The technology, called Perspective, will review comments and score them based on how similar they are to comments people said were “toxic” or likely to make them leave a conversation.

It has been tested on the New York Times and the companies hope to extend it to other news organisations such as The Guardian and The Economist as well as websites.

“News organizations want to encourage engagement and discussion around their content, but find that sorting through millions of comments to find those that are trolling or abusive takes a lot of money, labour, and time. As a result, many sites have shut down comments altogether,” Jared Cohen, President of Jigsaw, which is part of Alphabet, wrote in a blog post.

“But they tell us that isn’t the solution they want. We think technology can help.”

Perspective examined hundreds of thousands of comments that had been labelled as offensive by human reviewers to learn how to spot potentially abusive language.

CJ Adams, Jigsaw Product Manager, said the company was open to rolling out the technology to all platforms, including larger ones such as Facebook  and Twitter where trolling can be a major headache.

The technology could be expanded to identify personal attacks or off-topic comments too, Cohen said.

Perspective will not decide what to do with comments it finds are potentially abusive; rather publishers will be able to flag them to their moderators or develop tools to help commenters understand the impact of their writing.

Cohen said a significant portion of abusive comments came from people who were “just having a bad day.”

The initiative against trolls follows efforts by Google and Facebook to combat fake news stories in France, Germany and the United States after they came under fire during the U.S. presidential campaign when it became clear they had inadvertently fanned false news reports.

The debate surrounding fake news has sparked calls from politicians for social networks to be held more liable for the content on their platforms.

Jigsaw is offering the product to publishers for free and hopes to support languages other than English soon, Cohen said in an interview. While the technology is in its early days and could misinterpret language such as sarcasm, it will improve over time, Cohen said.

The post Google to help publishers find malicious comments on articles appeared first on TELL MAMA.

“UK government have abandoned Brits. We need to exit EU, ECHR, stop all immigration + look after British people. Like UKIP. All my views. I follow back – Southampton/ Isle of Wight.”

Not to be outdone on statements after the fire that overtook the Morden mosque over the weekend, Jones went onto state the following:

What Jones showed was his ignorance about the mosque that had suffered the fire. It was an Ahmaddiya mosque and the community has been vocal in raising funds for charities and also recently ran a ‘Poppy campaign‘ in order to raise money for charity by openly selling poppies. This was also highlighted to him as shown above and his response was even more bizarre and telling of his views.

Not to be outdone on the richter scale of ignorance his further tweet shows a level of disdain for Muslims in the United Kingdom. His response was, “I am talking about Rotherham where 2000 underage girls were abused by muslim (sic), UK is better off without Islam and muslims.”

Finally, we are aware that this individual has previously had Twitter conversations with senior members of UKIP before. We hope that they reconsider conversations with this individual given the comments and postings that we have highlighted.

The post David Jones – UKIP Supporter & Avid Tweeter appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The clock was seen by another teacher, who on deciding that it may be a bomb, called the police and this has led to Ahmed’s father suggesting that it could have been because of his son’s Muslim background. The matter is also being looked into by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

This afternoon, a tweet put out through Hillary Clinton’s account said:

“Assumptions and fears don’t make us safe, they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building.”

Ahmed Arrested for Bringing in a Clock that he Made

The post Hillary Clinton Rebuffs ‘Ahmed’ Anti-Muslim Bigotry With Superb Tweet appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We received the following tweet, shown above, from an account that stated,

“One less Muslim.”

This is the appalling, stomach churning response we have received from Twitter, the profit making social media company whose actions on tackling anti-Muslim hate leave a lot to be desired. At the heart of this response lies the problem. This response seems to show some automation or a severe lack of common sense by the individual working on this complaint. This is another epic Twitter fail!

Twitter’s response to the hate speech:

“Hello,

Thank you for your report. Twitter takes reports of this nature very seriously.

We reviewed the content and determined that it was not in violation of the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). We are happy to revisit this decision if you are able to provide further evidence of a violation. Please respond to this email with direct links to the content in question.

