More bloggocks, and some personal shit.
Infighting in the horribly named "blogosphere" has existed since its very inception, and will of course continue until its dying day when the offspring of Jordan, Chantelle and Jade, genetically modified by mad scientists in order to appeal both to the Heat-buying masses and the Torygraph/Grauniad reading pseudo-intellectuals, win power and immediately destroy mankind by accidentally pushing the red nuke button, thinking it alerted their lackeys to their desire for a bucket of KFC chicken. There hasn't yet been though such an apparent opening blast of civil war as that directed from Tim "Manic" Ireland towards Paul "Guido Fawkes" Staines.
I'm in the strange position here of having an at least tenuous involvement with both. Tim has considered my half-baked rants worthy of linking to, and in my short-lived battle last year with the representatives of a certain Mazher Mahmood, Guido offered moral support, as we were both threatened by the legal might of Farrer & Co. I'm therefore somewhat wary of some of Tim's more strident attacks on Guido's blogging.
While undoubtedly his apparent fiddling with comments is a breach of acceptable if unwritten blogging etiquette, and I have in the past found his self-promotion rather amusing, I think it's going a little too far to accuse him of being lower than a red-top. As readers of this blog will know (all 2 of you), the Sun at its worst excesses is the equivalent of TV's Naughtiest Blunders, except in a crude, ugly, misleading political propaganda form; a unending cavalcade of the very worst of absolutely everything. Worst of all, it's almost impossible to get any right of reply in the Sun, or News of the World. They will only print what they want you to see. The letters are hand-picked so that there is hardly ever any deviation from their own chosen line, and the only way to get any kind of recompense, unless they've committed an utterly huge blunder which would almost certainly lead to damages in a court of law, your only hope is that the Press Complaints Commission, which has Les Hinton, News International's chairman on the code committee, will listen to your complaint. If your complaint is about their political coverage rather than something about you personally, then forget it.
This is, I think, the difference between Guido and the tabloid press. Guido, because of his very presence as a blogger, can be taken to task by the community which surrounds him, as Tim today has shown. The Sun, for all the rivalry it has with the Mirror and the distaste amongst the liberal broadsheet press for its crude propaganda, cannot be held to account adequately by either the press or by bloggers. For the press to do so would result in all out war, something which hacks who despite differing political allegiances would resist, and with the resources that Murdoch has, would result inevitably in the defeat of those who rise up; and for bloggers, who cannot possibly contend or deal with every single abuse of power that is wielded, every story that is not just wrong, but horribly wrong, and warped by the politics of those behind it. Just trying to keep up with the worst excesses, as this blog tries to, is tiring and time-consuming enough. Guido, on the other-hand, can be held to account. His output is nowhere near that of a newspaper; he can be challenged on other blogs, and his refusal to reply to accusations would be telling. When it comes to taking on the might of the Sun, all you hope for is that you reach a few people who might otherwise be taken in, that you correct the worst of its mistakes and show it up for what it really is. You know that you will largely be preaching to the converted, but the whole "blogosphere" is based around doing just that, more or less anyway.
The fallout between left and right blogs, and between fact checking blogs and others shows that this contained internet community can (mostly) moderate itself. Where Tim is right to be concerned I feel is about the influence of far-right neo-con bloggers, such as Michelle Malkin, Little Green Footballs, etc. They're the ones doing the dirty work of the current US administration; abusing, smearing, distorting and attacking, with all the more ferocity because their own masters can no longer do it themselves. They in some way mirror what MediaLens sets out to do, except taking on the whole of the "mainstream" media, which they regard as liberal, defeatist, anti-American, etc, as their target, while MediaLens sets out only to take on the actual liberal media. Both are utterly convinced that they are right to do so, and as a result both have gone way too far, MediaLens with Iraq Body Count and George Monbiot for instance, the far-right with the concocted Jamil Hussein "scandal", the hysteria that the massacre at Qana was somehow contrived entirely by Hizbullah, as if they wanted the children to die in order to use them for their own purposes, and over the targeting of Red Cross ambulances by Israeli laser-guided missiles, which they denied actually happened. Unlike MediaLens, these bloggers have major influence; they're making waves, especially on the likes of Fox News, and they're getting their claims into the mainstream media, true or not. They genuinely can discredit blogs as a whole. Guido doesn't wield anywhere near as much power.
