UKH

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/11/uk-thousands-antisemitic-googl...

It would be better if the search engine giants like Google did a bit more to help but I guess some people would see that as infringing their freedoms.

Does that also include those searches that reveal Israeli Soldiers shooting children or Male Genital Mutilation ?

I'm interested to know what search terms they consider anti-Semitic.

I would guess quite a lot of this is due to people looking for anti Semitism as a result of some of the accusations bounded about this year.

E.g. If I thought the labour -party was antisemetic I might use google to search for terms Corbyn is supposed to have said - That doesn't make it an anti Semetic use of Google

Go on then I'll bite, what if a Jewish person was searching for the phrase “Jews must die” to try and find out who said it in a recent tweet.

Then it's not an anti-Semitic search, it's a search for someone who said something anti-Semitic.

I've search loads of phrases like that, in an effort to find out the truth behind some report or other, or even to clarify one way or another whether someone was being anti-Semitic, or was simply being accused of being anti-Semitic.

I'm not saying AS doesn't exist or that there aren't people who are building their own narrative, but simply counts of certain phrases are a bullshit indicator of real AS.

During the furore abut "the" mural I typed in "Rothschild" numerous times as it was a way to find lot's of information, it wasn't because I'm AS, it's because it was the quickest way to find stuff out.

Thanks for the thread though, I've just seen "Stormfront" is a prominent Nazi web site, it's also printed on some T-Shirts my son get when he worked for Apple https://www.stormfront.co.uk/ which he donated to me.

Given what I've been called on here, and my rejections of a number of accusations, it wouldn't go down well to be seen wearing one of those out in the street. Bastard Nazis, they're nice T-Shirts too!

And now I've just Googled "Stormfront" -  they have a poetry thread!!

I'm a liberal voice against hate, whether it be racist, religious or whatever. As such I don't see what you have to bite about. There are other ways to search and find anti-semitic news.

Just to keep you happy I was pretty shocked at Andrew Neill's treatment of Owen Jones last night on This Week.

I'm sorry but I dont see that type of search as anti semitic its just sad and nasty news. I've nothing agaisnt most anti zionism in proportionate freedom of speech terms. Goggle simply shouldn't be assisting searches based on hate tropes just because their algorithm puts them top. 

But it's not necessarily about hate, people can type these so called "violent phrase" for any number of reasons, there's no analysis of why these searches were carried out, only that they were.

There might well be other ways to search for the information, but are we to be careful what we type in, if only not to become a meaningless statistic, even though what you may type in will get the result you 're looking for immediately?

It's a bullshit story about bullshit analysis, which is why I said "I'll bite", it's not scary because it's nonsense,  it only needs 5 seconds thinking time to come to this conclusion.

So do you think that when  "Are Jews" is typed in Google that it used to autosuggest  "evil" as the next word, is OK? I think sensible blocks like this can easily be extended to ensure its a bit harder work for the haters at the expense of the rest of us having to work a tad harder to find something. I don't buy that these figures are so heavily distorted by ordinary folk when other signs of a risng far right are pretty obvious.

I'd add that Google seem to think its important, hence their system changes.

Google doesn't assist searches - it simply searches.  If you want an ideologically pure search engine that refuses search terms you don't like (and presumably reports them to the police for wrongthink)  you'll have to invent your own.

I noticed it says the antisemitic searches spike between 2am and 3am.   That suggests that the searches could be from countries whose time zone is several hours ahead of the UK.   There are a good few countries in that category where jewish people are not particularly popular.

There's also the question of potential distortion by auto-complete algorithms and people too fast with their finger on phones.

But it also offers suggestions by dynamically auto-completing search phrases as they're being typed in - which I think is the point being made.

In that article the authors acknowledge that they can't tell what is in the mind of any particular search(er).

But I would have thought it's pretty obvious that an increase in searches using anti-Semitic language is a fairly good indicator of an increase in anti-Semitism, or are you suggesting that the increase is merely due to people "researching" the subject.

Note: I'm not implying anything there, you or I could be "researching" to find or follow a news story etc.

All they're saying is that it's an indicator, and this is the size of it and any patterns we've noticed.

Agreed and have, my example above about Rothschild might well be one of them.

Which is fine too, but the OP titled the thread "Scary Stuff", considering the amount of "news" times this year regarding anti-Semitism, I'm not surprised in a massive rise in searches. what I am surprised about is how you makes a link to anything other than some statistics.