We understand you might come across content on Twitter that you find offensive. Twitter users are free to post content (even if potentially inflammatory) provided that they don’t violate the Terms of Service (https://twitter.com/tos) or the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules). If you would like more information on how to control your Twitter experience, see this help article: https://support.twitter.com/articles/20170134

If you feel threatened or are in danger, please contact your local law enforcement. You can direct the local law enforcement to our Guidelines for Law Enforcement here: https://support.twitter.com/articles/41949“

The post Twitter’s Abysmal Record Demonstrated Here appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We provided the relevant journalist with detailed material showing how Twitter was failing to take down accounts and in its duty not to break the law. Today, we wanted to highlight one example. The @davymaccas account has been reported to Twitter on over 40 occasions in 2 years. After numerous suspensions by Twitter this is what this account tweeted out today:

We thought we would give you a flavour of this account holder’s comments that Twitter seems to allow and which emboldens anti-Muslim bigots. These are just a handful of the thousands of anti-Muslim tweets from this account.

Is there anything more to say than #EpicFailTwitter

The post Twitter Continues to Fail in Removing anti-Muslim Hate Accounts, @davymaccas appeared first on TELL MAMA.

This is an interview with a victim of targeted online hate. This individual wants to remain anonymous but has been targeted by far right sympathisers and she actively promotes better understanding between communities. This is her voice.

The post A Victim’s Personal Perspective on the Impacts of Online Hate. appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The text below refers to Muslims and is then corroborated by further posts by Susan Sharpe, listed below. The comments are inflammatory and deeply troubling.

Facebook have responded back to us stating that the posts do no violate their community standards. Frankly, if these statements by Ms Sharpe do not violate their standards, then Facebook have a long way to go in developing better standards. Furthermore, the question really comes down to this. How can a social media platform, built to generate profits, social engineer and shape moral issues in our communities, when it is we, as people, voters and communities, who should shape what moral values are in our society.

We would urge all members of the public to report this statement into Facebook and to show Facebook that we collectively find the statements unacceptable. (There is a function to hide the comment and then to report it into Facebook as hate speech). https://www.facebook.com/britainfirstgb/photos/a.346633882148546.1073741826.300455573433044/672233022921962/?type=1&comment_id=672418102903454

The post Anti-Muslim Bigotry Seems to be Acceptable for Facebook’s Community Standards appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Here are some examples of the hate promoted from this account:
“Vote Labour get our kids raped by Muslims,
Vote Conservative get our kids raped by Jews,
Vote Lib Dem get a free Unicorn,
Vote UKIP get #UKIP,” says this extremist neo-Nazi

Or take this tweet which states:

“#Muslims are allowed to gang rape our children but if we tweet about it we get jailed. #multiculturalism #BNP #UKIP #EDL #rotherham #CSA #BF,” as he tags a number of extreme far right groups. What is also interesting to note, is his support for UKIP, which we do not class as an extreme far right group, those which is attracting such supporters.

Or take this which highlights the neo-Nazi nature of this account:

Not only does this account promote anti-Muslim bigotry, it also promotes antisemitism, yet for Twitter this seems to be something that they either are unwilling to act on, or just not bothered to do anything about. Furthermore, on such accounts, we have received notifications from Twitter that the accounts do not infringe their terms and conditions which is frankly farcical.

John Mann MP has consistently stated that social media providers need to do more to tackle the hate and bigotry emanating from their platforms. Furthermore, these platforms which make billions of pounds of revenue and which are also significantly adding to the promotion of prejudice, need to step up to the mark. For example, nearly 80% of our resources go on tackling on-line hate through Twitter and Facebook and these platforms are impacting significantly on the police, third sector organisations and on the resources of Central Government. Enough really is enough and there may soon come a time when one of these social media providers faces a legal challenge based on their lack of action on accounts that leads someone to harm someone of a particular faith or race.

The post Twitter Happy to Host Extreme Far Right Fascist Accounts & Continues to Do so appeared first on TELL MAMA.

What we are concerned about are those who seek to target individuals on-line, to harass, abuse or denigrate them because of a part of their identity, or when they seek to humiliate and harass them knowing that their actions will have negative impacts on the victim. With this in mind, we have developed material for members of the public on this area and we thank Dr Imran Awan for his direction and leadership in this area of work.

We therefore warmly welcome the proposals put forward by Chris Grayling which have been reported in the media. We have also called for better training for police forces on issues such as harassment which have been highlighted and which have blighted the lives of many people who have reported into us through the TELL MAMA project.

Also of importance is a proposed rise in the statute of limitations around time limits for acting on cases. This is an area that has affected some of our cases where action could not be taken since incident timescales crossed over the 6 month cut-off period. We welcome proposals that the period should be extended to 3 years and that incidents/crimes that take place within a 3 year period can be reported in and acted upon by law enforcement agencies.