Tim is also on uncertain ground over the legal aspect. Guido may boast that he is untouchable, but that is as yet untested. He certainly received an order, along with this blog, to take down the photographs posted of Mazher Mahmood, and had his case not been such a potential blow to freedom of expression online, as well as argued by incompetents, we may well have had to provide damages to the scourge of celebrities everywhere, not to mention the innocents he has entrapped in the Victora Beckham and red mercury plots. Rosie Winterton, one of John Prescott's other presumed mistresses, also realised that if she tried to sue Guido over his accusations that she risked letting everything out of the bag. Tim is right to be worried that the likes of Guido could soon use such potential blackmail against innocent targets, but that ought to be perhaps dealt with when it happens.
Most of all, I feel there has to be a place for someone like Guido out there, as Nosemonkey also argues. To claim, as Guido himself sort of does, that he's an online Private Eye is to give him way too much credit, but he does occupy that sort of niche that is fun, humourous and less demanding than that of other political blogs. Private Eye's own financial dealings are reasonably secretive, also. While Private Eye may not have the ideology behind it that Guido perhaps has, how many Tories devoted to the party would come out on their blogs like he has today and imply that cannabis ought to be legalised?
I won't then be joining in with removing Guido from the blogroll, although I'm sure that now these points have been put across that many more eyes will be on him, watching his moves a lot more carefully than they perhaps have been.
On a personal level, Tim's wider points about anonymity, funding and background as much affect me as they do Guido. My own operation here, however pathetic, is based around anonymity. The original name I used here, Simon Verwest, is not my real name. The main basis for my anonymity is based partly on my own cowardice. However paranoid it may be to think, the attacks that I make here on the Sun/Murdoch make me an obvious target for eventual "revenge", or at least some sort of "expose" or smear, and to make a comparison, although I am in no way comparing what I do here to what Tommy Sheridan has done as a politician, something on a far lower level to what has happened to him is something, however ridiculous it might seem, that I fear.
This farcical reason for anonymity though is no excuse, nor is it the only one. Although a lot of blogging is surely down in at least some way to vanity, one thing I certainly am not seeking is fame, even among my peers as it were. I am, it has to be admitted, something of a solitary animal. Not only do I not like being identified, I'm scared of it. The cliché goes that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, yet though I probably don't really have anything to hide, I still fear.
It's only right then that I at least give some background. I don't know how much the average reader cares, wants to know, other than to maybe read my convoluted ramblings, but in line with Tim's idea for something of a voluntary code, I'm going to at least come a little out of the shadows. I'm 22 years of age. I'm currently unemployed. For the last three years I've been slowly but surely recovering from severe depression, brought on by a number of factors. I had planned to go to university, 3 years and 2 years ago respectively, but the first time I decided it was best to give it another year, and the second time I found I just didn't have the mental strength to go through with it. I have no plans to try again as yet.
Half the reason I started writing here was to distract my mind somewhat. It's worked, and in conjunction with other things, I now feel a lot more confident both about myself and life in general. I hope to start looking for some sort of job shortly. I'm also going to change my name used here to septicisle, while still remaining something of my anonymity. Whether I fully "come out", we shall have to see. And in case you couldn't tell, I utterly loathe writing about myself. Trackback links are also now enabled, which for some reason I didn't previously have on, and you also now have to be registered to comment, which I doubt will affect things much.
Related posts:
Chicken Yoghurt - Off the artistic roll call
D-Notice - Bloggerheads vs Guy Fawkes
Bob Piper - Bloggerheads on the Plonker
I'm in the strange position here of having an at least tenuous involvement with both. Tim has considered my half-baked rants worthy of linking to, and in my short-lived battle last year with the representatives of a certain Mazher Mahmood, Guido offered moral support, as we were both threatened by the legal might of Farrer & Co. I'm therefore somewhat wary of some of Tim's more strident attacks on Guido's blogging.
