One month on, the censorship still does not make sense

by ecologics

The last month has shown that, if anyone thought they could silence this blog, they were spectacularly mistaken. The paradox is that this blog was being wound down before WordPress decided to remove four of its posts, apparently at the behest of University of Liverpool Legal Department. The posts are back up, and in the event, I changed my mind about the blog and decided to pursue the issues behind the censorship in greater detail and depth, and with a renewed gusto.

Other bloggers are doing the same. Indeed, already the BristleKRS blogger and the good people at What Do They Know have published, via the Freedom of Information Act, some information that sheds light on the news that we received back in the summer of 2007, that UWE was very soon to be bereft of its existing Vice-Chancellor, and that Liverpool had rather quickly acquired a new one.

As John B. Thompson says in his excellent book, Political Scandal, when individuals or institutions at the centre of scandal try to deny that they are involved, or try to silence those who impute them with moral transgressions, ‘second order transgressions’ may be disclosed which ‘can be even more damaging for an individual’s reputation than the disclosure of the original offence’(1). Once the media become involved, Thompson further notes that, ‘the individuals at the centre of [scandals] become caught up in a process that is very difficult to control, and in which their attempts to exercise control can easily become unstuck’(2).

The biggest irony of the ‘BristolBloggerGate’ is that,  after the censorship, a significant number of people who had never heard of this blog, and who probably had never seen the terms ‘Howard Newby’ and ‘Carter & Carter’ in one same page (or perhaps even in separate pages), have now done so. Members of the national press are watching this story with some interest, or so I’m told, and conversely, people who probably have never even read an issue of Private Eye may now have seen at least one of its articles. Even now, they will be drawing their own conclusions about the nature of the action to suppress information that had been in the public domain in Private Eye and other publications for over two years.

Regrettably given WordPress.com’s hitherto really excellent track record when it comes to censorship, many will also be drawing their own conclusions vis-à-vis the way in which the company took down the posts/blogs, apparently after no more than a threat of legal action. One month after the event, WordPress has still offered no detailed explanation of what happened, how, and why; in the event, other bloggers who were affected  (The Bristol Blogger, which is probably Bristol’s most followed political blog; and the more recent HowardNewbyWatch) and I myself have reason to believe that the company simply dared not contest the instructions of the Legal Department of Liverpool University. BristleKRS refers to an interesting post by former British Ambassador Craig Murray, which shows that blog hosts need not necessarily believe the threats of lawyers. I would still like to know exactly why WordPress took the actions that it did take; I am, however, not holding my breath.

WordPress may have believed, and indeed probably still does believe that it had to take down the posts—to its credit, it has allowed at least some of the information to reappear, albeit in a different form, in this blog. When, however, it is considered that the other two affected blogs have been shut down (however temporarily, and in the Bristol Blogger’s case, following the decision of the blogger to move elsewhere), then the implications of the action acquire their full significance. After January 5 (or perhaps much earlier, I have it from good sources that this has happened before), no blogger can assume that they are safe from censorship long before any judge or court have been consulted. At the risk of blowing this blog’s own trumpet, I am reminded yet again of Martin Niemöller’s words, which I quoted in the very first post in this blog: ‘…When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out’.

The ‘they’ in the context of the January 5 censorship involves all those individuals and institutions who stand to gain political and symbolic, but especially economic power from the privatisation of the UK’s, and indeed other countries’ higher educational systems. Just this week, the Guardian published news that Lego (Lego!) wants to set up a ‘Lego University’ in Denmark. Like Britain a few years ago, Denmark still doesn’t allow private universities, but its right-wing government is looking to change the rules. Jens Vraa-Jensen, who chairs the higher education and research standing committee of Education International, an organisation which brings together more than 100 lecturers’ unions worldwide, was quoted by the same article in the Guardian as saying that ‘The government thinks every activity in teaching and research in universities should result in an invoice’. But Vraa-Jensen rightly notes that ‘The purpose of a private company is not providing high-quality, independent, critical understanding of society or natural sciences, but to make money for its owners, whether it produces knowledge, or rubber boots’. In Denmark as in Britain, the colonisation of higher education by big business can only result in the loss of the relative autonomy of all those academics who have not already sold, or been forced to sell their research to private companies. If Peter Mandelson, New Labour and the advocates of the HE variety of ‘Knowledge Exchange‘ have their way, teaching and learning are next.

Significantly, the Guardian also quotes a UCU spokesman as saying that ‘Education and training are seen as a growth market by investment funds and private equity firms’. ‘Some of the best-performing companies in recent years have been private education and training providers’. Anyone wishing to get a sense of the role of one such firm in the UK—one which, I may add, appears to have played a role in Carter and Carter—may wish to see my post New Labour: Is it a Small World After All?, in which I muse on the possible interconnections between the various entities that are involved, directly or indirectly, in what I have described as the skillification of higher education in the UK.

This post is growing rather long, and so I will stop now. I should however note that, critical as I am of WordPress’ decision to remove posts/blogs, I can certainly see the Index of Censorship’s point when it noted in a post about the censorship of this and other blogs that ‘It’s tempting to blame WordPress for this, and the haste with which they complied with the solicitors is a little worrying. But the problem here is of course, with the libel laws’. The person in charge of changing this law, and who keeps saying that he will change it, is none other than Jack Straw, the UK’s Justice Secretary, the same man who we recently saw in action in the Chilcot inquiry. Straw has received a less than enthusiastic press on the part of some of those who have denounced the UK’s repressive libel laws (see for example Monbiot’s comments). In so far as action to remedy the situation depends on politicians like Straw (let us not forget that the Tories probably come next), it seems unlikely that things will improve any time soon. I wonder if New Labour have stopped to think what the Tories can do to them with these self-same laws?

Despite this state of affairs, the critiques must, and will, go on. If you haven’t done so already, please have a look at my new series, Financial Scandal, Corruption and Censorship.

References

1) J. B. Thompson (2000) Political Scandal, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 23, emphasis added.
2) Political Scandal, op. cit. p. 62