Just for the record I do agree that Google should do something about it's "Are Jews" is typed in Google that it used to autosuggest  "evil".

I just don't see how you make the leap from a number for which you have no reasoning behind it to inferring people should be scared.

It's piss poor "science" like this that causes people to be scared in the first place.

There once was a man named hitler,

Its said he only had one ball,

His other other one was little'r,

He was an ubermench after all.

Reichs kommandant E.J. Thrib

This is scariest of all. You do know, right, that the Google search engine "learns" its predictive text and autosuggestions by absorbing what's typed in by the greatest number of users? That natural language and AI are based on the activities and learning processes of real human beings banging away on their keyboards in the privacy of their own homes (and elsewhere)? And that it then disseminates what it has learnt from these real people? And that it's not just Google, and it's not just search engines? That this is how we've got nutcase presidents and polarised electorates and incipient revolutions? Be very afraid.

So if I'm a schoolkid and I've been asked to find out about the causes of the second world war and amongst other things I Google 'Nazis' that will be classed as anti semitic and so I should ask Google in a roundabout way. Somehow I cant see that working, like most people if I want to find out about something the direct way is usually quickest, I'm not doing it maliciously but just to expand my knowledge and I bet that you do. Beware of statistics, in this case the results and your conclusions are far too simplistic.

Why is it scary? What I find scary is that so called liberal peace lovers like you are the first to jump to the worst possible conclusions about most things and look for the worst in everything that doesn't fit into your narrow minded idealology. 

Yes I'm aware of that, and it's a very worrying example, but to infer the rest of the example, e.g. typing Rothschild, is a bad thing is reaching at best, especially when he was so prominent in the news this year.

You only have to look at the number of threads on UKC regarding Israel, Palestine, and AS to note how much time people devote to these subjects. I don't think there are many anti-Semitic people on UKC.

The article and the conclusions drawn from the data are tenuous simply because no one knows the reasoning behind the search.

"I've been told Jews are evil is this true?"

"Are Jews evil, because I simply don't believe what someone said in school today to be true?"

What sort of results are you going to get typing that phrase in anyway?

I'm not discounting there's a lot of f*ckwits in the world and that AS is a real and dangerous thing, I'm simply questioning the logic behind the survey and it's conclusions.

What were they thinking, didn’t they google stormfront before naming their company!?

As for the “people were researching”, it still implies a rise in incidents that were being researched.  

I have no idea, it's still going though, I think, and they do provide nice t-shirts, I'll have to get the pen out and colour it in

Not sure that's true, though I can't say with any certainty either way, it's simply been in the news more, there have bee a few TV programs about Israel too. It would be interesting to see results for Islam/Muslim for comparison.

IT's a pity we can't all live together in peace and with respect for each other, I just don't like the inference of something based on statistics only, when the people doing the research may be biased, but worse than that there's no evidence to back up their reasoning behind their assertions. Esp. when regarding searches like Rothschild as being an indications of AS. Remember last year this was the anniversary of the Balfour agreement, of which Rothschild was involved / implicated, so classing this as AS might not be the whole truth.

Censorship of the Internet IS a massive Infringment of freedoms and something I would never support for any reason. Thin end of the wedge mate, even more so than bolting right wall 

And left wall 

I'm seeking things like extending the cutting of common autofills on hate searches and putting an alternative at the top of potential hate search rankings explaining about the lies and dangers of a hate site for those not aware of what it is (so krikoman can still find his t-shirt on his barely legal neo nazi site). These are discussed in the article and often supported by Google but I guess the freedom of speech warriors can't read the words through the red mist.

I can't see why legally banned hate groups should be allowed an easily accessible web presence. In any case the web is already heavily censored in the Uk or otherwise we would have commonly available beheading videos and the nastiest porn imaginable.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom

Some areas covered in this wikipedia  article I see as dangerous to free speech and sometimes even public health and should be relaxed but both main political political parties unfortunately tend to be a bit socially conservative in these respects.

UKC censors all the time and all its users sign up to the site rules that allow that, so maybe you are on the wrong site?

If you are completely against censorship of any form go play with the criminals on the dark web.

To be clear krikomans t shirt is from a computer shop with an unfortunate name not from the neonazis. 

