People who live in Covid-19 hotspots in England such as Greater Manchester are to be banned from travelling to Wales, the first Minister has announced.

Mark Drakeford said that evidence from public health professionals suggests coronavirus is moving from east to west across the UK and across Wales. As a general rule, it is concentrating in urban areas and then spreading to more sparsely populated areas as a result of people travelling.

Much of Wales is now subject to local restriction measures because levels of the virus have risen and people living in those areas are not able to travel beyond their county boundary without a reasonable excuse. This is designed to prevent the spread of infection within Wales and to other areas of the UK.

We are preparing to take this action to prevent people who live in areas where there are higher covid infection rates across the UK from travelling to Wales and bringing the virus with them. I am determined to keep Wales safe.

Welsh Conservative Shadow spokesman for Health said that The Welsh Governments unhealthy obsession with travel restrictions and banning the English flies in the face of all the evidence. Last months SAGE advice said such a move would have a low impact and would be complicated to enforce.

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People from Covid hotspot areas are to be banned from travelling to Wales - About Manchester

Mr Hancock says that infections in London are rising sharply.

"Working closely with the Mayor, with cross-party council leadership, and the national team, we've together agreed that London needs to move to local Covid alert level 'High'," he says, thanking those involved for their "collaborative approach".

"To Londoners and all who work in our great capital, I want to say thank you for what you've done to suppress this virus once. We all need to play our part in getting the virus under control once again."

Essex and Elmbridge have also been moved to Tier 2, the Health Secretary confirms, with all of the new Tier 2 restrictions taking effect from 12.01am on Saturday.

He confirms that Barrow-in-Furness, York, Erewash, Chesterfield, andInverness will also be subject to Tier 2.

He says that under Tier 2 households cannot meet indoors, including in hospitality settings, and that households should "reduce [their] number of journeys where possible".

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Pubs in Tier 2 areas will be 'decimated' without further support, Matt Hancock warned - Telegraph.co.uk

Other stars of Black LinkedIn target specific companies. Ms. Joseph, for example, has recently called out Wells Fargo, DoorDash, Microsoft and Google.

There has also been no shortage of criticism of LinkedIn itself. Users are holding the company to a standard it set for itself in June, when Melissa Selcher, the chief marketing and communications officer, wrote an open letter on the platform.

We have a responsibility to use our platform and resources to intentionally address the systemic barriers to economic opportunity, she wrote. We also believe we play a critical role in amplifying Black voices.

Also in June, with Black Lives Matter protests spreading across the country, LinkedIn highlighted Black Voices to Follow and Amplify, a curated list of chief executives, media personalities and other influencers, including the Rev. Bernice King and Karamo Brown from the Netflix show Queer Eye. For the most part, members of the list post content that is general, motivational and safe.

Ms. Joseph and others took to LinkedIn to say the group contained too many establishment names and not enough activists. Where are the Tamika Mallorys of LinkedIn on that list? Ms. Joseph wrote, referring to a co-founder of the 2017 Womens March.

Black voices arent just corporate C-Suite ones, wrote Patricia S. Gatlin, a talent sourcing specialist in Las Vegas. All Black voices need to be heard in this moment, added Scott Taylor, a recruiter in Los Angeles. Not just the ones your team of analysts think we should hear from.

Ms. Leverich, the LinkedIn spokeswoman, said by email: We use a number of factors in our selection, including members who have self-identified as Black, people from a variety of industries and with an interesting perspective to share. Were constantly adding new voices and sorting through requests to join this program.

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Black LinkedIn Is Thriving. Does LinkedIn Have a Problem With That? - The New York Times

Twitter have announced new rules and limits in the run-up to the 2020 US election; including early result announcements being marked as misinformation.

On October 9th, Twitter Support tweeted and posted on their blog how they would provide additional, significant product and enforcement updates that will increase context and encourage more thoughtful consideration before Tweets are amplified.

Firstly, this included premature claims of a victory in the election being labeled as misinformation, with a link provided to Twitters own official US Election page. Tweets that encourage others to interfere with the election process or the results will be removed.

On the blog, Twitter explains to determine the results of an election in the US, we require either an announcement from state election officials, or a public projection from at least two authoritative, national news outlets that make independent election calls.

In addition, those attempting to retweet a tweet with a misleading information label will be given a prompt directing them to credible information about the topic before they can amplify it.

Twitter will also be adding warnings and further restrictions on tweets that are deemed misleading from accounts owned by US political figures, US-based accounts with 100,000+ followers, or Tweets that obtain significant engagement.They will also temporarily ask people to add their own commentary before amplifying content by prompting Quote Tweets instead of Retweets.