The new proposals also raise sentencing for trolling and harassment from 6 months to 2 years. Again, we welcome these actions given the impacts on victims and the fear, anxiety and depression that they have caused in some people. In particular, we have worked with individuals who have had mental health difficulties and who have been unable to cope with repeated trolling and harassment. Such actions can lead to terrible impacts on people’s lives and we therefore welcome the proposed quadrupling in sentencing.

Additionally, these proposals if approved and extended into the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill will also mean that the Social Media Guidelines produced by the Crown Prosecution Service on prosecuting social media cases will have to change. The guidelines were released in mid 2013 and will need to be revised again, showing the speed of change and developments caused by social media platforms.

Lastly, we would like to make a plea to the Government. It seems that changes are proposed when well-known celebrities or personalities are affected by social media trolling. We would like to stress that projects like TELL MAMA have been working with people at a grass-roots level who have suffered such issues for years, though who have never had the chance for their cases to be highlighted through press sources. We therefore want to stress that policy should not be drafted on the back of celebrity cases but on the back of regular consultations with hate crime reporting organisations who are picking up such issues in real-time and at a grass-roots level. Nonetheless, these proposals are welcomed and much needed.

The post We Welcome Stronger Laws Against Social Media Trolling Through the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Community information on this account suggests that the individual may reside in Liverpool which meant that we reported the tweets in centrally through a Ministry of Justice and ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) site and to ensure that the case did not fall through any cracks, we also reported it to Merseyside Police directly.

Given the nature of the tweets that we have listed, one would assume that a report from a third-party national hate crime organisation would be taken seriously, as other forces do. Yet, after reporting this account in again, (we count approximately 16 times since 2012), we were shocked to receive what can only be called a bureaucratic brush off by a Merseyside Officer, with no further action taken by them.

We have listed the response below and think that it is, frankly, not good enough.

“Good morning. I have taken advice from a senior officer here at Mereyside (sic) Police.  The advice is that until there is proof that this person resides on Merseyside you would have to report it to your own force area.”

The world of bureaucracy it seems, is alive and well and given the nature of the threats and the fact that community intelligence led us to report to Merseyside Police, this is probably one of the worst displays of ‘passing the buck’ we have seen to date.

The post Bureaucracy & Passing the Buck from Merseyside Police appeared first on TELL MAMA.

On August 10, Britain First posted the image to their Facebook page, which drew thousands of shares and comments. But what is the truth behind it?

To understand this quote fully, we must look at the religious makeup of Victorian England, the foundations of which viewed Islam as a violent heresy at odds with the dominant Christian identity. It is worth remembering that England did not have a registered mosque until Christmas Day 1889.

Gladstone’s Christian identity was no different, but he was also a liberal internationalist who often clashed with the conservative mantra of Empire and nationalism, a mantra embodied by his great political rival Benjamin Disraeli.

The quote re-entered the public consciousness in 2009 after an episode of BBC’s Today programme. It did not take long for some anti-Muslim websites to pick up the story.

Gladstone’s true views about Islam are often misconstrued or impossible to verify. Any malice towards Islam is a product of fraught 19^th Century relations between Britain and the Ottoman Empire.

In 1876, a Bulgarian revolt against Ottoman rule brought violent reprisals and thousands died.  When news reached Britain, then Prime Minister, Disraeli, downplayed the tragedy in order to keep good relations with the Ottomans and maintain Britain’s own empire, as he feared the growing influence of Russia.

Disraeli’s blasé approach incensed Gladstone and he did his best to highlight their plight with the pamphlet “The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East.” Gladstone was a humanitarian who sought to defend and protect Christian minorities within the Ottoman Empire. The pamphlet proved so popular that it sold 200,000 copies within one month.

Gladstone rejected Islam as the true path to God but championed the pluralistic notion of freedom of faith. During the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880), Gladstone opposed intervention and spoke in defence of faith, as he recognised that Islam is one of the great religions of the world:

“Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own.”

 He went on to argue that God’s love transcended borders and was not limited to “Christian civilisation.”

Nor should we overlook Gladstone’s towering intellect and commitment to scholarly pursuits. During his lifetime, he read around over 20,000 books and owned 30,000 titles. Near the end of his life, he brought a plot of land to build a library upon, with the help of his daughter, and a member of his staff.