Google has now cut the prediction of evil from automatically filling the end of "Jews are" so they do respond eventually if people report.  

I know.. it says that in the Guardian article. I did miss that Krikoman point (I'm just not down enough with the kids).

I do wonder sometimes if some UKC posters know the country they live in when they spout crap about internet freedoms that have long gone. I'm someone who thinks UK internet censorship is too tight and yet struggle to gain support for what I see as pretty sensible (non blocking) changes to web searches and still see the 10% of violent hate searches as very worrying (I just don't buy Krikoman's deflections... I suspect from past threads it's a highly defensive developed position due to the battering the Labour party has had on the subject... this Guardian article has nothing to do with Labour).

We used to have regular posts pointing to support of violence in the muslim community yet under Prevent the number of far right referrals these days is increasing rapidly whilst islamist referrals are dropping.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46556447

You might think of yourself as a "liberal" voice but the problem is that you take too wide an interpretation of "hate" that makes you, at times, pretty illiberal.  

A liberal would maintain that powerful religions need to be subject to the same criticism and scrutiny as governments, whereas you've been trained to pop up, puppet-like, and shout "Hate Speech!" and "barely legal" if anyone comments on religion in a way that you would regard as normal and routine about politics.

As an example, you recently described a government minister as an "idiot hypocrite" whose behaviour was "despicable" and "scummy" (which is of course fair-enough free speech) and yet were someone to make equivalently disrespectful commentary on, say, Islam, up would pop the Islamist puppet shouting "Hate Speech!".

If that's meant to be a joke, it's not your best work.  Have a 'Godwin' dislike.

Back when Usenet was still a thing, you could have gone to play or rec.climbing or urc.  I miss the unmoderated, uncensored nature of the newsgroups and contrary to what you might expect you@rsey was generally very friendly & civilised.  No criminals.  Well barely any criminals, I had my doubts about JoHNy.

Hi Coel, lets keep it civil eh so we don't lose another thread to pub oblivion. Its pretty well known that Liberalism has a wide range claiming its label from Social Liberals like me to extreme Libertarians that make you look like a freedom of speech pussy cat. The vast majority of UK liberals are tolerant to mainsteam religions and vocal against clear hate in any form.

I copied links to demonstrate the minister's idiocy on several other fronts.   His hypocrisy and idiocy of pushing the importance of prevention in health issues and of saying people need to take better care of themselves  whilst cutting Public Health budgets is as glaring an example as I have seen, even in these amazing mad times we have in current politics.

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/idiot_hypocrite_sneaks_in_publi...

I was referring to those wishing to bypass the standard extensive UK internet ISP censorship, which is some of the tightest in the western world.

Perhaps the computer shop is older than the neo-nazi outfit (and Google).

Or maybe offwidth is right and they're a barely legal neo-nazi computer shop.  I suppose neo-nazis must have jobs, there must be at least a few running shops and they can't all be dodgy tattoo parlours.

Though that says that the absolute number of Islam-related referrals (3,197) last year was still much higher than of far-right referrals (1,312). 

Which means that adherents of a religion amounting to only 5% of the population are generating more referrals for "extremism" than everyone else put together. 

Though having said that such "referrals" can be from "any person concerned about an individual", so I'm not sure we should place much store on figures for mere "referrals".

I already said I was not aware it's a shop with the same name.  It's also deflection as it doesn't meet the criteria of concerned phrases in the article. The fact that some searches are innocent doesn't remove the social concerns about the many searches that are clearly not. The groups are clearly there: Cambridge Analytica played to anti immigrant views, paranoia and racial bias using its stolen Facebook data to help various voting along.

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/16/611412562/whistleblower-cambridge-analytica-...

Racism and hate crime does seem to be a growing problem in the UK.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/racism-uk-unive...

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/30/record-number-of-uk-child...

https://www.statista.com/topics/3311/hate-crime-in-the-uk/

My particular favourite is the poor kid who was referred as a terrorist because he lived in a terraced house.  Oh and the one where a cucumber was a cooker bomb.  

I suspect there is an over referral of Muslims and an under referral of far right types due to fear of Muslim terrorism and all the training being quite biased in that direction.  

Sure, but you seem to think a large minority of the muslim community have issues with support of islamist violence (based on what I see as twisting of data). I'd dearly hope that the number of members of  far right groups  are well below that level you regularly express concerns about (it must be over half a million) . In contrast I do think anti semitism is still too large a problem in the UK muslim population, much larger than average in the UK: certainly a majority of the examples I've been aware of in my University have been with muslims, with a much smaller minority linked to far left and far right groups.