Though this adds some extra friction for those who simply want to Retweet, Twitter explains on their blog, we hope it will encourage everyone to not only consider why they are amplifying a Tweet, but also increase the likelihood that people add their own thoughts, reactions and perspectives to the conversation.

What users see on their timelines during the election will also be affected, as Twitter will prevent liked by and followed by recommendations from people you dont follow from showing up in your timeline and wont send notifications for these Tweets.

These recommendations can be a helpful way for people to see relevant conversations from outside of their network, but we are removing them because we dont believe the Like button provides sufficient, thoughtful consideration prior to amplifying Tweets to people who dont follow the author of the Tweet, or the relevant topic that the Tweet is about. This will likely slow down how quickly Tweets from accounts and topics you dont follow can reach you, which we believe is a worthwhile sacrifice to encourage more thoughtful and explicit amplification.

Further, Trends in the For You tab for US users will only surface with additional context. This is to more quickly let people know why something is trending and also help reduce the potential for misleading information to spread.

Twitter has tried desperately over the years to curb accounts they deem abusive or spreading misinformation; even trying to prevent users from being dunked on- no matter the reason. These have included limiting an abusive tweets visibility, and even changing the default egg avatar due to its alleged association with harassment.

The former- better known as shadow banning- resulted in Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey having to testifyto the US House Energy and Commerce Committee. This was due to allegations of censorship, especially aimed at those with republican beliefs. Twitters terms of service (as of January 2020) effectively wrote shadow banning into their terms [1,2,3].

Back in February of this year, images from an experimental branch of Twitter leaked to the public; wherein tweets could be flagged and marked as harmfully misleading, with labels with the correct information under it. In late May of this year, Twitter also allowed users to control who could reply to their tweets.

On May 28th, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Preventing Online Censorship,after Twitter marked one of his tweets as deceptive. President Trump had expressed concern that mail-in ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.

In summation, the executive order ascertains that social media is the modernpublic square.As such they would lose their protections from being liable for what users post, if they use their power over a vital means of communication to engage in deceptive or pretextual actions stifling free and open debate by censoring certain viewpoints.

Specifically, this was by clarifying section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act; which offered immunity from liability for social media platforms from what their users posted. Under the executive order, this rescinds the immunity for those who act as publishers by curating user content.

The executive order makes it so the act serves its true purpose- to protect those engaging in Good Samaritan blocking ofharmful content. The executive order was sent to the FCC on July 27th to be filed.

The above factors have lead many to grow concerned with Twitters effect on the 2020 US election, and that Twitter would even go as far as to attempt to prevent or hinder President Trump winning.

Many users had quote retweeted Twitters announcement, accusing them of attempting to manipulate the election [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] via preventing the spread of information, and marking certain truths as misinformation.

In nowdeleted tweets, Yoel Roth, Twitters Head of Site Integrity, claimed that there were ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSEandIm just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason.

One particular theory held by some online proposes that major news outlets (who have also been accused of an anti-Trump and anti-republican bias) will not report the results of the election, should Trump win.

In summation, the US election involves the public casting votes for members of the Electoral College, who in turn cast Electoral Votes (almost always in line with what the majority voted for in their state). While the public vote occurs on the first Tuesday after November 1st (Election Day), the Electoral Vote takes place the first Monday after December 12th.

As such, the election is not decided on Election Day, but rather the Electoral Vote. The aforementioned theory proposes that between Election Day and the Electoral Vote, the democrats will create fraudulent mail-in votes (pretending they were missed or failed to arrive for counting on Election Day) as well as somehow throwing out republican votes in order to to win.

The theory further proposes that major news outlets will not announce the result on Election Night should President Trump win (unlike prior elections). If President Trump later fraudulently lost the election his objections would be supposedly easier to dismiss, as the nation would not accept the standard of the Election Night results being as good as final.

Democrat politicians and major news outlets would then focus on President Trump refusing to accept the results of the election; dismissing accusations of voter fraud by President Trump and his supporters as an excuse or lie to keep him in office.

Some of President Trumps concerns on mail-in votes may have already come to pass. The US Attorneys Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania issued a revised statement on an inquiry into reports of issues with mail-in ballots. They had discovered nine military votes had been discarded, with seven voting for President Trump.

President Trump also retweeted several news stories today, regarding mail-in voter issues. These included a New Jersey postal employee accused of dumping 1,800 pieces of mail (with 99 ballots), and the Franklin County Board of Elections announcing that 49,669 voters in the county received an incorrect ballot. There was also a story on a Carrolton, Texas Mayoral candidate being arrested for voter fraud,

Twitters recent announcement has also prompted criticism that they are acting like a publisher [1, 2], the exact thing the Preventing Online Censorship executive order forbids. At this time of writing, President Trump has not issued any statements regarding Twitters announcement.