The library’s original name was ‘Monad’ – the first number and symbol of unity. A library intended for all as Gladstone believed that strong academia put you on the path to truth. Of the 15,000 books he personally annotated, we can  include ‘The Life of the Prophet [Muhammad].’ In 2011, Gladstone’s Library opened up an Islamic reading room.

With the above context absent from the meme, it merely serves as confirmation bias for those with an anti-Muslim agenda. Two of the highest rated comments in response to the Britain First post generate the desired response:

“That’s the thing, people for years throughout history knew how bad Islam was and still is, they weren’t wrong were they!”

“he was right”

If alive today, Gladstone would likely reject the bigotry, anti-intellectualism, and fundamentalist mindset that refuses to engage with Islam on any meaningful level.

So we can consider this meme well and truly busted.

The post Gladstone and Islam – Anti-Muslim Memes Going Round, by Steve Rose appeared first on TELL MAMA.

As many were celebrating International Women’s Day, Richard Dawkins, not one to shy away from the limelight, decided to get onto Twitter and give us an insight into a range of tweets that resonated with him. However, some of the re-tweets and tweets from Dawkins are nothing less than shocking, especially when Dawkins re-tweets material from a sympathiser of an extreme anti-Islamic group whose founder overtly plays on racial identity politics. No doubt, given the opportunistic nature of the extreme anti-Islamic group whose sympathiser Dawkins re-tweeted, they will seek to position themselves as being the mainstream by associating themselves with Dawkins. We hope that Dawkins dissociates himself completely from the racial identity politics and the virulently extreme anti-Islamic nature of the group if they attempt to associate themselves with him and we have previously highlighted this group here.

Anjem Choudhary – Who Does He Represent?

 So let us look at tweets coming out from Dawkins account yesterday on International Women’s Day. Let us start with the following tweet below where Dawkins re-tweets the words of Anjem Choudhary. If Dawkins believes that Anjem Choudhary represents Muslims in the UK, then he is sadly mistaken since the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims in the UK despise the hate and toxic bile that comes out of the mouth of this character. What is interesting to note though is the comment in the tweet above the Anjem Choudhary one where Dawkins suggests, “I don’t give a **it what colour someone is. You’re racist……….Arguments are won/lost on their merits.” We will refer back to this statement later in this article.

Women’s Sexuality

We were then sent a set of tweets from members of the public on the ongoing Twitter discussions that Dawkins was having.

What is key to note is that Dawkins re-tweets a tweet from a member of the public which states, “Mustn’t forget how Muslim girls pray for the day their clitoris’ are sliced off – how dare we deny them this honour.” So let us get this straight, Muslim women are praying for the day when someone denies them the right to have a clitoris? More questions then come to mind. If Dawkins talks about rationalism versus cultural relativism or tackling abhorrent cultural practices based on human rights and the merits of arguments, then why is he re-tweeting a statement that is not only deeply offensive to all Muslim women, since there is no specificity in the statement around who may be affected, but which is factually just inaccurate. Where is the logic in that or is just when something fits an anti-Islamic or anti-Muslim position? Furthermore, just to be clear, FGM (female genital mutilation) is not Islamically sanctioned nor does it affect just one faith. Those cases in the UK mainly affect the Somali and Egyptian community and are culturally based. Also, in rural areas in Egypt, FGM affects both Christian and Muslim communities. But hey, why let these facts get in the way of Dawkins and Twitter.

Afghan Women

Or take the following tweets:

Dawkins tweet infers that in the 1970’s, Afghan women used to dress as in the picture which he tweeted out. He states, “On international Women’s Day, how can anyone stand up and defend this loathsome religion.” By loathsome religion, he meant Islam, though let’s go back again to the facts. Dawkins blames Islam for the current state of social affairs of women in Aghanistan. He mentions nothing of the international interventionism for over a decade in the Cold War that fed fundamentalist groups who were used as proxies in the war against the Soviet Union. Indeed Ahmed Rashid’s books on the Taliban outline clearly the proxy war that fed arms to extreme groups in Afghanistan which destabilized the country and plunged it into an arena of constant war. Nor does Dawkins seem to clarify, if we want to take a rational and analytical approach to the social roles of women in Afghanistan, those Muslim female campaigners in Afghanistan who risk their lives daily to fight for women’s rights whilst praying 5 times a day and holding their own as believing Muslims in some of the most difficult of circumstances. But hey, who can reflect on that whilst sitting in the peaceful, scenic and easy lifestyle of Oxford and its dreamy spires, huh Richard?

