhancement surgery, while 7% had considered getting botox for cosmetic purposes.

Carys Afoko, executive director of Level Up said:

ITV's decision to sell ad space to cosmetic surgery and diet companies is downright irresponsible. There is nothing wrong with going on a diet or getting a boob job, but given the narrow standard of beauty promoted by Love Island these ads have crossed a line.

Love Island is a big money spinner for ITV, brands like Superdrug and Missguided are queueing up to sponsor the show. Level Up's research shows women who watch Love Island find the show has a negative effect on their body image. It's time ITV execs put viewers mental health above the bottom line and dropped cosmetic surgery and diet ads from next year's show.

The NHS is set to meet with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to discuss whether broadcasters should face more restrictions particularly with regard to young viewers. NHS England's mental health director, Claire Murdoch wrote to ASA chief executive Guy Parker expressing concern that the promotions served around shows like Love Island could be fueling body insecurities among teens.

The Daily Mail is hyping some cinema 'outrage' about a new children's film opening this week, Show Dogs . The Mail writes:

Parents have reacted with fury after British cinemas are still showing scenes from Hollywood film Show Dogs that were banned in America months ago because they were deemed inappropriate for children.

The film features scenes touch in hyper sensitivity of PC extremists about consent and touching relating to dogs bollocks.

In one scene the dog has his genitals inspected and is told to go to a zen place and in a later scene urged to overcome his resistance to being touched so he can become a champion.

Moralist campaigners first raised concerns about the scenes in the United States and Global Road Entertainment, who distribute the scene said it decided to remove two scenes from the film 'Show Dogs that some have deemed not appropriate for children.'

Of course the British 'outrage' is pretty minimal and was spotted mostly in a few angry tweets. One mother from north London, who asked to remain anonymous, told MailOnline:

Expecting that the scenes had been cut I didn't think twice about taking my four-year-old. So it was quite shocking to discover that the scenes appeared to still be in there - with one of the dog characters being coached to go to their 'zen place when the judges were going to inspect their genitals.

This was repeated a second time towards the end of the film, when the character of Max the dog has the inspection.

It wasn't a packed viewing but a few of the parents of the younger children immediately covered their ears and asked them to look away.

Annoyed parents have also been in contact with the BBFC about the contentious scenes. The BBFC responded that the scenes are entirely innocent, non sexual and occur with in the clear context of preparing for and judging in a dog show

A radio ad for Newsquest Media (Southern) Ltd t/a S1 Cars featured two women talking. One said to the other, Remember when I told you about that problem ... well, the flashing hasn't stopped and I'm really regretting that full body wax now. The other replied, Ugh, I did that once. I'm still aching. Have you tried online? What about this one? The first woman said, Look at that body. Now that is a total ride. All it needs is a quick spit and polish. Yeah not too old and a right go-er I'll bet. Oh and I love all that leather. Her friend replied, See, you just need to know where to look. A male voice stated, With a huge range of makes, models and prices, you're guaranteed to find a total ride at S1Cars.com.

Six complainants, who believed the sexual innuendo in the ad was likely to cause offence, challenged whether the ad breached the Code.

Assessment: Complaints not upheld

The ASA noted that the ad featured two women ostensibly talking about used cars that they were viewing online, and that the ad contained sexual innuendo, for example, references to Now look at that body. That is a total ride, All it needs is a quick spit and polish and a right go-er I'll bet. We also noted that the voice-over at the end said, ... you're guaranteed to find a total ride at s1Cars.com. We understood that the term a total ride was slang in Scotland, where the ad was broadcast, for someone who was sexually attractive. We considered that the innuendo in the ad was relatively mild and light-hearted, and whilst some listeners may have found it distasteful or coarse, it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.

The King and I is back in the West End, 67 years on from its Broadway debut.

But its portrait of a white woman being both fascinated and repelled by a society depicted as both backward and barbarous is winding up a few PC critics.

The Telegraph's Dominic Cavendish whinges The King and I one of the most problematic musicals of the 20th Century American canon. Michael Billington expresses similar sentiments in The Guardian , saying it seems to endorse the idea of the civilising influence of the west on the barbaric east.

The Independent's Paul Taylor detects a smack of imperial condescension to this story of a widowed, well-bred Victorian governess who... gives a funny foreign despot... a stiff dose of Western values.

Time Out's Andrzej Lukowski, meanwhile, calls the musical kind of racist ... like an elderly relative who you make allowances for on grounds of age.

Director Bartlet Sher responds that the show remains resonant, powerful and extremely well-conceived. He also dismisses suggestions the piece has dated, saying its views on colonialism, gender equality and the conflict between modernity and tradition make it as timely and powerful as ever.

I wonder if these PC critics would have banned British cave rescuers from helping out in Thailand lest heroically saving children's lives affirms 'white saviour' stereotypes.

Offsite Comment: The King and I : a West End treat

14th July 2018. See article from spiked-online.com . By Christian Butler

Those crying Western imperialism are really missing the point.