This is Niche Culture. In this column, we regularly cover anime, geek culture, and things related to video games. Please leave feedback and let us know if theres something you want us to cover!

Image: Twitter Blog

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Report: Twitter Introduces Limitations Ahead of US Election; Early Result Announcements Marked as Misinformation and More - Niche Gamer

SMALL c conservatives often think that the mainstream media is against them, and theyre right. The political bias of the BBC has been described ad infinitum here onThe Conservative Womanand documented in detail onNews-watch.

Even Jenni Murray, doyenne ofWomans Hour, has had enough of the BBCfurious, inter alia, at being reprimandedfor her on-air refutation of transgenderism. Sky News, Channel Four and ITV are all equally progressive and politically biased in their news and commentary.

By contrast, the US has Fox,the only conservative-leaning TV station; but the rest NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN are all vehemently anti-Trump, however much some make a pretence at neutrality.

Social media is little better initsinherent anti-conservative bias and censorship.TCWrecentlyreportedthe censorship by YouTube of Dr Scott Atlas for daring to challenge the conventional thinking on the Covid-19 pandemic.

Twitter and Facebook are the same. When a group of US doctors made a public call for hydroxychloroquine to be used as a therapy for coronavirus, Facebook closed down anyone posting their video and Twitter banned Donald Trump Junior for 12 hours after he posted it on his account. Yesterday they went into action against President Trump again, Facebook removing a tweet saying it violated its rules on Covid misinformation while Twitter added a public-interest notice saying the tweet broke its rules on COVID-19 misinformation.

Shadow banning of pro-Trump tweeters and right-of-centre supporters is widely accepted as routinely happening.

In addition to blocking content from potential viewers without informing the creator, censorship also often takes more subtle and indirect forms, such as demonetisation (preventing those with the wrong opinions making a living from their content), as described by Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson here.

Yet despite these best efforts, its proved virtually impossible to prevent dissenting views from being heard and available, as subsequently demonstratedby Petersons and Rubins active resistance.

Where they led the way, others have followed.TCWposted a link to the Scott Atlas interviewhere, but you can also see it onBitChute, a video streaming service specifically created in 2017 to avoid YouTubes censorship. And its still available on more mainstream platforms such asApple,TuneinandFacebook.

You may find it a little more difficult to find the US Frontline Doctors press conference about hydroxychloroquine given several months ago, but not much (hereto save you the bother, though the comments have been disabled).

There is no doubtthat the internet has been a boon for anyone wishing to challenge Establishment views. The barriers to entry are low. The only things needed are a decent broadband connection and a smartphone. A few hundred pounds gets you a good microphone, camera and a bit of lighting.

While the tech giants try to muzzle those out of line of received wisdom, the reality is that articles and videos can be circulated with a speed with which Soviet dissidents could only have dreamed of spreading theirsamizdat.

And theres a plethora of conservative, Right-wing or free market voices out there. As well asTCWs socially conservative platform, my web favourites (from both sides of the pond) includeArchbishop Cranmer,Breitbart,Ann Coulter,Capx,Comment Central,Quilette,Theodore Dalrymple,Melanie Phillips,Matt Ridley,Mark Steyn,SpikedandHeterodox Academy, with a bit of satire fromThe Babylon Bee.

If I want to listen rather than read, then one can choose fromthinkspot(Jordan Petersons free speech alternative to the mainstream),The Daily Wire,Triggernometry,Gad Saad,Jonathan Pageau,Mayhar Tousi,Matt Christensen,Patrick Coffin,The New Culture Forumor Mark Steyn, again without trying hard to find anything.

TCWreaders will have their own favourites. One doesnt have to agree with everything to find it more informative and intellectually stimulating than anything the traditional media can offer.

The relatively small size of these outlets may make it look like a David and Goliath contest, though that fight didnt end well for the big chap.

The world of online has had plenty of major falls in its short history; if you remember Friends Reunited, Bebo or Myspace, youre already showing your age. And the mainstream media know that, despite their apparently large audiences, theyre struggling to win the online battle with the Right.

In April, theNew York Timeshad toadmitthatconservative commentator Ben Shapiro got 56million total interactions on his Facebook page in the previous 30 days, more than the main pages of ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPRcombined. Good news for conservatives on television is Fox Newss record audiences in 2020 for cable news, and also Tucker Carlson attracting arecord audience.

Britainremains a poor relation on both fronts. Alex Belfield, thoughpopular on YouTube, hardly competes with a Ben Shapiro in sophistication or reach.