Re-tweeting Material from Sympathisers of Virulently Anti-Islamic ‘Counter-Jihadi’ Groups

The most disturbing element of Dawkins Twitter conversation was the following.

The individual in question makes clear on her Twitter account that she supports the extreme anti-Islamic nationalistic group, Liberty GB, (see snapshot below):

We have written about this group before through a posting on the TELL MAMA site which can be found here. However, remember the tweet from earlier where Dawkins suggests that someone is racist and that arguments are won on their merits? Well, here is the founder of the Group, (Liberty GB), a man called Paul Weston. Before we move onto Paul Weston, what is clear is that yesterday Dawkins re-tweeted material from a sympathiser of a nationalistic, race based, ‘Counter-Jihad,’ anti-Islamic group which has also been highlighted by Hope Not Hate through this excellent background material on the ‘Counter-Jihad’ Network.

So, let us look at Paul Weston and some of his statements. In this statement uploaded in June 2013 entitled, ‘I am a racist,‘ Weston states, “I wish to preserve the people of my country,” which then begs the question as to who are ‘my people?’ He then takes a fatalistic view suggesting that (his people), “are under a terrible threat at the moment” and goes onto talk about migration and immigration. It is then followed by this statement which shows the anti-Islamic nature of this group. Weston states, “Everywhere you look, you see problems with Islam…….they are violent, they are, dare I say it, to re-enforce my racist credentials, a thoroughly savage political and religious ideology.” So, is Weston suggesting that followers of Islam are savages and inherently violent by following Islam? The statements speak volumes on the stance that this group is taking allied with race based statements. In fact, taken together, we found the statements chilling in their effect.

Furthermore, in the following You Tube statement, entitled ‘Preventing White Genocide‘ which was uploaded on Paul Weston’s site in November 2013, he states:

“We need to talk about race……and we do need to talk about race because in the 21st century, unless thing change, will see the virtual extinction of my white European race.”

Sound ominous and nationalistic, well he carries on:

“This is not such a tremendous problem, as long as we retain control of our own homelands.”

The excruciatingly painful and simplistic comments based on race and nationalism continue to the point where Weston suggests that white babies born in America are now an ethnic minority. Yes, migrants to the United States, are now an ethnic minority, whilst he fails to consider who the indigenous people were in North America before the Mayflower landed. Weston also seems to forget that settlers in North America were a mix of cultures from Europe and wider afield, such as China, but hey, what are a few facts when rhetoric and nationalism based on the politics of race are what you are pushing? Let us also not forget the fact that Paul Weston launched the British Freedom Party pact with Kevin Carroll and Tommy Robinson in April 2012.

You see, the point we are making is that Dawkins is effectively recycling material from individuals who openly support such a political grouping.That in of itself, is worrying.

Finally, we go back to the statement that Dawkins made earlier, ” I don’t give a **it what colour someone is. You’re racist……….Arguments are won/lost on their merits.” Are they Richard?

The post Dawkins Again, Retweeting Lazy Stereotypes About Muslims appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We have come across this Twitter user @chayalimbodedim before. Chayalim has been a busy man and is particularly anti-Muslim nature and here for example is Mr Bodedim making threats against specific Twitter users and with a menacing and threatening style.

Here is another tweet showing his dislike and hatred towards Muslims. The tweet is self-evident and Mr Bodedim seems to have a penchant for describing violent acts.

Bizarelly, we come across Sheryl McNaught against, the comforter who seems to involve herself in comforting some of the worst anti-Muslim on-line haters we come across. Here is ‘mama’ Sheryl McNaught again saying she ‘understands’ when Mr Bodedim ‘goes a bit over the top’.

However, this tweet which was sent to us, is particularly troubling and was targeted directly at Diane Abbott MP. The tweet does not even take off the @BBCWomansHour Twitter address and Mr Bodedim, it seems, does not care. In the tweet, he states:

“Shame you have not been tyred and burned Abbott’s. U sell people into mental slavery by rebranding them black.”

