Can Activism Be Regulated?

Julie Beal
Activist Post

Well, guys, the time is now, cos they’re grabbing us by the short and curlies, and trying to take down us activists; they’re coming at us from all sides now. This is the Quickening. From threats to regulate the press, to Internet censorship, the powers-that-be are finding many ways to control dissent. The Internet is being militarized, laws are being worked over, and political activists are the next target.

One of the biggest activist groups here in the UK, the UK Column, has been targeted by an organisation called ATVOD, an offshoot of Ofcom. ATVOD (Authority for Television on Demand) has singled out the UK Column, and insisted they must submit to being regulated, simply for being ‘television like’. ATVOD’s current directory of regulated groups is mainly made up of porn sites, and big players in the video-on-demand sector, such as CBS, 4OD, and the BBC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0zP0ATo15w

After being threatened with a fine of £250,000 for non-compliance, the UK Column decided to take a stance against ATVOD by removing all of its videos from YouTube. Now we get to watch Mike and Brian sitting in a car, or at their kitchen table, doing all they can to not be at all ‘television like’.

Yeah, ‘television like’. There are thousands (millions?) of videos on YouTube which could be classed as being ‘television like’.

There’s the rub: almost every conceivable format has been shown on TV. So how can any production not be deemed to be ‘television like’? The UK Column were forced to chat to each other in a car, to not look at the camera too much, to not use techniques used by TV producers. If only ATVOD could clearly define what ‘TV like’ actually means … You see, they have described it as a “dynamic” and evolving concept, so it seems this is a concept which can only be understood by ATVOD, or a team of lawyers. The definition of ‘TV like’ evolves along with what TV is actually like, but these days, much of the (linear) programming is ‘reality TV’, just like most of YouTube. Perhaps there is no format which could not be classed as ‘like TV’ unless it is very short, or poorly produced!

Ofcom spawned ATVOD to “create a level playing field” between video-on-demand services which compete with linear TV services, and to regulate content, but the UK Column are not competing with linear TV in any way, and the last thing any activist wants is for their editorial to be monitored and regulated by a government quango.

This is a huge red alert! The Internet is supposed to allow free speech, and it is where activism has flourished. Now, however, any opposition to the prevailing paradigm is being classed as ‘extremism’, or ‘radicalism’; even old-age pensioners have been roughly man-handled and arrested under terrorism laws, simply for protesting against cuts to their rail fares.

Have you ever wondered why we’re allowed to say what we want on the Internet? It’s quite simply because it takes time to take control, erecting fences, passing laws. The Internet has been the equivalent of the Wild, Wild West, but bit by bit, we’re being reined in.

Maybe I, and thousands (millions?) of others, won’t even be able to write articles like this for much longer. Both the UK and the US are busy cracking down on whistleblowers, and journalism. The Leveson Inquiry into the ‘phone hacking scandal’ is being steered into regulation of the press. Likewise with the Media Shield law proposed by Feinstein in the US, and attempts to define ‘real journalists’ as only those in the paid employ of a regulated press.

The future for ‘the news’, it seems, will be vetted and embedded journalists, combined with automated AI-produced news stories,  and an even more tightly controlled mainstream media. So far, we activists have had the ‘luxury’ of being able to read and speak relatively freely. But now, the stranglehold is getting serious, and it’s time to take action; instead of just reading and speaking, we need to step away from the Internet and come together.

Start work on a placard or two, ready to walk the streets with those who also got off their seats.
But wait – could it be that all protestors are classed as domestic extremists? Jenny Jones, who is a Peer (House of Lords), and a member of the Green Party, has been put on the domestic extremist list, and surveilled. All she did was stick up for a pensioner who didn’t want to be on the list just for being a protestor! The Domestic Extremism Unit here in the UK has compiled a huge watchlist, but what constitutes a domestic extremist?

“Domestic Extremism relates to the activity of groups or individuals who commit or plan serious criminal activity motivated by a political or ideological viewpoint”

(Viewpoints which include opposition to fracking, capitalism, and austerity! – Source )

NetPol, the Network for Police Monitoring, has identified the problem with this definition of domestic extremism; it comes down to the way ‘serious crime’ is defined:

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), which regulates the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance, says that one of the tests of a ‘serious crime’ is whether someone with no previous convictions could reasonably be expected to be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of three years or more.”

However section 81(2b) of RIPA also includes this alternate test:

That the conduct involves the use of violence, results in substantial financial gain or is conduct by a large number of persons in pursuit of a common purpose. (Source)

It’s that last bit that gives serious cause for concern, does it not? And a wry nod to the twist on the term ‘common purpose’….

Can you believe it has come to this?

The voice of the resistance cannot be quelled, for dissent cannot be regulated.

It’s high time we all became active activists, by getting away from the Internet! NetPol are “encouraging activists to submit subject access requests” to find out who is on the secret police databases, and Brian and Mike suggest phoning ATVOD to seek clarification on the definition of ‘television like’, and to raise awareness of the issue generally.

Internet activism is not enough.

Spread the word and do something!