And, with no broadcast equivalent here to Fox News, the jury is out as to whether Andrew Neilsnew 24-hour news channel GB Newswill provide the type ofRight-wing critiqueandopinionthat ismissing from TV here.

Admittedly, few viewing experiences have brought conservatives more pleasure in recent years than Cathy so youre saying that But Newman making a fool of herself when she interviewed Jordan Peterson wasby accident, not design.

Channel 4 chiefs put the half-hour programme on YouTube because they thought it went well for La Newman, illustrative of how out of touch they were with reality.

Largelyunnoticed were the viewing figures; the interview racked up around three million views in seven days (which would have made it the second most viewed Channel 4 programme that week) and two and a half years later it has over 22million views, the second most viewed video on Channel 4s YouTube channel (first place goes to a weather presenter pronouncing the longest Welsh placename).

Channel 4 News is rather coy about releasing its nightly viewing figures, butadmittedto only 7.4million a month in 2018, which is less than 400,000 a day.

The BBC isnt faring much better. The news that it lost 237,000 licence payers in the year to March 2020 comes after losses in recent years reversing adecade long increasein TV licence numbers to 2016.

Notably, these figures come prior to an inevitable backlash over its risible effort to make The Last Night of the Proms woke and its excuses for Black Lives Matters violence (27 police officers injured during largely peaceful anti-racism protests in London was the last straw for me).

The outrageous decision tomake over-75s pay for their TV licence is essential for the BBC to combat its declining revenue whilstmaintaining Loony Left initiatives such as 100million on more diversity and eye-watering salaries for many of itsindifferent presenters.

It will only get worse for the BBC. A recentpollfound 28 per cent of the public dontwatch BBC TV at all, 52 per cent think its too politically correct and 65 per cent support abolishing the TV licence. We can onlyhope that BBC stars wont be enjoying their exorbitant salaries forever.

The mainstream media are already exercising their power in the upcoming US Presidential election to hinder pro-Trump voices. So too are the corporates, attempting to stifle his supporters on social media.

Theyve already started; Facebook has restricted access to Tucker Carlsons official page due to repeated sharing of false news. No examples have been provided to support this assertion, as though facts arent needed for Left-wing censorship.

Its not clear that such exercises in manipulation will work; it didnt stop the Brexit vote or Trump being elected in 2016. Though the force of censorship has strengthened in the intervening years, time is running out for the mainstream media.

Their revenues and audiences are declining. Thats why theyll be trying harder than ever to control the message and why, in turn, conservatives will need to keep their antennaetuned, and keep up the fight, using all media available, to transmit their views.

Editors request:We invitereaders to recommendtheir alternativenews sources, especially from readers whohave turned their backs on theBBCand the paywalled newspapers such as the Times and the Telegraph. Which sources do you depend on for your daily news?

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Gagged by the media giants, conservatives must fight via the Net - The Conservative Woman

Jason Willms and Billy Moskal of the London Knights fight for the puck behind the Oshawa Generals net against Dawson McKinney of the Generals in a game on March 8 at Budweiser Gardens in London. Mike Hensen/The London Free Press

Banning body contact will not save the Ontario Hockey Leagues 2020-21 season.

There are a variety of hurdles that have to be cleared long before the first check is thrown, so it was strange provincial sport minister Lisa MacLeod made that a headline-grabbing condition this week for a re-start of the junior game in early December.

Its clear the league isnt giving an immediate thumbs up on that point, either.

The OHL has been working with and continues to be in communication with various government ministries and public health agencies on our return-to-play plans, it said in a statement Thursday. Conversations are ongoing and a decision has not yet been made in terms of a finalized return to play model.

It makes more sense to get the teenagers on the ice first before bartering about the rules.

For that to happen, the OHL still has to figure out how to get its players to their respective cities, put them safely into billet homes, navigate a COVID-19 testing policy, develop an economic structure that will prevent franchises from losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, sort out travel for road games, find out if fans can attend games and pray the Canada-U.S. border allows interaction with the three American-based teams.

Those boxes need to be checked in the shadow of the Quebec leagues recent start-up, which already has yielded a startling number of positive COVID-19 tests.

Hopefully, something breaks so that everybodys happy and feels safe, London Knights GM Mark Hunter said. We want to be in a position where the players can play because theyre anxious to start and the clubs want to get going, too.

But its got to be safe and thats the bottom line. Maybe something can break that will allow us to have body checking.

Anybody who has watched an OHL game in the past decade knows fighting rates have fallen off a cliff and hitting has become much more controlled.