Apart from the bizarre nature of the tweet, @chayalimbodedim refers back to a process called ‘necklacing’ that has been known to take place in Africa and in places like Soweto, where collaborators with the Apartheid regime were necklaced and murdered in townships. Now, we understand that Members of Parliament are not particularly liked after the expenses scandal, but these comments have nothing to do with that. They are simply meant to intimidate, frighten and abuse a serving member of Parliament who happens to be black. We also feel particularly sickened by this tweet since it has racial overtones. Necklacing as suggested, was a murderous method used by a handful of Black Africans and to use that against a serving Member of Parliament who is black, shows strong racial stereotyping. It also means that as anti-racist campaigners, we have great pleasure in passing this information to the police so that they can possibly pay @chayalbodedim a visit. We simply cannot allow such behaviour to go unchecked and we will co-operate with the police if required.

The post @Chayalimbodedim & the ‘Necklacing’ of Diane Abbott MP appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Few of us will forget the moment when Salma Yaqoob appeared on BBC Question Time, and tweeted the following comments to her followers: “Apart from this threat to cut my throat by #EDL supporter (!) overwhelmed by warm response to what I said on #bbcqt.’’ The person arrested, in connection with the comments, Steve Littlejohn added: “if that salma yaqueb’s there, cut her f### throat, rip weyman bennets teeth out with pliers and carve edl across all the asian scum who try and attack us”.

Sadly, many of us also recognise this level of online abuse via platforms such as Twitter.  I personally have now become accustomed to seeing online trolling and anti-Muslim abuse all targeting me because of my work on anti-Muslim prejudice and the problems of cyber hate against Muslim communities.  Simply by using some common words used to abuse Muslim communities with you can find a whole plethora of online anti-Muslim abuse with the #Muslimpigs, #Muzzrats (used by Tommy Robinson), #Muslimpaedophiles and #Muslimcunts.

The overwhelming does show that words, visual images, tweets, Facebook comments and online videos of hate not only cause offence but can have a huge impact on the victims they target.   It allows online behaviour to become normalized by offenders which allows a perpetrator to use in many cases anonymity, manipulation and social control to target their victims.  Mehdi Hasan, the Huffington Post, UK political director recalls the impact of these online hate comments on his family. He states that: “To say that I find the relentlessly hostile coverage of Islam, coupled with the personal abuse that I receive online, depressing is an understatement. There have been times – for instance, when I found my wife curled up on our couch, in tears, after having discovered some of the more monstrous and threatening comments on my New Statesman blog – when I’ve wondered whether it’s all worth it.”

Equally ordinary Muslims have also experienced this online hate which has had an impact upon them and their families as shown by the research which I have conducted with Muslim families. The ‘hate’ comments made online can have a negative impact on the victims who are targeted and can be very upsetting and unsettling for them.   Post Woolwich the Internet and social networking sites have been used to by groups like the far right to attack Muslim communities. This type of prejudice follows a ‘drip drip’ effect and whilst it has intensified following Woolwich, the level of online anti-Muslim prejudice remains on a steady increase.

Many of the comments posted online through social networking sites, likeTwitter or Facebook consist of an ‘extremist’ and incendiary undertone which attacks the whole of ethos of the government’s social cohesion strategy and risks stoking up more hatred in particular in the case of online Islamophobia.  Indeed, as Tell MAMA recently noted that they had received (74%) of reported online anti-Muslim abuse.  Some of the cases reported to Tell MAMA included online anti-Muslim abuse against high-profile Muslim figures such as Baroness Warsi and Jemima Khan both of whom were subjected to online threats which were reported to the police by Tell MAMA.

Unfortunately, however policing online anti-Muslim abuse remains poor and more needs to be done in providing a safe environment where people are open to reporting online abuse to the police without fear that they will not be taken seriously.  The importance of online Islamophobia does not always get the media and political attention it merits. It is often disregarded as ‘less valuable data’ or people are more concerned with the visible threats Muslims face. This is the problem when trying to ascertain what constitutes ‘high’ level and ‘low’ level incidents. For example, the use of targeted ‘Trolling’ can constitute online harassment and has a huge impact on the victims.   Sadly, as a society the way we deal with online anti-Muslim hate is with a laissez-faire attitude at best and at worst leads to us simply asking the victim either to Block someone via Twitter or to simply close your account.   This is why we need to try and build a new culture towards understanding the victim first and foremost.

Imran Awan is Deputy Director for the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University and co-editor of the books ‘Policing Cyber Hate’ and ‘Extremism, Counter-Terrorism and Policing’.  

The post Twitter has become the virtual Wild Wild West for online anti-Muslim abuse says Imran Awan appeared first on TELL MAMA.