While undoubtedly his apparent fiddling with comments is a breach of acceptable if unwritten blogging etiquette, and I have in the past found his self-promotion rather amusing, I think it's going a little too far to accuse him of being lower than a red-top. As readers of this blog will know (all 2 of you), the Sun at its worst excesses is the equivalent of TV's Naughtiest Blunders, except in a crude, ugly, misleading political propaganda form; a unending cavalcade of the very worst of absolutely everything. Worst of all, it's almost impossible to get any right of reply in the Sun, or News of the World. They will only print what they want you to see. The letters are hand-picked so that there is hardly ever any deviation from their own chosen line, and the only way to get any kind of recompense, unless they've committed an utterly huge blunder which would almost certainly lead to damages in a court of law, your only hope is that the Press Complaints Commission, which has Les Hinton, News International's chairman on the code committee, will listen to your complaint. If your complaint is about their political coverage rather than something about you personally, then forget it.
This is, I think, the difference between Guido and the tabloid press. Guido, because of his very presence as a blogger, can be taken to task by the community which surrounds him, as Tim today has shown. The Sun, for all the rivalry it has with the Mirror and the distaste amongst the liberal broadsheet press for its crude propaganda, cannot be held to account adequately by either the press or by bloggers. For the press to do so would result in all out war, something which hacks who despite differing political allegiances would resist, and with the resources that Murdoch has, would result inevitably in the defeat of those who rise up; and for bloggers, who cannot possibly contend or deal with every single abuse of power that is wielded, every story that is not just wrong, but horribly wrong, and warped by the politics of those behind it. Just trying to keep up with the worst excesses, as this blog tries to, is tiring and time-consuming enough. Guido, on the other-hand, can be held to account. His output is nowhere near that of a newspaper; he can be challenged on other blogs, and his refusal to reply to accusations would be telling. When it comes to taking on the might of the Sun, all you hope for is that you reach a few people who might otherwise be taken in, that you correct the worst of its mistakes and show it up for what it really is. You know that you will largely be preaching to the converted, but the whole "blogosphere" is based around doing just that, more or less anyway.
The fallout between left and right blogs, and between fact checking blogs and others shows that this contained internet community can (mostly) moderate itself. Where Tim is right to be concerned I feel is about the influence of far-right neo-con bloggers, such as Michelle Malkin, Little Green Footballs, etc. They're the ones doing the dirty work of the current US administration; abusing, smearing, distorting and attacking, with all the more ferocity because their own masters can no longer do it themselves. They in some way mirror what MediaLens sets out to do, except taking on the whole of the "mainstream" media, which they regard as liberal, defeatist, anti-American, etc, as their target, while MediaLens sets out only to take on the actual liberal media. Both are utterly convinced that they are right to do so, and as a result both have gone way too far, MediaLens with Iraq Body Count and George Monbiot for instance, the far-right with the concocted Jamil Hussein "scandal", the hysteria that the massacre at Qana was somehow contrived entirely by Hizbullah, as if they wanted the children to die in order to use them for their own purposes, and over the targeting of Red Cross ambulances by Israeli laser-guided missiles, which they denied actually happened. Unlike MediaLens, these bloggers have major influence; they're making waves, especially on the likes of Fox News, and they're getting their claims into the mainstream media, true or not. They genuinely can discredit blogs as a whole. Guido doesn't wield anywhere near as much power.
Tim is also on uncertain ground over the legal aspect. Guido may boast that he is untouchable, but that is as yet untested. He certainly received an order, along with this blog, to take down the photographs posted of Mazher Mahmood, and had his case not been such a potential blow to freedom of expression online, as well as argued by incompetents, we may well have had to provide damages to the scourge of celebrities everywhere, not to mention the innocents he has entrapped in the Victora Beckham and red mercury plots. Rosie Winterton, one of John Prescott's other presumed mistresses, also realised that if she tried to sue Guido over his accusations that she risked letting everything out of the bag. Tim is right to be worried that the likes of Guido could soon use such potential blackmail against innocent targets, but that ought to be perhaps dealt with when it happens.
Most of all, I feel there has to be a place for someone like Guido out there, as Nosemonkey also argues. To claim, as Guido himself sort of does, that he's an online Private Eye is to give him way too much credit, but he does occupy that sort of niche that is fun, humourous and less demanding than that of other political blogs. Private Eye's own financial dealings are reasonably secretive, also. While Private Eye may not have the ideology behind it that Guido perhaps has, how many Tories devoted to the party would come out on their blogs like he has today and imply that cannabis ought to be legalised?