One of commissioner David Branchs most celebrated innovations to the game in the past handful of years has been penalizing hits to the head and banning the most dangerous forms of contact.

You can legislate punch-ups out of the sport, but you cant remove contact from it in the name of safety.

The best example comes from the minor hockey ranks, which currently is trying to operate under the conditions MacLeod and the government have set forth in recent months.

You can have three-on-three or four-on-four, but no matter what, theres incidental contact out there, Kevin Gardner, the Jr. Knights vice-president of hockey operations, said. You cant avoid it. One guy is looking north and another is looking south and they run into each other. You can have a kid skating backward and accidentally run into the goalie, so I dont know where they draw the line.

Its a fast game and its about read and react. Theres a loose puck, two guys think they can get it first and theyre both wrong and theres a collision.

Thats a lot of undue pressure on the kids, coaches and refs. They know if there is one false move, the season could be lost.

So, go back up the ladder to the OHL and there is an entertainment component to consider. If a good chunk of fans dont like whats being offered, then the 20 franchises are in a difficult situation.

Its not the same game with no contact, Gardner said. Were just fooling ourselves to say it is. Call it what it is; its like recreational four-on-four play. Its not minor midget AAA or OHL hockey.

Checking is a fundamental part of the elite game. The NHL playoffs again proved it during the past few months.

It doesnt make any sense to jump through all the hoops that need to be passed just to get on the ice and have body contact be the final barrier.

MacLeod could have provided players and fans a small sense of hope this week.

Instead, she only stirred up more frustration and discouragement that this season wont happen for a long time, if at all.

rpyette@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/RyanatLFPress

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PYETTE: Let's figure out how to safely get OHL players on the ice, then decide on rules - Mitchell Advocate

After social media censorship failed to zero out RTs web traffic, an establishment US media outlet has revealed it reached out to sites in the same link-exchange network as RT, spooking them into backing out.

The Wall Street Journal has launched an investigation into a link aggregator that includes RT.com, publishing the names of participants and the network itself in an effort to shame them into kicking the site off, in a hit piece on Wednesday. If this thinly-veiled intimidation is the behavior of a democratic countrys media, one shudders to imagine what an authoritarian nation might have done.

RealClearPolitics a mostly-nonpartisan site that reports poll results and political news is held up as an example, guilty of wrongthink through its association with Mixi.Media, a web-ring that links to headlines from news sites of various political persuasions (including RT) at the bottom of partners webpages. Mixi doesnt show the source of the headlines right away, no matter where they come from, which in the eyes of the Journal proves its up to something nefarious.

The pearl-clutching pseudo-expos made it clear that even unwitting association with RT is beyond the pale in this paranoid day and age. If [readers] see RT, they are going to freak out, Mixi founder Alex Baron is quoted as saying. Asked whether he agrees with RTs politics, he answers in the negative, of course. However, the implication is made that hes a Kremlin agent at heart through his past association with a Russian private equity firm - never mind that hes suing that firm after being fired in 2018. Merely working for a company owned by a Russian executive initiates an irrevocable cootie-transfer.

The Journal doesnt illustrate exactly how they approached the web-ring participants for the piece, but at least five sites were sufficiently intimidated including The Blaze, Newser, and AccuWeather that they fled Mixis network after being asked about the Russian intruder in their midst. Presumably the dialogue went something like Gee, thats a nice news outlet youve got there, sure would be a shame if it got shut down for Russian collusion.

If that sounds like an exaggeration, one need only refer to the New York Times warningthat merely reporting a story RT has covered is actually sowing discord and creating division. As far back as 2016, the Washington Post was accusing US-based, US-run alt-media websites of being Russian useful idiots merely for disdaining to go along with Washingtons neoliberal warmongering agenda, laundering its smears through the anonymous Ukrainian front PropOrNot.

The WSJs dont click that link - there might be Russians in it scare story is just the latest in a long string of efforts to pressure friendly networks into giving RT the cold shoulder. The same outlet bemoaned RTs seeming invincibility to TV censorship back in January 2017 as part of a multi-pronged media blitz ginned up by the US intelligence communitys attempt to implicate RT in meddling in the 2016 election an allegation that has never been remotely substantiated yet has become part of the narrative wallpaper for the American establishment, assumed to be true even in the absence of evidence.

The dubious allegations of hacking the Democratic National Committee were followed by a lengthy screed against programs RT no longer even aired but that was enough for the New York Times and other papers of record to pile on a competitor they didnt know they had, treating the uninspired smear like a smoking gun. Breaking precedent set by other state-owned foreign media, the Justice Department forced RT to register as a foreign agent. The designation was subsequently held up, bizarrely, as proof it was foreign propaganda, as officials insisted it was voluntary, even though the network was threatened with criminal charges if it refused.