So here we go:

The troll gets abusive and wants to bring ‘Allah’ into the discussion when we question their timelines and discussions with some rather dubious characters, Stephen Lennon being one of them. This is followed by claims of TELL MAMA UK being a proselytising centre, (see below). Clearly, this troll account has lost the plot since the first thing on the home page of TELL MAMA is that we help victims of anti-Muslim prejudice. There are two words constantly thrown at those who work with or are Muslims – Dawah and Taqiyya. It is as if for the Islamophobes and mischief makers, Muslims can only proselytise or lie. Truly depressing given the level of spin put on things.

As if this was not enough spin, our own troll account then moves onto speaking to the Official English Defence League account and makes a rather interesting statement listed below. Who in their right mind would want to, “dress up in all white bed linen sheet with pointy cone hate and don a cross?” Clearly @VDissidentZ does and the individual then suggests that #fairisfair and that they would like to dress up in what would be a Klu Klux Klan sounding outfit.

It really does not end there. Here is our special friend (@VDissidentZ) retweeting anti-Muslim prejudice from Stephen Lennon. Lennon in his usual inflammatory style uses the faith of individuals to suggest that grooming is an inherently ‘Muslim’ issue and his prejudicial words are carefully chosen to infer that all Muslims could be potential predators. He then re-enforces the initial statement by suggesting that every day brings “more arrests/convictions.” Guess who retweets his words – yes, you guessed it – the now infamous @VDissidentZ.

Just as you thought that the sycophancy could not get any worse, guess who asks Stephen Lennon to take care of himself after Lennon states that he was ‘walking 24 miles around Tower Hamlets on Friday the 13^th’? You guessed right! The stomach churning plea to Stephen Lennon states, ‘stay safe chief.’ Does our very own troll belief that Stephen Lennon is the leader, the chief? Oh how the heart patters with missed beats at the thought of Lennon being out there.

Oh dear, with more retweets of Stephen Lennon , our troll is starting to exhibit behaviours that people could say, show a Far Right set of sympathies. So, if you do come across, them, could we ask that you check to see if the same trend continues and we can only hope that the sycophancy wears off. We can only hope it wears off soon, since kind of sickening really.

The post Inferences, Suggestions, Trolls and Public Relations Disasters, VDissidentZ – Part 1 appeared first on TELL MAMA.

What we also see is a certain Sheryl comforting @EnglishAtt and when she is informed that his statements on Black and Minority Ethnic groups allegedly leave a lot to be desired, her response is that he has been polite before and his opinion is his right. We will be highlighting more of Sheryl’s statements in the future, given that she has made quite a few of them on TELL MAMA’s work and shall we have a look at some of the ‘opinions‘ that @EnglishAtt has voiced?

So here goes. Exhibit 1

So here, the young man, (who also runs a You Tube platform which sent us to sleep), states that if our tweets come under his timeline again, he is ‘going to get a similarly-named domain name and smash the ‘bastards’ web presence.‘  Let us reflect on this. The reason we would come under his timeline is probably because he is following someone who is following us. So, if he does not like what he hears, a simple block on the block button would suffice or locate the person following us and linked to him and simply block them. But no, here is a specific cyber-threat to TELL MAMA that we logged with the police on the appropriate date, but it seems that @EnglishAtt really believes that he has done nothing wrong.

Or take the fact that a young woman contacted us, scared and intimidated by this Twitter account. He decided to post up details of where she allegedly lived:

Or take the fact that he then suggested intimidating her as the list of tweets confirm on the back of this one. The targeted material towards her clearly lists her in later tweets that we have received from the victim.

So Rule 1. Defence of ‘I am the harassed victim’ does not wash when you look at the context of previous tweets and threats made to others.

Rule 2: Bringing the police in on the probable assumption that by declaring it early may lead you to not being charged with anything, does not mean that you will not. We will be pushing for action given the clear threats against us and against the victim that reported in.

Rule 3: Do not post anything on the web that you cannot stand by. This rule is simple and does not take a genius to understand.

We look forward to developments on this case.

The post ‘EnglishAtt’ on Twitter – Playing the Victim Does Not Reflect Your Actions! appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Here is a good example of such a link.

Once again the anti-Muslim prejudiced term ‘muzzrats‘ is used which is comparable to the way that the Nazis used to stigmatise their own citizens who happened to be Jewish and this targeted association of groups of people with vermin is well documented in the propaganda of the Nazis towards their own citizens of Jewish heritage.