Some of the cases involved in Prevent have indeed been idiotic and as a policy it hasn't been helpful for muslim community relations. All the big teaching unions, UCU and the NUS opposed it.

I was sat in a room with a fair number of female Muslim degree educated teachers  for my training, while the trainer (a rather odd black woman) told us that Muslim parents don't value education for their daughters.  

I couldn't believe it.  Probably one of the most ridiculous generalisations I've ever heard.  

It went downhill from there.  

Which is not a true story.   Yes, the boy had mis-spelled "terraced house" as "terrorist house", but the teacher was not an idiot -- the referral was not related to terrorism, it was to social services.  And that was because the boy had also said in that essay that he was afraid of his uncle who beat him.  The people who visited the house were not anti-terrorist police, but were a social worker and a normal policeman. 

The story was then deliberately misrepresented because there are people with an agenda of doing down "Prevent". 

You could just read the actual report and see what they say about the difficulty of distinguishing between curiosity and pre existing prejudice. It seems a big chunk of what they found in the UK was people looking for racist jokes which is depressing isn't it?

It seems the main things they looked for were: “Jews evil+Jews greedy+Jews cheap+Jews racist+Jews ugly+Jew jokes+kike jokes+kill Jews+die Jews”.

They mention the Rothschild conspiracy stuff but from my quick read that seemed to correlate to upticks in general antisemitic searches, and wasn't used as an indicator of antisemitism. So on you go.

https://cst.org.uk/public/data/file/a/b/APT%20Google%20Report%202019.pdf

The Guardian report seems to be based just on exec summary which always seems to be the way of these things. I got something I wrote in the exec summary of a research report on the front page of the FT once! Dead proud of my snappy synopsis skills!

The difference is that no-one says you shouldn't criticise far-right ideology.  No-one says that criticising the far right is "hate speech".  No-one says that Prevent should stop looking into far-right referrals because it is harming community relations. 

Most of those opposing Prevent don't oppose the need for referrals, they oppose the system that produces them in a way that does too much damage in the process.

https://www.ucu.org.uk/counterterrorismact

https://www.nusconnect.org.uk/campaigns/preventing-prevent-we-are-students-...

https://www.teachers.org.uk/news-events/conference-2016/prevent-strategy

It seems to me that much opposition to Prevent comes from the "nothing to do with Islam" desire to deny any link between Islam and extremism. 

From your UCU link:

"Due to the Islamophobic narrative surrounding 'extremism', it also risks certain communities being targeted unfairly."

From your NUS link:

"Prevent has long been criticised as fundamentally racist and Islamophobic, targeting the Muslim community ..."

No-one criticises Prevent as going after working-class white communities if they investigate far-right referrals.

Firstly I'm not aware of any liberal who says you cannot critisise Islam; what you can't do is spread hate of any mainstream religion.. Secondly, there is absolutely no equivalence of a mainstrem religion and an extremist politica ideology. Extreme  right ideology is often illegal in the same way extremist islamist groups are.  So where are they not treated the same? If we applied something similar to your views on Islam to those on the right we might label all UKIP voters and a good number of Conservatives as dangerous racists.

People are often concerned with the group labelling of poor white kids (jjust do a search) and how as a group they seem to be facing more problems in equality terms than most . Most of those kids have nothing to do with the far right in the same way most muslims are not extremist islamist supporters.

Do you have an official reference stating that? Although a social worker spoke to the family (because of the reference in a story to the character being afraid of the uncle beating him) I understood that the referral was made through Prevent. If it was a welfare concern from a school passed on to social services my understanding is that the police wouldn't be involved.

Presumably in a uni dept. these days you also have to have some safeguarding training and a nominated safeguarding lead like those of us who teach in schools?

Not really, since our students are (almost all) adults, not minors. 

People do. It might not be as prominent as criticism from within Muslim communities because it hasn't been such a big phenomenon but there is worry in schools over how you judge whether some one is just racist or whether that's indicative of "extremist attitudes".

Googling doesn't give any definitive statement (I can't remember where I read the stuff my above comment was based on), however this link does give some information including:

"In a statement, police and the county council said it was "untrue to suggest that this situation was brought about by a simple spelling mistake".