And the UK Sunday Times pulled a similar stunt to the WSJs back in 2017, phoning up RTs British advertisers many of whom were spooked by the probing questions into pulling their ads and misrepresenting their vanishing act as motivated by the channels propaganda and fake news.

Efforts to sideline RT have only increased since then, with first YouTube and more recently Facebook and Twitter labeling it as state-run foreign media and burying its content. WSJs report glossed over the obvious follow-on effect from such a move, crowing gleefully that social media traffic to the site dropped 22 percent from 2018 to July and web traffic in general dropped 14 percent.

But until it drops to zero, the US propaganda mill will never be satisfied. Having coasted for decades with a virtual monopoly on viewers eyeballs, its quality declined accordingly, and the rise of the internet saw Americans hungrily lapping up any alternative source of information. When theyre presented with the sight of rioters burning businesses, bibles, or people and told these are peaceful democratic protesters who must be supported, they recoil not because they are propagandized by RT or some other outlet, but because theyre aware theyre being lied to.

With the 2020 election looming on the horizon, social media platforms and news outlets alike are renewing their fatwa against all things Russian. That reliable enemy ensures they will never have to answer for the many holes in their own one-sided coverage, the flagrant falsehoods regularly passed off as gospel, and the unrelenting fear porn that keeps too many Americans glued to their TV set. Heaven forbid they change the channel they might trip over the truth.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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WSJ investigation of aggregator that dared include RT scares other members into ditching the network. Democracy at work! - RT

The government has ordered schools in England not to use resources from organisations which have expressed a desire to end capitalism.

Department for Education (DfE) guidance issued on Thursday for school leaders and teachers involved in setting the relationship, sex and health curriculum categorised anti-capitalism as an extreme political stance and equated it with opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and endorsement of illegal activity.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the measures effectively outlawed reference in schools to key events in British history, and that it symbolised growing authoritarianism within the governing Conservative party.

The guidance, part of lengthy guidelines for implementing the statutory curriculum, said: Schools should not under any circumstances use resources produced by organisations that take extreme political stances on matters. This is the case even if the material itself is not extreme, as the use of it could imply endorsement or support of the organisation.

It listed examples of what were described as extreme political stances, such as a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections; opposition to freedom of speech; the use of racist, including antisemitic, language; the endorsement of illegal activity; and a failure to condemn illegal activities done in support of their cause.

McDonnell said: On this basis it will be illegal to refer to large tracts of British history and politics including the history of British socialism, the Labour Party and trade unionism, all of which have at different times advocated the abolition of capitalism.

This is another step in the culture war and this drift towards extreme Conservative authoritarianism is gaining pace and should worry anyone who believes that democracy requires freedom of speech and an educated populace.

Economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the guidance showed how easy it is to lose a country, to slip surreptitiously into totalitarianism.

He added: Imagine an educational system that banned schools from enlisting into their curricula teaching resources dedicated to the writings of British writers like William Morris, Iris Murdoch, Thomas Paine even. Well, you dont have to. Boris Johnsons government has just instructed schools to do exactly that.

Barrister Jessica Simor QC suggested that the government has on occasion not complied with the guidance itself, after it admitted the new Brexit bill would break international law (endorsement of illegal activity) and continued selling arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen following a court ruling that it was unlawful.

Tariq Ali, the writer and activist, said although the new guidance was a sign of moral and political bankruptcy, the advent of the internet meant such measures were futile.

Leaving aside the stupidity, these things dont work, he said. People will read what they want to read. Trying to enhance a version of the Prevent strategy, which is already in place, is quite scandalous and shocking.

If you put things on a banned list, lots of young people can access them via the internet and read them. Banning them from schools will not work at all, aside from the fact its a sign of moral and political bankruptcy.

He added: How could both young and old people not read anti-capitalist analysis after 2008, or now with the virus going on and recessions looming all over the western world.

It is understood that the DfE is clear that schools should not work with agencies that take extreme positions, including promoting non-democratic political systems, and that teachers should be politically impartial.

Minister for school standards Nick Gibb said: Our new relationships, sex and health education (RHSE) guidance and training resources equip all schools to provide comprehensive teaching in these areas in an age-appropriate way.

These materials should give schools the confidence to construct a curriculum that reflects diversity of views and backgrounds, whilst fostering all pupils respect for others, understanding of healthy relationships, and ability to look after their own wellbeing.

It comes after counter-terrorism police earlier this year placed the non-violent group Extinction Rebellion on a list of extremist ideologies that should be reported to the authorities running the Prevent programme. However, the south-east division of Counter Terrorism Policing later recalled the document.