One of the other interesting factors to note, is the belief within Far Right supporters of the English Defence League, that mosques have been attacked by Muslims themselves. We within TELL MAMA have listed the range of mosque incidents and attacks since Woolwich and they are mapped here.

Here for example is a tweet supporting this twisted view:

This view that Muslims themselves have been involved in conducting arson against their own mosques is not only twisted and perverse, it suggests that the victims are at fault themselves, that they are naturally guilty by virtue of their faith and their identities. Time and time again we come across these viewpoints by those who support groups like the English Defence League and the British National Party and these views have been doing the rounds since the Muswell Hill mosque attack that took place a few weeks after the murder of drummer Lee Rigby.

Solutions

We believe that such views have an impact in the offline and street context though we must be clear. There is much more work that needs to be done in this area and that we will pushing ahead on this area in the future. However, it is imperative that all good people who see hate and prejudice as unacceptable, counter such corrosive views and report in such statements. This can be done through social media providers like Twitter and Facebook, through TELL MAMA, or through the police if there are threats to life, liberty and safety being made. Together, we can make our country an even safer, stronger and a more united place.

The post Links to Incitement of Violence Towards Muslims & English Defence League Sympathisers appeared first on TELL MAMA.

‘Why do people bother reporting this in?’

‘Anyone who works on such matters is just wasting money and time.’

These are the usual comments that detractors of our work and those who choose to turn a blind eye against such work say. The range of arguments go on and on, yet, on the flipside, if such comments were made against other faiths, other races and other groups of individuals, some of the detractors would be up in arms. They would be shouting from the rafters and in fact, some of them do, as long as the perpetrators of hate are Muslims. When the victims are Muslim, well then, it seems that the statements listed above become the norm. So, shall we look at some of the tweets and on-line hate that permeates social media platforms on a daily basis? Take this for example, a tweet undertaken by an account called ‘Snidey_UK.’ This account has been reported in a number of times. This is a tweet that we received today, (07/06/13):

Is this acceptable or inciting hate?

So let us look at another example of hate material that floods through social media platforms on a daily basis. Here for example is one which we received in the last 6 weeks.

Now the question is, are these statements acceptable? Pretty simply, no. They are prejudicial since they group Muslim members together in a prejudicial manner.  Do they infringe existing laws? Well in these cases, yes, given that there are a dearth of other hate statements from these accounts.

Laws need to be proportionate and with the protection of freedom of speech at the heart of them. We can all agree with this. However, when on-line material like the examples above are promoted on a daily basis and which filter out to hundreds or thousands of people on a the daily basis, then action needs to be taken through legal and police channels to stop such statements pervading into communities. If anyone thinks that these do not have community impacts then ask yourself this. If the term ‘Muslim’ was changed to another faith community – would you think it acceptable? If yes, then we should get worried. If no, then we have a lot of community education work to do together to ensure that no community lives in fear of prejudice, hate and aggression.

The post Online Postings of Hate – Permeating the Web appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We are also aware that Muslims who have suffered street based incidents have been looking for an ‘app’ that they could report through. With this in mind, we have developed the TELL MAMA reporting in application which was launched by iTunes today. The application can be downloaded from iTunes here.

We will respond to reports that come in with a phone call to the victim and we will also be able to geo-locate where the incident has taken place if reported in immediately and within the vicinity of the location where the incident took place. We would advise that you download the application so that it can provide you with added re-assurance, that you are not alone!

The post Launch of TELL MAMA’s iPhone & iPad Reporting In Application appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We will be announcing the date of the iPhone and iPad launch in the next week and hope that you can download the TELL MAMA application which we believe will be a useful resource in providing members of the public with a hate crime reporting in facility. We also urge mosque committee members to download the application so that they can report in graffiti incidents and damage to the external rendering of mosques by taking pictures of the damage and sending them through the application. We also would advise Muslim women to download the application so that they can report in quickly and with confidence if they suffer a street based incident or anti-Muslim hate crime. Other individuals which this application may assist include those working in the taxi or minicab industries and who may be prone to anti-Muslim prejudice particularly at weekends when people may have been drinking and when tempers flare up. Also, late night catering establishments, such as kebab shops and all night Turkish restaurants may want to inform their workers of the availability of this application since many suffer prejudice when serving members of the public who have usually been drinking and who are frustrated and hungry after a heavy night out. Download away we say!

The post Launch of the TELL MAMA iPhone & iPad Free to Download Application appeared first on TELL MAMA.