Sunday 22 December 2013

Failed Porn filters? Not Really - It's all Going to Plan for Cameron

There has been a lot of frenzied Internet activity over past few days about the Newsnight story about porn filters failing to block porn sites while blocking sex education and information sites. This is seen as a failure. The solution, according to Women's Aid and some other posters in Twitter is better, more sophisticated filters. This is of course impossible. Getting a group of humans to distinguish between something that is tawdry and something that has artistic merit is hard enough. Expecting a computer program to understand these distinctions is so much beyond current technology that when it does happen we will have to consider whether we need to give human rights to computers. It will be the age of manga style cyborgs when that can happen.
My view is that Cameron predicted that the filters would fail. This is actually helpful to his current agenda of redesigning the Internet so that it is regulated and controlled by big media companies. Remember the days when you needed a lot of money to get something typeset, printed and distributed ? Or how, of you wanted to get something released on video you would have to pay hundreds or thousands of pounds to get it certificated by the BBFC- costs out with the capabilities of most people.
Now of course anyone, including me writing this blog can get my work put not the Internet for the cost of a few amps of electricity.
BUT NOT FOR LONG!
Cameron wants the interent to operate like the high street with the public protected from anything that might be unsuitable for them. The BBFC ( an organisation that is finding its purpose coming to an end and which needs a new role) and ATVOD ( a highly funded body that has only received about 6 complaints from the public in 3 years and is a pointless parasite on Internet TV) are both vying to become the regulator of the Internet. Cameron has repeatedly said of porn 'If you can't get it in the high street you shouldn't get it on the Internet'. He wants to apply this maxim to the whole of the Internet. He wants unregulated news sources and commentary stamped out and an Internet in which most citizens only get what comes via Murdoch and company.
I've been blogging on Internet censorship for the past 6 months and everything I have said has turned out to be correct so this is my prediction for 2014- a Cameron controlled Internet.
Fight it now or repent at leisure.

Monday 2 December 2013

Post Script to C-Section Story

Essex Council have today issued an explanation of the facts behind the c- section story which has hit the worlds press. It gives a good account of the council/social work involvement in this case.
In any case there is nothing in the Council's account which gives me cause for concern ( though others may disagree).
However, I never really believed that the Council had acted in bad faith. My beef has always been that the Council did not think it owed the public an explanation for its actions.
Many social work bloggers and tweeters had come to the defence of the council saying that it could not say anything to the media for fear of breaching confidentiality or going against some legal restrictions.
I was never very convinced by these arguments or convinced that the Councils policy of not speaking about ongoing cases was a good one.
In fact today's statement has vindicated my position because the council has now broken its (unwritten?) policy of not commenting and it is at least now trying to undo some of the bad publicity which it should accept some responsibility for. It's clear from the council's new response that they have written it because there has been unprecedented international interest in the case- not because they think involving the public in their decisions in an ongoing basis is a good thing of itself.
Over the years I have met a few journalists. I think they are basically people with a job to do like the rest of us and if they are given a convincing argument or interesting information that the public will want to know - then they will print it.
I have never been convinced by the argument that the press has it in for social work. If I was a journalist and one side of a story would not speak to me or address legitimate public concerns then I would not give them a very sympathetic write up either. When you see 'no comment' from a public body it gives a message that public opinion does not matter to the agency. In the current world of 24 hour news, bloggers, and greater interaction between public bodies and the public they serve, the secrecy which is associated with much social work practice is outdated as well as undemocratic.
Let's hope that the latest statement by Essex is start of a new openness and social work starting to take control of how it is reported rather than just reacting. Essex has now shown that you CAN comment on live cases ethically- and it is the best way to protect the profession, protect the reputation of local authorities and their social workers and most importantly reassure the public that they live in a free country where professionals cannot override civil liberties without exceptionally good processes, reasons, and accountability.


Sunday 1 December 2013

Another PR Disaster for Social Work- Why We Need to Stop Blaming the Media and Stand up for an Open and Accountable profession.




