Category Archives: Conservative

Legal Remedies for Milo Yiannopoulos and Julie Bindel Versus Manchester University Student Extremists

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The Witchfinder explores legal remedies that may be open to gay journalist Milo Yiannopoulos and feminist Julie Bindel after being banned from attending an event at University of Manchester Students’ Union. Comments are legal opinion, untested by any court.

JessLishakSharpenedHammerAndSickle

University of Manchester Students’ Union Women’s Officer Jess Lishak, shown in a black shirt with hammer and sickle. Original picture was released on Flickr by ‘Jennifer’ here (archive here) under the irrevocable NC-BY-SA 2.0 open source license (archive here). Image was further amended by cropping, enhancing and photoshopping a Communist hammer and sickle onto Jess’ convenient black shirt for parody purposes. It is therefore asserted the image falls under s30A Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1998 – the ‘parody exception’ and can be used commercially for that purpose. 09/10/2015 – Image Amended

In 2012 the European Court of Human Rights rules in the case of Redfearn v United Kingdom (Application no. 47335/06). Arthur Redfearn was a bus driver. He was also a member of the British National Party, a British far right party that opposes immigration and multiculturalism. Conservative grandee Lord Tebbit once called them, “Labour with racism”.

The Court ruled in favour of Mr Redfearn and UK law was changed. Recent case law appears to confirm that political views – even extremist views, can fall within the definition of a ‘philosophical belief’ under s10 Equality Act 2010.

Yet Milo Yiannopoulos does not hold extremist views. Manchester Students’ Union, in a statement (archive here), say they banned him because –

“We have been made aware of various comments lambasting rape survivors and trans* people, and as such we are concerned for the safety of our students on the topic of this event. He is a rape apologist and has repeatedly used derogatory and debasing ableist language when describing members of the trans* community.”

I am unaware of any occasion where Milo Yiannopoulos has apologised for, nor mitigated rape. He has on some occasions highlighted false allegations and the need for procedural safeguards.

Yiannopoulos is a supporter of #GamerGate, a cultural libertarian, pro-free speech, anti-censorship, consumer movement. As a prominent cultural libertarian, he would likely have mentioned #GamerGate in the context of freedom of speech.

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Jessica Asato – Worthless SJW Narcissist, Failed Parliamentary Candidate and Hypocrite

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FortunateJessica

Jessica Asato is fabulously privileged oppressed. Image an obvious parody used under s30A Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Failed Labour ‘Politician’ and online social justice warrior Jessica Asato recently took part in the witch-hunt against Protein World (archive here). More recently she has joined in with mob online condemnation of a lawyer as ‘sexist’ for complementing someone’s appearance. Shame Asato herself is no stranger to privilege and political incorrectness. Your Inquisitor calls on moderate cultural libertarians to join the online debate she helped to start in order to set matters right.

Condemning allegedly ‘sexist’ remarks by a respected lawyer. Labour ‘politician’ Jessica Asato remarked that, “I would rather be complimented on my achievements than my face” (archive here). The comment echoes Martin Luther King’s famous quotation, dreaming his children would, “[…] not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character […]”.

The remark is typical of Asato’s narcissistic and self-absorbed conduct – but if Jessica wants to be  judged by her achievements and character rather than her appearance your author is only too happy to help.

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Victim of Racist SJW Murder – Is the Tragedy of Allison Parker, Victim of WDBJ Shooter, America’s Wake Up Call?

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Anita Sarkeesian says that "reverse racism" is a "myth". Amy Palamountain calls it, "erasure". Tell that to the family of Ross Andrew Parker, whose life was subject to "erasure" in a killing which even the Guardian called, "racist".

The Ross Andrew Parker murder forced even the British left, such as the BBC and Guardian, to accept the problem of anti-white racism. In an eerie coincidence, today’s racist shooting victim is also called Parker.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article condemning GitHub’s Amy Palamountain for authoring a code of conduct policy that appeared to state complaints of ‘reverse’ racist harassment would not be acted upon. When challenged by numerous complainants GitHub backed down. The code of conduct project has been paused and Palamountain (@ammeep) has been keeping a low profile. The tragic murder earlier today of American journalist Allison Parker and a cameraman underlines my point.

I wrote a follow-up article explaining why expressing such views can be career ending in Britain. Whilst Britain is a pro-equalities nation, even our most left-wing institutions like the Guardian and BBC have long accepted that minority on majority discrimination (e.g. anti-white, anti-straight, anti-male) is real.

The catalyst for this view was the brutal murder of Ross Andrew Parker by an Asian gang in 2001, which led the BBC to say this (archive here) –

“Racism was once defined as ‘prejudice plus power’ – […] However, the ‘racist murders’ of Kriss Donald in Glasgow in 2004 and Ross Parker in Peterborough in 2001, young white men killed by Asians, demonstrate how society has been forced to redefine racism”.