"The school and the police have acted responsibly and proportionately in looking into a number of potential concerns using a low-key, local approach," it said.

"Police and crime commissioner Clive Grunshaw criticised the BBC reporting of the issue and said it had not been treated as a terror incident."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-35354061

There's no mention of Prevent in that article.  It implies that the school reported it to the police and/or social workers, and there was a visit by a social worker and a PC "the next day" (which suggests there wasn't time for Prevent to have been involved).

We are all supposed to be aware of our Prevent duties in Universities and in some places this does involve compulsory training. My initial training was too focused on Islamic terrorism (like marsbar's was). Ive been again more recently and it had Improved to be broader with specific information on far right issues.

The school almost certainly reported the incident due to the Prevent requirements on them. The local police and local government under Prevent have to deal with it and probably take a common sense approach in many referrals and visit most quickly, with a police officer alongside other agencies as required. As such the approach might well be the same as any other School referral under Prevent. Hence, what the Police chief  is reported as saying might not strictly be true (iit might only apply to further referral under Prevent).... this might make your posting anti anti-Prevent fake news. 

It's a fact that very few referrals end up with specialist Prevent help, which (given the comparative numbers on security services watch lists) shows its pretty onerous for little gain.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/09/only-5-of-people-referred-t...

I wouldn't agree that that was "almost certainly" the reason.  It would seem more likely that concern that the boy might be being mistreated by his uncle was the primary motivation for the teacher to report the issue and for a social worker to visit.

Quoting:

"However, the police responded to the story by saying the boy was not questioned over a spelling mistake and was instead visited by a social worker due to concerns for his safety.

“The facts are that a young person disclosed a worrying issue in his school work – not just that he lived in a ‘terrorist house’ – and this was reported through the appropriate channels and subsequently a visit was undertaken by a neighbourhood police officer and a social worker,” the police said in a statement published on Wednesday evening."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-police-say-muslim-boy-not-questioned-...

Edit to add: having just googled about 15 articles, I can't find any account saying that anyone connected with Prevent was ever involved in this case. 

(Quick timeline: Day 1: boy produces work; teacher is concerned, reports it; next day: neighbourhood police officer and a social worker visit, and within an hour have decided that there is no problem and that no further action is needed.  The end.)

The point of the story was that he'd never heard of the neo-nazi organisation prior to reading this thread and that he'd naively worn the t-shirt from the unfortunately named Apple shop, which was given to him as a gift, whilst being entirely unaware of how it might be misconstrued.

That was abundantly clear if you read krikoman's post without the underlying assumption that he might secretly be a bit of a nazi. 

I think he would be perfectly entitled to take offence at your "so krikoman can still find his t-shirt on his barely legal neo nazi site".  Strikes me you owe the man an apology.

And I give you ... the internet.

I agree.  And incredible as it may seem I'm as concerned about it as you are.  

You're lecturing me as if it follows logically that my views are illiberal because you are the very definition of liberal reason and I don't see things, other entirely different things, exactly the same way that you do.

This is precisely the kind of arrogant, sanctimonious bombast that so winds me up about your posting style.  Even (perhaps especially) when I agree with you completely.

Frankly I was confused. I know full well Krikoman isnt a nazi sympathiser in any possible way but he seemed to be defending his right to search for such things as a freedom of speech issue.  I happily apologise for any confusion.

You always seem to be reading things into my posts that simply are not there. It happens so often you seem to be trouble making deliberately (ie picking a fight). The mods sometimes clearly think so, as at least one of you more aggresive posts on the thread moved to the pub disappeared (and that was nothing to to with me). You get angry about implied negativity and then make negative ad-hominon attacks with no sense of the hypocrisy or irony. Again for the record I have never said you're illiberal and I don't think you are illiberal.

Every teacher in every school is involved with Prevent: its a statutory duty to report concerns. Why was the spelling mistake even an issue if the only worries were about his family? I fully accept the police investigation never considered it to involve Prevent, once they were properly involved but all the reporting is consistent wth an issue reported under Prevent, that the police dealt with sensibly. I'm not saying that is what happened, but the fact that the spelling mistake became part of the story makes it probable. Prevent teams don't go in as first responders as far as Im aware (albeit that might differ in different areas).

