Islam versus Europe

Recall that this Leveson absurdity began with tabloid newspapers hacking into celebrities' mobile phones to garner material for their gossip columns. This prompted an inquiry into the "Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press". The triumphant progress of multicult ideology in Britain has been marked by these public inquiries: the Scarman Report, the MacPherson Report, etc. All have served to tighten the noose further around the necks of the British people. All represent the encroachment of bureaucracy on democracy. Politicians, who, as Burke said, owe us their judgement, have repeatedly outsourced it instead to these public inquiries, which are typically headed up by judges or civil servants. (Leveson is a judge.)

I was wary that the elite might try and turn this occasion to their advantage by using the phone-hacking nonsense as an excuse to introduce new censorship techniques. It certainly looks as though we're heading in that direction.

On Wednesday, Muslim Brotherhood knifeman Inayat Bunglawala was agitating for more favourable coverage of Islam in the media.

The amount of negative stories about Muslims in the UK was demonising a whole religion the Leveson enquiry has heard.

Inayat Bunglawala, consultant editor to ENGAGE, today appeared at the Inquiry to present evidence on representations of Islam and Muslims in the British media.

ENGAGE stated in its written submission, “In consideration of the enormous impact of coverage that is proven to be inaccurate, inflammatory, prejudicial and detrimental to the representation of social groups in society, whether composed of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability, the exclusion of “third party” complaints is deeply unsatisfactory and remains a grave deficit in the complaints handling powers and procedures of the Press Complaints Commission.

“A more robust system of self-regulation is required, one which mandates the right of third party complainants to challenge misrepresentations, inaccuracies and false reporting.

“British Muslims as a social group collectively suffer from poor media practices, whether this be the excessive attention granted to fringe Muslim groups, like Muslims Against Crusades, by the media or poor fact-checking prior to publication.

“Improving media practices and media responsibility on portraying and reporting fairly on Islam and British Muslims, without bias or discrimination or intent to incite anti-Muslim prejudice, is an urgent concern.”

Source: Hillingdon Times H/T Bluepanic

Now Leveson is apparently considering extending regulation to the internet (including blogs) as well as newspapers.

Gossip websites and online news services should come under the same new regulations as newspapers, the head of the inquiry into press standards said yesterday.

Lord Justice Leveson said that he wanted a “level playing field” between print and online services, but felt there was a distinction to be drawn with chatter on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The judge expressed concern about some of the “nastier” stories appearing online. “It only serves to underline why the rules have to cover everyone. I think I might see there’s a distinction between Facebook, where one person is communicating with their friends, or Twitter, and organisations that are in the business of selling themselves by reference to news or information.

“That’s the difference between the pub chatter and that which the State, and I don’t mean government, has an interest in seeing is conducted on a level playing field.”

Lord Leveson has repeatedly referred to the problem of how news sites and bloggers might fit into any system of press regulation that he proposes. Hundreds of thousands of internet users follow political and celebrity gossip websites such Guido Fawkes and Popbitch.

Camilla Wright, the Editor of Popbitch, told the inquiry that the site exposed the “hypocritical gap” between how celebrities demand to be portrayed and how they act. The current definition of “public interest” was not broad enough. She did not rule out signing up to a Press Complaints Commission replacement but warned that other sites might simply move their servers beyond British jurisdiction.

Earlier, Daphne Keller, legal director of Google, said that it had removed hundreds of web pages from its search index relating to the private life of Max Mosley, the former Formula 1 chief. He told the inquiry in November of his frustration at trying to get Google to remove the pages as he attempted to restore his reputation after the News of the World wrongly alleged that he had taken part in a “sick Nazi orgy”.

Ms Keller said that Google dealt with requests for material to be excluded on a country-by-country basis. She warned that Google would end up with a “lowest common denominator of lawful speech” if it removed offending material from all national versions of its sites after upholding a complaint about its UK service.

In the first six months of last year, Google’s UK site received 65 government requests to remove search pages, more than a third relating to security.

Lord Allen, Facebook’s director of policy in Europe, warned of the dangers of trying to regulate information on the internet. “We are familiar with dealing with disputes on a very large scale. If you were going to create something similar as a regulatory position I would offer words of caution about the thresholds you apply before starting an investigation so you are not ending up simply unable to cope with the volume.”

Source: The Times (£)