Chris Hipkins and “Contempt for democracy”

Labour whip Chris Hipkins has posted Contempt for democracy at Red Alert. He makes some points about the Government’s Charter Schools legislation process that are fair and reasonable for an opposition spokesperson to make.

Amongst that he also says:

Sadly, the government isn’t listening.

This whole process has been a sham.

A comment at The Standard takes issue:

Glen Forrester

Your eyes will roll at this. Chris Hipkins put up a story on Red Alert called CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACY on Saturday here http://tinyurl.com/cdekas6

Yesterday Chris deleted comments asking him if he thought the title was a bit hypocritical because he has been so criticized for his reaction to the democracy remits at the NZ Labour conference. Trevor or Clare might have done the deleting…

My comment never got through. I wasn’t even getting smart. I just said I thought it might be better to take critics on. Still in moderation or deleted though?!

I have screen captures of two other comments that were deleted. Anyone know how to post screen captures here at TS…

I had seen TS comments saying how Red Alert is censored like mad but I had not seen it myself. Do MP’s think you can censor voters when they go to vote? Daft.

Not exactly on topic but relevant to the question of democratic process.

Trevor (Mallard) and Clare (Curran) have reputations for very heavy handed message control and censorship at Red Alert – Clare admitted effectively banning me – but I don’t know if they still make the decisions there.

If true to recent form if Clare Curran found that Glen Forrester was a Labour Party member she might try to gag him from speaking at The Standard. Apparently she is still trying to get the Labour Council to squash critical and dissenting blog comments.

I think it would “be better to take critics on”, but that’s unlikely to suddenly start happening now.

Red Alert prominently claims:

These are the voices of Labour MPs on issues that we care about – and we’d like to hear what you think too.

Sadly, this party doesn’t want to listen.

This whole Red Alert has been a sham.

They do want to hear praise and supporting comments. But they have shown quite clearly that they don’t want to hear criticism, and they don’t want to answer reasonable questions.

It has been claimed by many, notably by Labour Party members and supporters, that Red Alert and the Labour caucus shows a contempt for democracy.

Labour attempting to convert The Standard into Red Alert 2?

The Labour strategy team seem to have come up with a cunning plan – rather than try and rescusitate a brain dead Red Alert blog they seem to be making moves on The Standard, trying to convince the troops their to become loyal party propagandists. Some are already propagandists, but loyalty to Labour leadership is very sparse.

As soon as David Shearer was re-confirmed by caucus as unchallenged leader there has been a flurry of visits by MPs and ex MP to The Standard. This is a different change of approach to ‘ignoring’ The Standard and dismissing it as insignificant anonymous no hoper no voters.

First was Annette King.

Next was Darien Fenton.

Yesterday Clare Curran had a go - particularly interesttinmg as she was very unpopular at The Standard last December, having been involved in attempts to muzzle Labour members who where being critical of the party leadership.

Hi there The Standard. Would like to comment occasionally. Our affordable housing policy and our monetary policy show we have moved a long way and are doing some deep thinking. Our relationship with The Greens is strengthening and mostly good and warm. We work together on many issues. The manufacturing inquiry is a very good example of this. We don’t agree on everything which is a healthy thing. My hope is that we can continue good, honest debates and be moving in the same direction.

That totally ignores sentiments and what has been discussed at The Standard for some time, and shows a total failure to understand the blog culture. It is an insulting attempt in soppy party PR – something many at The Standard have been highly critical of. And Curran had zero mana  points in the blog bank to try and pull a stunt like this off.

And today Stuart Nash has joined the campaign. He was an MP last term and was David Shearer’s first chief of staff last year (since replaced). After this comment in which he said things like:

I very much know what the issues are that good hard working NZers find important.

- an often repeated Labour parrot phrase that is widely despised at The Standard

and they need to be held to account along with all parties vying for labour’s votes and voters.

- talking as if Labour owns votes that others are trying to take off them

…he  has added…

I acknowledge all you say Anne, and agree with most, but I would just like to see this site as the place where the govt really is held to account for the way it has so badly failed the people of NZ.

There are some incredibly smart people on here (and I have immense respect for LP, who I have known for a while now) but let us never forget who the real enemy is: its not Shearer – or Cunliffe – its Key, Banks and the pricks who have driven up inequality to a dreadful level in this wonderful country we are all so passionate about.

Mind boggling. This response from Bill is probably typical:

I think what I detest – not above all, but it’s certainly right up there – is people trying to tell me what the fuck to do and what the fuck to think. And the noble defenders of the lost cause that used to be the Labour Party seem to be one trick ponies demanding silence and obedience/loyalty. There’s just nothing beyond that basic bleat. Whether it’s couched in pleading terms or accusory terms, it’s the same old, same old.

So to save you some energy and typing time, I’ll simply say this. It’s not happening. I won’t sit down. I won’t sit back. I won’t shut up.

If the Labour Party wants ‘nice’ commentary then the onus is on the Labour Party to get its shit together and deserve ‘nice’ commentary.

Capisce?

I suspect many from within and outside the party would think similarly at The Standard.

Labour almost seem to by trying a strategy of converting ‘The Standard’ into a loyal Labour blog that will dutifully attack their enemies as directed by leadership. It’s as if they have given up on Red Alert, having squashed any dissent and banned it into a ghostblog, and are now trying to take command at The Standard.

I don’t see lprent giving up his collective of personal power easily, and the Standard troops are not going to stomach this apparent coup without out a major fight.

It’s more likely The Standard will rebel even more against Labour leadership.