The headline of this article was corrected on 27 September 2020 because the DfE guidance applies only to schools in England, not those across the UK as an earlier version said. It was further amended on 28 September 2020 to clarify that schools were told not to use material from anti-capitalist groups; as opposed to being told not to use anti-capitalist material as stated in an earlier version.

Original post:

Schools in England told not to use material from anti-capitalist groups - The Guardian

The venerable Oxford University has entered the fray and churned out some RT bashing in the name of scholarship, and when the term disinformation is in the very first line of the report, its clear were on familiar ground.

The Oxford Internet Institutes new study The Organizational Behavior of RT makes the claim that it advances the scholarship of news organizational behavior, information warfare, and international broadcasting. I will now make the claim that what it actually advances is the method of repeating the same old guff from anonymous sources and pretending its research.

Lets get this on the record to start with: RT certainly does seek to represent a Russian view of the world and it does not hide that fact, and it is extremely critical of the West. As far as I know, RT makes no claims to have the monopoly on the truth, which is one way it certainly differentiates itself from Western organisations. It has made and does make mistakes, is not perfect, and, Ill be honest, the canteen is very disappointing. However, if you think its some kind of homogenous organisation staffed by serfs spewing out the view of one person, well, then youve never met a Russian.

So, that being said, heres my attempt at adding some informed common sense that may actually help Oxford University come to terms with what RT actually is, rather than just confirming its own bias. Ill stay away from the geopolitical stuff because you cant win there, and stick to the things I know a bit about, and show how the claims being made are cherry-picked and morphed to reflect the worldview this report is trying to bolster.

Ill go into the findings and conclusions, and suggest there may be a little more going on, and perhaps if the researchers had decided to question more (a little RT humour there), they may have actually cast some light, instead of just heat.

So, the methodology is interesting. Researchers contacted 240 former and current RT staff members, although only 23 agreed to be interviewed and, of those, 21 had left the company. It doesnt take an Oxford professor to think that when the majority of your evidence comes from former employees (the ones who were willing to talk), at least some of them are going to have attitudes towards a former employer that are less than scholarly.

The authors admit the participants had no journalistic experience before joining RT which begs the question, why would you use this group to provide insight into how a media outlet works?

Theres something about Russians that makes the authors of reports such as this ignore the mundane reasons things might actually happen and, instead, turn them into some kind of grand global plan to create chaos. Its as if RT operates in some kind of Bond-villain vacuum in which its the only baddy.

Theres a lot made of the fact RT hired inexperienced British journalists when it launched, suggesting this was some kind of nefarious strategy. The reality is that, when youre launching an English-language channel based in Moscow and you need hundreds of employees to get the thing started, an English-speaking workforce tends to live in Britain, not Russia.

There is criticism that RT staff are asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, ignoring the fact that staff are constantly being contacted to dish the dirt on the organisation by, among others, universities!

They [RT] did not want anyone to say bad things about the company. After Liz Wahl and Sara Firth [left RT], they did not want any more people doing this. Please, please, please, before the next researcher wants to mention Wahl or Firth and their very public resignations from RT to criticize the organisation, I implore them to go and see who those two are working for now.

In this Only When Russia Does It, Its Bad school of analysis, there is an interesting section on The Socialization of RT Journalists in other words, telling employees what you would like them to do in return for receiving a salary.

Then theres this classic misrepresentation: British, inexperienced journalists were treated like stars. Our participants stated that they were pampered with money, makeup artists, and private cars when they joined RT in its early days.

Lets unpack that pampering, shall we, to show how things can be twisted? They were given money, because it was a job. They were given access to a makeup department because they were going on television. They were given a lift to work because their shift started at 4.30am. And guess what? They had to find their own way home during daylight hours afterwards. Hows that for pampering?

Our respondents who witnessed the launch of RT in Moscow argued that hiring British journalists was part of a long-term plan to replace them with Russian journalists later.

It wasnt. They had to be replaced because the vast majority of the British journalists left after the first year for their own reasons. Many couldnt have trained a penguin to swim.

What about this insight about the inner workings: After journalists write a script, they need to get it approved by their editor. Most of our respondents who were based in the Moscow office said that the Russian editor would approve the script and the British editor would check the script to ensure it was professionally styled. So, erm, Oxford, heres a secret: sub-editors and editors are pretty universal across all nationalities of media.

The findings state that Socializing Russian journalists was not as necessary. Russian journalists at RT have a particularly strong sense of nationalism. Again, this is totally misrepresenting their view. What youll probably find is that these are Russian journalists who speak English, watch the way Russia is talked about in the English-speaking media and get pretty angry about it because it doesnt reflect their reality. From a Russian point of view, it looks very much like theyre the victim of disinformation. This is a key point that no one on either side, frankly seems willing to understand.

