UK police ask blogger to remove UKIP tweets

http://axeofreason.blogspot.com/2014/05/you-are-not-allowed-to-read-this-blog.html?spref=tw&m=1

by polemic • 12 years ago

93 37 12 years ago

axeofreason.blogspot.com

blakeshall• 12 years ago

Anyone have any more information on this? Going off just the post leaves a lot of questions.

No. But I suspect his local MP will ask the Police to investigate. The officer who asked the police to pop round will probably be nagged for being naive. There may be a weak apology and it'll blow over. The damage I suspect will be for the politician who attempted to misuse a complaint about online bullying as political intimidation. UKIP won't be affected because they're a protest party, most people voting for them don't care about their tactics they see them as a single-issue party.

Edit: fat fingers and predictive text!

tormeh• 12 years ago

Police do, and should take peaceful action without any police authority. Calming things down before they happen and that kind of thing. Seeing as these officers didn't know what Twitter was, it's pretty probable that someone called the police and told them that the author was picking a fight on the internet and might cause trouble.

It basically sounds like a less dramatic type of SWATing.

wyager4• 12 years ago

Police do, and should take peaceful action without any police authority.

Coming to someone's house and bothering them about something political they said online is not "peaceful".

robhu3• 12 years ago

Could you please explain how it is not peaceful?

prawn2• 12 years ago

Doesn't sound like bothering to me. Gave him a valuable heads up to someone was trying to stir up trouble for him. The police sounded exceptionally polite to me.

nemof2• 12 years ago

here's the poster in question: https://twitter.com/MichaelAbberton/status/46329913991721369...

for context for non UK folk, the guy posting the story is a green (left of the center, strong environmental politics), and UKIP who are the current talk de jour in the UK are a rightwing nationalist party who are more acceptable in the UK than just blatantly supporting the BNP.

Oh, and if the police got involved, to be frank, assuming it happened like op said, that's absolute bullshit and basically intimidation. Considering the reach that tweet/poster image has had, I wouldn't be surprised if someone with connections within UKIP had pulled some strings to get the police to visit this guy.

seabee5• 12 years ago

Unless policy has changed in 5 years, you don't need to pull strings to make the police visit somebody who made tweets you don't like. You just need to make the right noises and be sufficiently offended such that the police will check whether there is a genuine problem or not.

It's pretty scary getting a phone call or visit from the police, but they make it quite clear you're not in trouble, at which point it's mostly infuriating that someone got butthurt enough to trouble you in this manner.

ajb• 12 years ago

True, but they should not have asked him to take it down.

I can think of scenarios where it would be reasonable for the police to ask someone to stop legal behavior - "please stop pissing off your neighbours" - but this is not one of them.

nailer• 12 years ago

The post (if by 'poster' you meant post) is confusing. UKIP say they're cancelling house building on green belt land, someone else says there's 'numerous refs', the someone else says no source was found. It seems to be pointing out that the of the claims against UKIP aren't referenced, but it's being tweeted by a Green Party supporter.

A_COMPUTER• 12 years ago

After digging through his twitter stream, it looks like he took an existing image and tried to add references for the claims.

nemof2• 12 years ago

ah, he confirmed on twitter last night: https://twitter.com/MichaelAbberton/status/46560706028634521... so I think what happened is that the original image was produced, someone annotated it with unverified info, and Michael Abberton then double checked this and annotated it further with the bold text to note any claims which couldn't be confirmed.

I think that he's confirming that some claims aren't verified because he's being honest, irrespective of party ties.

skimmas• 12 years ago

isn't the right thing to do in this kind of situations to say nothing, allow nothing and ask for the presence of a lawyer?

sdrinf2• 12 years ago

If this would've been in the US, absolutely.

The quality of connection between UK citizens, and law enforcement is significantly different, due to actions on both sides: specifically:

* UK police tends to seek full understanding prior to taking any action

* The standard police unit is not armed, and their legal rights are significantly limited

* In general, their strategy aims for avoiding situations to escalate

This allows for the vast majority of situations to be resolved peacefully, and in mutual respect. I leave drawing conclusions, and comparisons to the US armed force to the dear reader.

polemic• 12 years ago

On that topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles

"In the British model of policing, police officers are citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of their fellow citizens. Policing by consent is the phrase used to describe this. It denotes that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a general consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, demonstrating integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so."

Crito2• 12 years ago

What incentive would the author have to talk with the police (let alone invite them into his home) in this instance? I understand that the police in the UK may not be as menacing as they are in the US, but if nothing is in it for him (and as far as I can tell, nothing was), then why would he allow himself to be questioned in such a way?

If I have nothing to gain from talking with the police, I never would, even if I also felt that I had nothing to lose.

UK police ask blogger to remove UKIP tweets

Related Stories