If I want to I can search for Stormfront or whatever.  I like to know what the idiots are upto.  It doesn't make me a white supremacist.  If I search ISIS it doesn't mean I'm a follower.  

It's not at all clear that the spelling mistake ever *was* an issue.   

The two parts of the boy's work that gave rise to concern were the answers (the boy attributed these thoughts to a "Cheeky Charlie" character that he'd invented, but the teacher was concerned that this might be code for himself):

Q: What makes you feel gloomy or down-in-the-dumps?
A: "I hate it when my uncle hits me."

Q: What sort of place do you live in? 
A: I live in a terrorist house with my uncle.

Given the first answer it is obvious that the second answer ("I live with my uncle")  is relevant.  

Afterwards the family then told the press that the visit was because of the terraced/terrorist spelling.  Hence the story. But it's unclear that that was the concern of the school or police or social worker.        Though if they were asking about those two sentences then obviously they'd need to clear up the "spelling" issue. 

As it turns out, the boy was not living with his uncle, and the two thoughts above really were of the invented character! 

Anyhow, this whole story has been totally over-blown, and most likely is very little to do with Prevent. 

I would agree. I think it's better if such things are openly searchable, where people can know about them and rebut them, than have them pushed underground, only accessible on the dark web or wherever. 

I almost envy the absolute certainty with which you can say this.  On the whole though, I don't think it is a strength.

The very last one?  If we're violating the first rule of 'zapped post' club, I did wonder if you'd seen that.  I was very cross when I wrote it but also genuinely tried quite hard, one last time, to get across to you what it was that had made me so.  If "aggressive" was the only thing you took from it what a waste of time.

I don't always get it right of course but do try quite hard to avoid making 'ad-hominem' attacks even (especially) when quite cross.  'Play the ball, not the man' as they say.  I don't think I slipped up in that other thread, and if you think there's an example in this one (so far) you are mistaken.

Indeed.  It was me.  Some time after writing that last 'zapped' post I realised I'd overstepped and hit the 'report' button myself, to draw the mods' attention to the thread and apologise for my part in making it the god-awful car crash it had become.  If anyone else had complained in the meantime I would certainly have been banned.  (To the considerable benefit of my productivity most likely, and perhaps my mental health.)

Never been remotely close to that before, in 15 years of spending *way* too much time on here.  Mortified.  Sooner that thread falls off the bottom of the page and disappears the better.

< not going to bite >

< but oh my gosh >

I can assure you I have reported or been involved in cases far far worse than an imaginary uncle beating someone.  

The only possible way in my opinion that such a vague incident got a police and social worker visit was someone pressing the big red terrorist alarm bells.  

You try getting a social worker and the police to visit a family to speak to a non existent relative and you won’t get far.  The school would normally be expected to find out who lived with the child and if there was anything to be concerned about, given that this wasn’t a disclosure, but a work of fiction. 

It may not have got to prevent, but that would be due to the visit.  

Just to be pedantic, the relative did exist, the boy did have an uncle, but the boy didn't live with the uncle and according to the family (which I'm happy to accept) the uncle had never hit him.

Edit: by the way, what we don't really know is whether there was anything else, prior to the one piece of work, that the teacher knew about the the boy that might have added to their concerns.

Once again, you've proved your rudeness and your inability to read, my t-shirt has nothing to do with the barely legal neo-nazi website, nor is it my web site, apart from it shares the same name.

I suggest you type "Stormfront" into Google, provided your not worried about being called an AS for doing so, you can then see how many other results you get which aren't Nazi related.

All in all this sort of demonstrates the problem with taking statistics and fitting them to situations you want them to, without any background or related information.

You're right I could do, but I'm busy.

I've just had a quick look and the first meme I say was "I need an Ark, I Noah bloke", so can you explain how this is anti-Semitic?

I read a tweet the other day from Rachel Riley, who's had a lot of abuse for pointing out AS and calling out some well known people as anti-Semites. Unfortunately for her, she conflated Israel, with Jews, which according to the IHRA document we're not supposed to do, as this can be seen as being anti-Semitic.

I'm not deflecting or making excuses, AS obviously exists, and it should obviously be called out. The problem is, there's a massive range of stuff, that people consider AS, while others don't.

It's hardly surprising there's a perceived rise in AS when people are searching for Rothchild and other AS searches, it still doesn't mean AS is on the rise. The Balour agreement centenary would have put Rothchild into anyone interested in the subject to the for, so thinking this is related to AS is, or at least has the possibility to be a massive red herring.