So, here are Oxfords three key accusations about RTs mission:

Across our interviews, our respondents agreed that the goals of the channel since 2008 have been and still are as follows. First, to push the idea that Western countries have as many problems as Russia

Second, to encourage conspiracy theories about media institutions in the West in order to discredit and delegitimize them.

Third, to create controversy and to make people criticize the channel, because it suggests that the channel is important an approach that would particularly help RT managers get more funding from the government.

On the first point, Western countries are not exactly hitting home runs at the moment, are they?

On the second holy shit, hows that for hypocrisy in a report that was literally written to discredit a media institution?

And on the third, it appears the channel is so important that Oxford University the best university in the world, were told is writing a report about it.

Ill finish by attempting to give my opinion on the one piece of geopolitics Im willing to put my name to. This report claims that The goal of the channel shifted when the Russia-Georgia conflict took place in 2008. Our respondents who witnessed this shift said that this conflict led the Russian government to realize that it could weaponize the channel to serve its political interests.

This misses the point completely about what, in my view, happened. Whatever else happened during that war, to this day, hardly anyone knows that Georgia fired the first shots during the South Ossetia conflict because thats not the narrative that was presented by CNN or the BBC, and their ilk. What Moscow realized was that it was the foreign mainstream media being weaponized. Somehow, it had to work much harder to get its view out into the world, and it must have worked, because people are writing hit pieces like this and calling it scholarly.

What I conclude from reading The Organizational Behavior of RT is that the academics over at Oxford should spend some time in other news organisations too. Theyll be in for a shock.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Oxford Universitys scholarly RT hit piece has no room for the mundane reality of how the worlds news organisations work - RT

28 September 2020, 23:53

Labour has told Gavin Williamson to end his "Invisible Man act" over the issues facing students following a spike in coronavirus cases at universities.

The opposition party's demand comes as the education secretary prepares to face MPs on Tuesday regarding the uptick in Covid-19 cases on UK campuses.

Mr Williamson is due to answer an urgent question in the Commons after thousands of students were forced to self-isolate at universities including Glasgow, Manchester Metropolitan and Edinburgh Napier.

Shadow education secretary Kate Green said: "After days of silence, this statement is a chance for the education secretary to end his Invisible Man act and begin to get to grips with the situation.

"None of this was unforeseeable. Labour and others have warned that campuses would need access to testing.

"But - just as with the exams fiasco over the summer - the education secretary has created chaos through his incompetence and failure to act.

"Gavin Williamson must set out what he is doing to resolve these problems and put young people and parents' minds at rest."

Read more: Student hell - Anger grows with thousands trapped in vile conditions

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According to university statements and local reports this month, roughly 30 UK institutions have seen confirmed Covid-19 cases. While on Monday, the University of Exeter asked students not to meet indoors with anyone who is not part of their household for the next 14 days.

The Labour Party accused Mr Williamson of not making any public appearances throughout the higher education saga and highlighted how he had not tweeted since 10 September - more than two weeks ago.

On Monday, the South Staffordshire MP took to Instagram to post about a litter pick in his constituency that he had taken part in, rather than the situation at the UK's universities.

The statement from Ms Green and the mounting issues in higher education come just weeks after the education secretary was urged to resign over his handling of the A-Level exam results fiasco.

Explained: Are students shut in halls allowed to go home?

Exclusive: MMU student reveals 'vile' conditions at Uni halls during lockdown

Labour is also demanding that the former chief whip sets out what steps he took over the summer to ensure that students would be able to return to university safely.

The opposition party also wants clarity that "every student will be able to safely return home to be with their families at Christmas after access to testing" as ministers put out mixed messages on the matter over the weekend.

Conservative Party co-chairman Amanda Milling said on Sunday there were "no plans" to keep students in university over Christmas. However, culture secretary Oliver Dowden said it would only be possible for young people to visit their families at the end of the term if the country follows existing guidance.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has also refused to rule out banning students from returning home for the festive period.

Labour has also called for guarantees from Mr Williamson that all students who are required to self-isolate will be able to access their education remotely and wants him to declare what mental health support will be put in place for those who have to stay indoors.

The party will also ask the secretary of state "what his message is for parents and those students who have not yet moved to campus" given the current situation across the UK, along with what help will be provided to students' unions to allow them to continue to provide pastoral support to students on and off campus.

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Labour: Gavin Williamson must 'end Invisible Man act' over university Covid issues - LBC