I won't then be joining in with removing Guido from the blogroll, although I'm sure that now these points have been put across that many more eyes will be on him, watching his moves a lot more carefully than they perhaps have been.
On a personal level, Tim's wider points about anonymity, funding and background as much affect me as they do Guido. My own operation here, however pathetic, is based around anonymity. The original name I used here, Simon Verwest, is not my real name. The main basis for my anonymity is based partly on my own cowardice. However paranoid it may be to think, the attacks that I make here on the Sun/Murdoch make me an obvious target for eventual "revenge", or at least some sort of "expose" or smear, and to make a comparison, although I am in no way comparing what I do here to what Tommy Sheridan has done as a politician, something on a far lower level to what has happened to him is something, however ridiculous it might seem, that I fear.
This farcical reason for anonymity though is no excuse, nor is it the only one. Although a lot of blogging is surely down in at least some way to vanity, one thing I certainly am not seeking is fame, even among my peers as it were. I am, it has to be admitted, something of a solitary animal. Not only do I not like being identified, I'm scared of it. The cliché goes that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, yet though I probably don't really have anything to hide, I still fear.
It's only right then that I at least give some background. I don't know how much the average reader cares, wants to know, other than to maybe read my convoluted ramblings, but in line with Tim's idea for something of a voluntary code, I'm going to at least come a little out of the shadows. I'm 22 years of age. I'm currently unemployed. For the last three years I've been slowly but surely recovering from severe depression, brought on by a number of factors. I had planned to go to university, 3 years and 2 years ago respectively, but the first time I decided it was best to give it another year, and the second time I found I just didn't have the mental strength to go through with it. I have no plans to try again as yet.
Half the reason I started writing here was to distract my mind somewhat. It's worked, and in conjunction with other things, I now feel a lot more confident both about myself and life in general. I hope to start looking for some sort of job shortly. I'm also going to change my name used here to septicisle, while still remaining something of my anonymity. Whether I fully "come out", we shall have to see. And in case you couldn't tell, I utterly loathe writing about myself. Trackback links are also now enabled, which for some reason I didn't previously have on, and you also now have to be registered to comment, which I doubt will affect things much.
Related posts:
Chicken Yoghurt - Off the artistic roll call
D-Notice - Bloggerheads vs Guy Fawkes
Bob Piper - Bloggerheads on the Plonker
Labels: anonymity, Bloggerheads, bloggocks, Guido, personal shit
| Permalink
This is, I think, the difference between Guido and the tabloid press. Guido, because of his very presence as a blogger, can be taken to task by the community which surrounds him, as Tim today has shown.
Guido is much more like the tabloid press than you think; and while he (currently) has a much smaller audience, everything he publishes (from 'scoops' to the constant drip-drip-drip on one theme or another in comments) has a way of echoing into other blogs and then into the mainstream.
As for Guido being taken to task, one look at the usual suspects and/or anonymongrels who seek to misrepresent my position and/or shout me down with personal abuse should speak volumes.
It's in this way astro-turfers on both sides of the pond have shut down or poisoned endless debates... this the attack on free speech that people should be worried about.
Can you imagine how easy it would be to shut down the same criticism from a smaller weblog?
(Anonymity, I hope to discuss later. I'm certainly not touting it as a requirement, but you're certainly not helping your case if, for instance, you anonymously demand transparency of anyone... which Guido and his invisible cohorts have done many, many times.)
Posted by
Tim |
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 3:02:00 pm
You do have something of a point over the way Guido has responded, and some of the more, shall we say, original other posts on other blogs about it.
I don't think though that the tipping point has yet been reached: Guido's intentions, or wider political allegiances, if he genuinely has any, are not yet out in the open. As you've pointed out, I think all will become much clearer near the next election, or sooner if Labour starts getting even more badly mauled. Whether it will be too late by then is the main quandary.
Posted by
septicisle |
Tuesday, January 16, 2007 9:41:00 pm
Cheers, septicisle.
I don't plan on waiting until then to find out that maybe someone should have been preparing to do something about it. I hope to make life very difficult for sock-puppets and astro-turfers in the near future, without treading on any innocent toes in the process.
Posted by
Tim |
Wednesday, January 17, 2007 2:16:00 pm
Post a Comment