We've had a year of allegations against Labour, the re-emergence of the mural issue (after 5 years) and the furore about the IHRA, so  it would be surprising searches relating to AS weren't on the increase.

Once again my issue isn't with the problem of AS, but the extrapolation form simple data to the conclusion of AS.

Drawing conclusions, from 92 mentions of Labour MPs names, on the Stromfront (Nazi version) when Labour were being accused of AS on a weekly basis is indication of nothing other than people discussing the news.

This is scaremongering of the worst kind and I'm surprised you seem to be supporting it.

I thought that too, I don't see how it could be mistaken for anything else to be honest.

Thanks

I wasn't defending my right to search such things, I was pointing out the absurdity, of including search terms such as Stormfront, and extrapolating that this was AS and something we should be worried about.

Which is the whole point, extrapolating from raw data, without anything to back your assumptions up with is bollocks.

Thanks for not thinking I'm a Nazi, at least

That's partly why I was confused. I still can't see why would you would focus on that. A search for Stormfront or similar sites  wasn't in the article and I've checked it also wasn't in the report. They did search on the Stormfront site for some information on the patterns of antisemitism there. 

I just don't believe that searches for "Jews must die” or “kill Jews”, the violent serach terms that formed 10%, is mostly people researching these topics.

My posts made you feel the worst on UKC in 15 years! Wow!!  I sincerely apologise for any hurt even though its absolutely without intent. Unfortunately I can't see how I can second guess what I can and cannot say to not further affect your wellbeing:  you need to think about how you can look after yourself better if a web forum is upsetting you that much.

No I don't either, but I don't believe all other "anti-Semitic Search Index (ASI)" phrases are an indicator of increased AS either. Especially when the document is a little all over the place sighting UK AS and then comparing to a US web site.

It's the extrapolation I don't agree with.

Added to this, you don't know what the CST have included in their ASI, we've had numerous arguments on here about what is AS and what isn't, and it wasn't just non-Jewsish people who were arguing against each other.

No one is doubting AS exists and should be curtailed, but this is too simplistic to be of any great value.

I still can't see why you were confused about my t-shirt post, it very easy to read and I can't see how it can be misinterpreted, but we can leave it there

PS there might we be another spike (depending on the phraese in the (ASI), since the Israeli's are bombing Gaza again, and have opened a new "apartheid" road https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-new-apartheid-road-op...

I can see we will have to agree to disagree. I've always seen the UK as one of the least antisemitic places in the world. That so many violent phrased searches are happening I think is a useful 'wake-up-call' and worrying information. Things can be done like more blocking auto-fill on possible hate searches or automatic public hate advice information placed at the top of a search, that  are to me a good thing with tiny inconvenience to others. I don't see any significant freedom of speech issues as no blocking is required (proscribed organisations are already banned from searches via UK ISP blocks) .. these solutions are practical and good. There is no suggestion anywhere in the article of banning searches using the word Stormfront, or even removing the Nazi linked site from such a search.

You mentioned Labour in a previous post so I'll 'bite' on that. Labour opened its doors to far left members I would have liked to have remained blocked from membership (I think those blocks retained a more coherent opposition for the good of the country). It's a party democracy choice but having made it they should have included better protections at that point for things like antisemitic and other unacceptable behaviour. In the end you don't help convince middle ground swing voters to vote Labour when it includes ex SWP revolutionary minded Labour activists.  Nor does the return of Militant or Respect members previously kicked out help convince swing voters. Their numbers were irrelevant as votes for parties left of Labour have always been vanishingly small in the UK.  A small minority of these far left activists who are now back in Labour hate zionism so much they had become anti-semite and quietly support Hammas and similar UK proscribed terrorists group.  I know as I'm a longstanding trade unionist and have seen some of the nastiness up close. It's not common but it's there and Labour should have seen it coming and protected the party from it, especially so with Corbyn as leader as people were always going to see him as too soft on the subject (and were proved right in that). Now I get to watch Conservatives score easy points on entryism in Labour and antisemitism in Labour that convince way too many swing voters (because they are true to a small extent but could easily have been avoided).

It can impact close to home. Some of the local new Labour members I know who were previously in far left parties are working hard to unseat my excellent Labour MP Chris Leslie.