Last year the issue was reinforced by a scandal centred on a town called Rotherham in the UK, where 1,400 underage girls were revealed as having been subject to paedophile rape over a 20 year period. The perpetrators? I quoted feminist Suzanne Moore in the Guardian newspaper (archive here), “men of Pakistani and Kashmiri descent, working in gangs to rape and torture girls”, who “called the girls ‘white trash'”.

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Wikimedia UK Response to Shapps – Claims to Have Destroyed the Evidence

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In a recent article I revealed that after being wrongly accused of sock-puppetry and backstabbing colleagues by Richard Symonds, a staffer at Wikimedia UK, British MP Grant Shapps had served a disclosure request under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). Shapps has had a response, of sorts. It makes grim reading.

The great thing about data protection requests? They are not litigation correspondence, they are not subject to the implied undertaking / CPR 31.22 and they do not usually engage a duty of confidentiality. Other parties may not ordinarily impose a duty of confidence on documents disclosed under a statutory duty. So we can start by sharing this little gem –

WikimediaDPAResponse

What sort of organisation fails to retain legally sensitive materials like allegations against Cabinet ministers?

According to Wikimedia UK Symonds has deleted his email to the Guardian ‘in the normal course of business’. This is a very concerning statement. Most organisations have clear data retention policies. Does Wikimedia have no such policy or does it not follow it? Does it really manage personal data so poorly? Another concern is that most organisations have email backups. Does Wikimedia or its provider not back up its email server? That is a serious governance concern.

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Vicious Racist Murders and Paedophile Rape ‘on an industrial scale’ – the British Tragedies that Prove GitHub’s Amy Palamountain (and Anita Sarkeesian) Horribly Wrong on ‘Reverse Racism’

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RossAndrewParkerCrematoriumPlaque

Anita Sarkeesian says that “reverse racism” is a “myth”. Amy Palamountain calls it, “erasure”. Tell that to the family of Ross Andrew Parker, whose life was subject to “erasure” in a killing which even the Guardian called, “racist”. Picture by Wikipedia user ‘Shakehandsman’, released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 – attribution and license linked here.

Recently GitHub provoked a storm of protest after staffer Amy Palamountain amended a proposed ‘Open Code of Conduct’ such that complaints of harassment arising from ‘reverse-isms’ such as ‘reverse racism’ would not be acted upon. Palamountain is on record as saying, “[…] The intent is deliberate, and I strongly disagree it should be altered to be more lenient to privileged groups […]”. Recent British examples illuminate the terrible folly of that statement.

In my previous article I set out potential legal problems with the TODOGroup Code of Conduct. In this article I want to address the moral and policy arguments around the extreme left belief that ‘reverse racism’ does not exist and cannot do harm. I found this exceptionally offensive as a person living in post-Rotherham Britain.

Consider this extract –

“Racism was once defined as ‘prejudice plus power’ – […] However, the ‘racist murders’ of Kriss Donald in Glasgow in 2004 and Ross Parker in Peterborough in 2001, young white men killed by Asians, demonstrate how society has been forced to redefine racism”.

Is this a Conservative website? A right-wing blog? Nope. I am quoting the BBC (archive here). The brutal killing, in which a 17 year old called Ross Andrew Parker was beaten with a hammer, stabbed and kicked to death before being left in a pool of his own blood caught national news in the UK for its violence and the explicitly racist motives of the killers.

The ideas espoused by controversial activists such as Anita Sarkeesian when she says that “sexism is prejudice + power” (archive here) or when she talks of the “myth” of “reverse racism” (archive here) are ideas that even the BBC admitted were horribly, tragically wrong nearly 10 years ago. The Guardian agreed – no weaselling about ‘reverse-isms’ they called it a ‘racist killing’ (archive here).

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GitHub Atom Project Drops Open Code of Conduct, Switches to User Contributor Covenant 1/2/0

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Just a quick update. Since my previous article about the TODO Group Open Code of Conduct and its bizarre, extremist left wing content, the GIT Atom project has switched to the Contributor Covenant.

I am quite happy with this. The document is much shorter but reflects reasonable professional expectations. It roughly corresponds with UK and EU law. I am not against inclusion and I think Open Source should have rules.

The document should probably add political belief as a protected characteristic to fully meet the standards of EU law but aside from that it is a vast improvement. A problem with the OCoC is that in the EU even extremist political beliefs are protected. That might trouble some – but in fact it is a good thing because what is considered extreme may … vary … especially if leftists are in charge.

If the extreme right wing is protected by EU law then a moderate consumer movement like GamerGate is also likely to be covered.

