The Nazi Pug: Joke or Hate? is a BBC 3 documentary.
Markus Meechan (known on YouTube as Count Dankula) is the victim of a travesty of justice as he was found guilty of posting a YouTube video judged grossly offensive and containing menacing, anti-Semitic and racist material. The video was a joke.
but what does the prosecution of a YouTube comedian mean for freedom of expression. The BBC asks: is a censorious state overstepping the mark? Or are there some things you just shouldn't joke about?
BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Dan Murdoch (Britain's Forgotten Men; KKK: The Fight for White Supremacy) returns with this documentary following Markus as he explores London's comedy scene, to see what stand-ups can get away with, and why there's a
backlash against edgy humour.
Matthew Berlow, of Glasgow Friends of Israel, said of the BBC documentary:
Are we really at the stage when we can now laugh at the painful deaths of six million human beings and call it edgy comedy?
Berlow has also called on YouTube to remove the
original Count Dankula joke video that has know been viewed 4.3 million times. He claimed that YouTube is perpetuating the crime that Meechan was convicted of.
Ofcom has fined the news channel RT £200,000 for serious failures to comply with our broadcasting rules -- and required the channel to broadcast a summary of our findings to its viewers.
Ofcom has rules in place requiring broadcast news to be presented with due impartiality.
Our investigation found that RT failed to preserve due impartiality in seven news and current affairs programmes between 17 March and 26 April 2018.
Taken together, these breaches represented serious and repeated failures of compliance with our rules. We were particularly concerned by the frequency of RT's rule-breaking over a relatively short period of time.
The programmes were mostly in relation to major matters of political controversy and current public policy -- namely the UK Government's response to the events in Salisbury, and the Syrian conflict.
Ofcom decided to impose a financial penalty of £200,000; and direct RT to broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings, in a form and on dates to be determined by Ofcom. We consider this sanction to be appropriate and proportionate. It takes into
account the additional steps that RT has taken to ensure its compliance since we launched our investigations; and that we have not recorded any further breaches of our due impartiality rules against RT to date.
Ofcom will await the conclusion of RT's application for judicial review of our breach decisions before enforcing the sanction.
Ofcom has fined the news channel RT £200,000 for serious failures to comply with our broadcasting rules -- and required the channel to broadcast a summary of our findings to its viewers.