A pregnant woman was sedated against her will and her baby removed by caesarean section and taken into care after instructions from social services, it has been claimed.
Social workers went to the High Court to get a court order which allowed them to take the child from the mother's womb, according to reports.
The above is the first two lines of an article on the Sky News website. It has been tweeted by about 580 people. The original story in the Sunday Telegraph has been tweeted by about 1000. Difficult to imagine that that many people are interested in social work.
The twitterverse is full of indignant social workers saying that this is terrible. Not what happened but that newsagencies have dared to publish what is perceived to be an unfair and one-sided version of events. Why people think it is unfair I don’t know –it does not seem unfair an unfair judgement in light of what has been actually been made public.
The charge that it is open-sided is however, a valid one. The reason that it is one sided can be found in the final paragraph of the Sky news item.   
Essex County Council told Sky News in a statement: "Essex County Council does not comment on the circumstances of on-going individual cases involving vulnerable people and children."
That’s it. The sum total of what they have to say.
 Not –‘We are very sorry – we realise that there is much public interest in this story but we reassure that we have at all times acted in the best interests and the interests of her baby’. Not- ‘We are very sorry but we have been forbidden by a court order from responding to questions. We wish we could say more but it might prejudice proceedings.’
Such alternative statements would not really hold a lot of water. The fact that the story is being reported in the way that it is- draws great deal of media attention  that simply would not be there if a fuller account of the story had been told. In fact, now an MP is going to raise it in Parliament so it is difficult to see how there could be any less of a spotlight on the story.  
So, a response like ‘We are sorry we can’t say anything’ would not have cut much ice. However it would be a vast improvement on what they did say. What the terse statement by Essex council is saying is ‘Sod off- we don’t have to tell you anything and its none of your business anyway’.
Well –I’m afraid in a democracy public servants are accountable to the public for what they do through democratic processes and the only way that the democratic process can work is if people have information. We would not tolerate the Police using sweeping powers like this without being expected to explain themselves.
If there is a genuine legal reason why the council can’t give details of the case then ought to say this and apologise to the public for the fact they can’t comment. Furthermore if such constraints are a general problem then social services directors ought to be campaigning for changes in the law so that they can make more information public.
The statement by Essex seems to suggest that they are simply not commenting because of a policy- allegedly to protect ‘vulnerable people’. Clearly it is okay to seriously interfere with the liberty and health of a vulnerable person but not okay to respond to reasonable public interest in what is being done to them.  This has echoes of a case a few months ago where social workers condemned a man with learning difficulties for putting a video on Youtube of his child being taken into care and he had to take social services to court to get  permission to make the world aware of his story. Rather than saying he needed support to be able to tell his side of things many social workers said he was making his children vulnerable by putting the video online.
Surely an important part of protecting vulnerable people ought to be making judgements taken on their behalf open to democratic scrutiny.  
Vulnerable should NOT equal No right to speak or have your story heard.
Many of my friends who would normally be supporters  of public services think this present situation is terrible. The only people who think this is a case of press victimisation are social workers. I think the profession has to take a long look in the mirror and think about how other people see us.Look at the Independents headline - It says that this is the 'stuff of nightmares'. Actually its the sort of stuff that can be a death blow to the credibility of a profession. It needs some good PR and damage limitation double quick. Not falling back on jobsworth -'Its not our policy to comment ......'
I have been in social work now since 1986 and all through this time I have been constantly angered by the attitude of my profession to the media. On one hand there is a paranoia the media is against the profession  and on the other hand an arrogance about ordinary people not being able to understand complex social work situations even if they were told the information. Over the years few people have given my view any credence.  They have all fallen back on the idea that these things have to kept private to protect ‘vulnerable people’.  I guess I have always been a curmudgeon. This is one of the many popularly held views I have never agreed with.
In the meantime the image of the profession has sunk lower and lower and people just blame the media rather than thinking about whether we need to think of another way of engaging with the public.
I would not trust another profession which operated in secret so why should I expect people to trust my own when it is doing this.
It is true that newspapers do tend to favour certain political viewpoints and groups over others. However, they will report both sides of a story if they get it-even if they do give one side more credence. And most people do give their side. Even the toxic waste disposal industry will respond to media criticisms. They will make a press release that says that toxic waste burning  creates jobs or that it is all quite safe really. That might not convince many people but it is at least a response and an attempt to change public opinion.
Social work wants to improve its image and it ought to be capable of doing better than the toxic waste business.
The Essex response says ‘Social Work doesn’t care what the public think and they don’t have a right to know or the ability to understand.’
That is the attitude we should be fighting – not the media.