joining me today is Dennis Campbell he is of course editor in chief UK
progressive magazine he also hosts worldview with Dennis Campbell on
YouTube which you can find it YouTube dot com slash world if you show
couple days ago on the show dennis we talked about a an individual
in Scotland who was fined 40,000 pounds for Twitter slurs
specifically he was calling a pro equality teacher
a pedophile and he ended up being fined 40,000 pounds about
sixty one thousand dollars you now have another story here which will add to our
discussion
love free speech versus hate speech that we've kinda been having so
give us the details about Caroline criado peres
well Caroline throughout credit for as run something called the women's room
.org.uk in this is a a very special group of people
that work to get women into commentary positions as pundits a
when the networks go around it seems as though it's the usual suspects and most
among men here in the United Kingdom
and she has a huge database out there and we've been using it for quite some
time and Caroline indeed as a friend
more than just the women's room she's also taken along with the
up Bank of England because as you know we have her majesty on the front about
bank notes from the back
it's pretty much been men from Charles Darwin to scientists it
you know men love letters et cetera and she raised the question as did another
female love
member Paul why aren't we seeing more women on our bank notes
they were successful two weeks ago in getting Jane Austen
very famous author here put onto a banknote the 10-pound bag
one other ones is becoming out in the future well that started a fire storm
on Twitter and there was quite a bit abuse hurled at Caroline crowd up a
raise because she was interviewed by member organizations
and those threats then became threats rate and there appears to be a band
people out there
that are a different level love troll on Twitter and they actually were
threatening rape and mayhem
up dinner she said things such as bomb threats at home threats after
this got the attention at the Metropolitan Police got the attention
all members and media and really are heaped lot of abuse
onto Twitter themselves because they weren't doing anything to slower to stop
it
so up for the last ten or eleven days she's been on virtually every major
network I've even seen her on MSNBC
being mentioned for the fine work that she's done
as well as the threats and Twitter was very slow off the mark
reacting they've now since come out apologize to everyone who's been abused
its not just limited
two women being abused in bed and and actually having to do with rape charges
this is not just a general will be joining us on the program next week
we'll be talking about
sum up the abuse he's had to endure I have know the head of tweets slaughter
Dave Larson he's got something like three hundred thousand followers
he's going to be coming on to talk about which is responsible really
up have seen a tremendous outpouring have sympathy in D two people have been
arrested
here in the United Kingdom for the threats physical threats a great night
against the smaller
I have to say that this makes more sense to me than the forty thousand pound fine
for the pedofile allegation in
in a very specific sense which is um if
the fines for if you if you can we find a monetary amount and there's no
criminal charges presumably it's a civil matter at least to some extent
and then it's a question love does the abuse or
insults or whatever it may be legally qualify as slander or libel
was the victims reputation damaged in some way
%uh so on and so forth here we're really dealing with threats
up crimes and it's a very very specific criminal type of situation
this to me is not a question of free speech or not this is
authorities have determined that there there are threats that are
illegal and this is very different to meet did tell me if you disagree
then the kind of civil trolling that was that was the subject of the case we
discussed a couple of days ago
indeed and this is not um you know this is not rolling these are criminals in
these are these are pathological
people that are actually going out there anybody that threatens to rate
another human being or to kill them well says that there's a bomb planted
underneath your car
those are definite criminal axe it's not a matter of
you know calling somebody a slot or something like that
this is a direct personal attack and this is why the Metropolitan Police
have finally gotten involved and quite frankly it's its
discussions that needs to be had because I mean we've seen
a house cyber bullying can affect children we've seen
about you know bullying at any sort how it can affect people
%uh in which we've we've just recently had someone luz de life as a result a
bit here in the United Kingdom
you know they were found dead in hanging in their own bedroom because of threats
they receive it on Facebook and Twitter
so it's a very very serious issue and it has long needed attention but
unfortunately
most to these organizations Twitter Facebook just gonna throw up their hands
and say you know free speech we can't do anything about it too bad
yeah and the other is also I think that's important to mention is I'll get
a lot of messages from people saying
do you realize what user XYZ 25 has been doing
to your YouTube videos viciously attacking individuals who are commenting
so on and so forth
and I think that there are and I'm not faulting the people for emailing me for
this but they're is
lack of coherence in terms of is it the responsibility
above the platform or the responsibility love the publisher
to police all activity we get 2500 comments a day on YouTube and it is
literally impossible
to manually look at every single one but at the same time it's very clear if you
look at the activity of some of the trolls we have on YouTube
that they are there there's nothing policing them in any way they're they're
spamming our channel and many others
and whose responsibility is it ultimately as it's a good question is
one that deserves a lot more
you know careful description an answer because if you you know he we we've also
seen the same thing on all our channels and and in also from the magazine and on
Twitter
you know what people just come on the flame you and you can block of me just
you just bought them and they're gone they're no longer part of the
the scenario but the problem is some of these people
are so pathological they open they open up a new account neck
right thing to do whatever they have to do to juice or
rile you up and and and yank your chain a bit sure and then this is one of those
things where
one of the great things about these kinda entrepreneurial ventures like
Facebook and Twitter and Instagram
is the ability to scale significantly without taking on
a huge infrastructure up staff and so on and so forth that one of the exciting
things about kind of new media entrepreneurship
but the downside is that beyond
fine-tuning filters and algorithms that look for this type of abuse
it can be very difficult to without employing
many people to physically put eyes on to limit this type of online pulling in
behavior
why exactly and it's more than just bowling I mean you now crossed the line
new threat no human being with physical harm whether that's raper gonna kill you
are going to do something along those lines
you've moved into a completely different realm and please don't have the
resources with which to do it and the companies are now being expected to and
let's not forget
to it is going to be doing the into a public flotation sometime in the next
year so
the less costs that they can have going into the flotation obviously
the better the share price is going to be sup to have to take on a whole
infrastructure is a big deal
and you know what we do on YouTube in itself this is the future of
broadcasting make no mistake about it i mean it was the cover story I've got it
right here
love the most recent fortune magazine here
in Europe that you know you too is every the changes
everything as you've seen for the last five years and and and and others so
it's going to be something that really your gonna have to pay attention to it
right and then looking very close beneath the surface services the
discussion we've been having for a long time on this show how about how
laws and legislation relating to the internet seems to be lagging a little
bit behind how the internet is actually used but that's a different conversation
for a different day
indeed but you know we're very glad that caroline is safe and that you know
that people are paying attention and really are hatched should be taken off
to her
because she didn't back down for two weeks she took the kind of abuse that
most of us would
have found that sadly withering you know saved their
full full lobster and three cheers for for actually standing up
and also for Twitter finally standing up and say you know we're gonna do
something and make it easier for people to report this comment
abuse alright dennis Campbell check out YouTube dot com slash world view show
and you to dot com slash book review: TV Dennis thanks as always we'll talk to
you next week
thanks guys have a great weekend