 

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‘We Will Not Act’ on Complaints About Racist Harassment – Why Github’s Amy Palamountain is a Liability

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Amy Palamountain. GitHub tried to stop her image appearing in this article. Why would she want her picture not to appear by her words? This image is derived from a photo released under CC-BY 2.0 by her fiancé Michael Holman (who goes by Martin Holman also). The license requires I credit him (awkward!) and link to the license – here. He has changed the licensing since then but the grant of the CC-BY 2.0 is irrevocable. Archive linked to show the license granted when I downloaded it – here .

Note – no private details are revealed in this article. All contact details have been put pro-actively and prominently into the public domain by their owners.

As a postgraduate law student who has been praised in Parliament for his pro-bono equalities work, and was asked to give evidence to the House of Lords Committee on the Mental Capacity Act 2005, I am frequently asked questions about equalities law. I am loathe to condemn even people whom I disagree with because of the complex and difficult issues they face.

Nonetheless several people this week have asked me for my legal opinion on the TODO Group ‘Open Code of Conduct’ (archive here) and I do feel some excoriation is in order. The TODO Group is a group of companies who “want to collaborate on practices, tools and other ways to run successful and effective open source projects”. They have recently published a Code of Conduct.

The issue that has attracted controversy is the ‘definition of harassment’ written by Github employee Amy Palamoutain. Much of this is unobjectionable, aside from prolixity. For example, the following are examples of behaviour that is prohibited –

“•Threats of violence, both physical and psychological
[…]
•Deliberate intimidation
•Stalking or following”

However, one passage has caused great offense. It says this –

“[…] We will not act on complaints regarding:

• ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’”

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Shoulda Listened, Nick! Here is Some More Advice: Time to Fire Sam Biddle

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Gawker’s response to its scandalous outing of a corporate executive has been chaotic. It is unclear what strategy the leadership has in place to stop the ongoing haemorrhaging of advertisers. The Witchfinder says that if Gawker wants to clean up its act it is time for  Nick Denton to put Gawker’s house in order. That means reaching out to #GamerGate in a serious and sustained way, covering some socially useful stories and cutting out the cancer at the heart of Gawker Media – it is time for that epitomé of morally bankrupt journalist, Sam Biddle, to go.

In February this year I emailed Nick Denton and Max Read to complain about an article on Gawker.com. By Sam F Biddle, it had two major flaws. Firstly, the headling was wildly untrue, far from being a rump of psychopaths GamerGate has continued to grow in size and power. At the time of writing the major forum KotakuInAction now has over 47 thousand members.

Key figures in GamerGate have continued to grow in power, with the fair Shoe0nHead for example now at 77 thousand subscribers, despite her infrequent videos. If June produced say 1-2 videos a week she could monetise and live comfortably – perhaps wealthily – on the advertising revenues.

Secondly the article essentially amounted to picking an … eccentric … from the internet (who later turned out to be a hoaxer) and singling them out, bedlam style, for mockery. The article, like many before it from Sam Biddle, was a disgrace.

PsychopathsAllThatIsLeft

Sam F Biddle makes use of stigmatising mental health tropes, singling out a vulnerable individual for ridicule.

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Vindicator – BBC in Humiliating Apology to Grant Shapps MP as Clouds Gather Around Wikipedia

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Following recent ArbCom findings exonerating Grant Shapps the BBC has apologised over its lacklustre coverage. Furthermore, the Witchfinder can exclusively reveal that Shapps has now written to Wikipedia’s UK chapter, the charity Wikimedia United Kingdom (WMUK), formally demanding disclosure of documents and expressing concerns about the charity’s political involvement. At the same time, a number of other powerful institutions are expressing frustration over legitimate concerns about bias, harassment and ineptitude at the encylopaedia.

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Ominous clouds are gathering around the embattled online encyclopaedia as powerful and aggrieved individuals and institutions queue up to vent their frustrations. Clouds picture via Dreamstime. Wikipedia logo via CC BY-SA 3.0 and Wikipedia Trademark Policy

The BBC, which spent a whole day on Grant Shapps’ alleged editing of Wikipedia, was curiously less forthcoming on apologising – leaving Shapps with legitimate complaint. It is a foolish move for an institution whose very existence is under threat to alienate its few allies. Shapps, now the Minister of State for International Development, is one of the minority of Conservatives who does not favour the BBC’s abolition.

Mr Shapps is also not the only public figure with grievances about the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. He finds himself in company with left-wing journalist David Auerbach, right-wing media organisation Breitbart and the enormous consumer movement known as #GamerGate – one of whose forums KotakuInAction alone now boasts over 40,000 members and whose key figures like SargonOfAkkad have hundreds of thousands of followers.

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Sinister

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The Witchfinder exposes the way in which shoddy left-wing journalism has lent credibility to and empowered troublesome Wikipedia users such as Mark Bernstein, as well as a suggestion as to what ethics campaigners can do about it.

Title music – The Escape – (c) – Machinimasound (Commercial license purchased)

Wikipedia sign up here. The Great Work Subreddit is now open here.

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