UK News

A Kent school has censored a talk by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former pupil, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter, and member of the so-called alt-right movement. The censorship was apparently ordered by the Department for Education

Simon Langton grammar school for boys, which Yiannopoulos attended, said it had pulled his address to sixth-formers due to take place on Tuesday. Yiannopoulos is a senior editor at the US-based Breitbart website, whose chief executive, Steven Bannon , is Trump's choice for chief strategist.

The Canterbury school claimed the talk had been cancelled because of safety concerns, with almost all of the opposition to it coming from outside the school.

The alt-right may be a bit controversial but this hasn't really lead to any incidents of unrest so far. Anyway the school said:

The decision was taken following contact from the DfE counter-extremism unit, the threat of demonstrations at the school by organised groups and members of the public, and our overall concerns for the security of the school site and the safety of our community.

Yiannopoulos, who was permanently suspended from Twitter in July , describes himself as the most fabulous supervillain on the internet on his Facebook page, where he added:

My old high school has been bullied into cancelling my talk on Tuesday by the counter-extremism unit at the UK Department of Education.

Who even knew the DoE had a counter-extremism unit? And that it wasn't set up to combat terrorism but rather to punish gays with the wrong opinions?

The Media Reform Coalition and National Union of Journalists are hoping to make Google and Facebook fund journalism in Britain.

They are seeking to persuade politicians to include a new amendment to the digital economy bill, which is currently going through parliament. It will propose a 1% levy on the operations of the digital giants in order to pay for independent and non-profit journalism.

A statement issued by the Media Reform Coalition (MRC) argues that digital intermediaries such as Google and Facebook are not only amassing eye-watering profits and paying minimal tax in the UK, they are also bleeding the newspaper industry dry by sucking up advertising revenue . It continues:

As national and local newspapers try to cut their way out of trouble by slashing editorial budgets and shedding staff, journalistic quality is becoming a casualty.

Public interest journalism in particular has been hit the hardest as newspapers are being lured into a clickbait culture which favours the sensational and the trivial.

In the light of this, we propose a 1% levy on the operations of the largest digital intermediaries with the resulting funds redistributed to non-profit ventures with a mandate to produce original local or investigative news reporting.

The Green party has complained to the press censor IPSO over the use of pictures of refugees by the Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Star and Sunday Telegraph.

Although it was absolutely obvious that some of the 'children' were many years into adulthood, Jonathan Bartley, who co-heads the Green party, has asked the Independent Press Standards Organisation whether the titles were justified in printing images of refugees in Calais whom were claiming to be under 18.

According to Ipso's code of practice pictures of children under the age of 16 should not be used unless adult consent has been given.

Bartley ludicrously argued that the coverage did not qualify as an exceptional public interest that would allow the newspapers to override the Ipso code.

In fact large proportions of the public were well interested in the fact that the authorities are so politically correct that they refuse to entertain reasonable doubt about the voracity of what desperate refugees tell them.

Bartley argued that publishing the pictures contributed to an atmosphere of prejudice against the refugees. A little bit bizarre considering the pictures demonstrated how far British officials are biased in favour of the refugees.

The Green party complaint cites editions of the Sun (18th and 19th October), the Daily Mail (18 October), the Daily Star (19 October) and the Sunday Telegraph (23 October).

Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement deploring foreign media who allegedly misreported the number of Thais gathered to mourn the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The statement, which did not identify any media outlet specifically, deplored some big foreign media for reporting that thousands of Thais had gathered to mourn the loss of the King at the Grand Palace. The statement said the actual number was much higher noting that hundreds of thousands lined the route from Siriraj Hospital to the Grand Palace. It described the alleged discrepancy between thousands at the palace and hundreds of thousands along the route as manipulative and provocative.

After the announcement of the King's death Thursday evening, all television channels, cable channels and satellite channels under Thai control were replaced by a single government broadcast. The channels resumed at midnight on Friday night, but were told not to broadcast entertainment programmes for a month. However the BBFC and Al Jazeera news channels were subjected to additional censorship in that any news items reporting on Thailand were blacked out with a card announcing that Programming will return shortly.

BBC correspondent Jonathan Head confirmed their coverage about Thailand had been blocked in the country several times ever since. Head told news company Khaosod:

Whenever reporting on Thailand comes up our transmissions are blocked. Just now when I was reporting live.

We have received no official complaints, and the MFA has not mentioned any problems with the BBC's reporting. So we do not know why we are being blocked.

Presumably the reason for the blocking is more about discussions of the succession, rather than numbers attending funeral events. It is a very sensitive issue in Thailand.

Khaosod also reported that cable and satellite company, TrueVisions was looking for freelancers to monitor BBC and Al Jazeera news, and to switch out news reports from Thailand.