The Standard and Labour authoritarism and censorship

Labour message control and manipulation of comments and commenters at The Standard took a new turn yesterday when ‘moderator’-in-chief lprent (Lynn Prentice) overrode how one of the blog authors dealt with a dig at them – deletion of some subsequent comments and warnings to desist – and banned commenter Morrissey for four weeks.

And later the ban was doubled – seemingly as an afterthought and due to the actions of someone else.

It started when commenter Morrissey posted a dig at the author (QOT) of a post on Wednesday evening –

QOT initially responded…

Tell you what, I’ll give Morrissey a little warning, but leave this one up there. And bookmark it for future reference.

But this evolved during the day to…

[QoT: I invite others to refrain from responding to Morrissey on this thread henceforth.]

…and then a final warning followed by a banning…

[QoT: Morrissey, your hurt feelings because I don't like your hero's contemptible actions do not make your comments relevant to this thread. This thread is not going to devolve into another circlejerk about Julian fucking Assange. Stick to the topic or fuck off. Final warning.]

[lprent: too slight - as in I can't see ANY relevance. Looks like a deliberate hijack to me targeted off topic to attack one of my authors. Whilst QoT is having fun, I'm not. 4 week ban to discourage any repitition of this behaviour. ]

The banning is not unusual at The Standard (although lprent has been lately displaying increasing signs that his iron fingers run what is purportedly a ‘collective’ of authors).

Also in what is a trademark of Standard moderator ‘braveness’ after Morrissey was banned a number of his comments were deleted and replaced with attacks and attempts at ridicule – QOT knew she could do this without being challenged by someone she had banned.

She may have learned this from  the blog master lprent who often attacks people where he knows they can’t respond.

But wait, there’s more

But remarkably, when a friend of Morrisey posted a supporting comment, not only were they censored and banned for four weeks as well, but Morrisey’s ban was doubled – for something that may have had nothing to do with him.

And oddly this severed head was displayed at the entrance to yesterday’s (10th January) ‘Open Mic’ (the name of their supposed open forum is becoming a tad ironic).

Kiki 1
6 January 2013 at 10:10 pm

Morrissey: “I Shall Return”

[deleted]

As the French would say, quelle hypocrisie. Certainly, I am not without fault, but surely we should all be worried that someone as crude and vicious as QOT is able to set herself up as some kind of moral arbiter.

This message has been solicited and published by me as an act of support for my colleague and friend Morrissey.

[lprent: Oh piss off. The policy is clear on self-martyrdom offences

Abusing the sysop or post writers on their own site – including telling us how to run our site or what we should write. This is viewed as self-evident stupidity, and should be added as a category to the Darwin Awards.

Morrissey was acting like a complete arsehole. But he isn't the only one who can do that.

Oh and see that other nice self-martyrdom offence....

Generally wasting a moderators time is just not a good idea. We’re there to deal with isolated problems. People persistently sucking up our voluntary time won’t like the results.

Since you're such a friend then please explain to him that you just got a two month ban and collected him another another month. I'm uninterested in people acting like complete fuckwits and wasting my time.

Besides, after he e-mailed with some pathetic idea about what constitutes "defamation", I had another look at the first comment he left for QoT on her post. Seeing it again just got me even more irritated with the pretentious dildo. ]

  •  karol 1.2

    As an aside: I’m just puzzled by the date on the above comment.

    •  bad12 1.2.1

      Ah it might be a warning to ALL, could have sworn when i looked this morning that the first 3 comments were from ‘Jenny’,

      Course if your in the ‘chair’ you probably get to move things about…

Yes, the first comments were originally from Jenny but the banning has been presumably moved from an earlier thread, and promoted to the top of yesterday’s general forum thread. It looks like the date has been tweaked to achieve this.

This does appear to be a warning that not only is criticism of blog authors severely frowned on, but showing any support of banned commenters is a banning offence – and people can be banned (in this case a ban was doubled) because of the actions of others.

The Standard collective appears to be becoming ruled by an increasingly authoritarian ‘leader’.

This has parallels in the Labour Party.

Labour and The Standard integrity

Labour’s Red Alert blog is best known for it’s suppression of unwanted comment. It has become a farce, with a handful of regular commenters rolling a few tumbleweeds. Many people (including Labour Party members) report being banned.

Last month several commenters at The Standard said they would cease commenting due to pressure from Clare Curran to stop criticisng David Shearer.

This created a flurry of indignation at attempts at Labour censorship at The Standard. And there have been accusations that while the Labour membership voted at their recent conference for more democratic processes in the party it appears tha David Shearer and his caucus supporters are asserting more authority from the top.

It’s quite ironic that in parallel more heavy handed banning, censorship and ‘behaviour modification’ plus much more obvious displays of draconian leadership are apparent at The Standard.

Not just the leader and the sysop

This mode of message control and messenger targeting runs deeper than party leader and blog sysop.

Some participants a The Standard often join in the ‘moderation’. Weka pointed out early in the banning thread:

Also of note is that you’ve forgotten that it’s against ts rules to attack authors esp in their own threads.

In the same thread the accusations of misogny aimed at Morrissey expanded:

Populuxe1 3.4

Antisemitic, misogynistic, what next?

 felixviper 3.4.1

I’d wager he’s not all that keen on gay dudes either, but it’s just a hunch.

Populuxe1 3.4.1.1

I sensed as much – see you all in the death camp, guys.

 Morrissey 3.4.1.1.1

Another swing and a miss. You’re not clever enough to do this, my friend. You just look desperate.

I admit my nasty little message to QOT was unacceptable, but you are going way out on a limb. You know, I’m sure, that there’s a special place in Hell for Malicious Liars.

felixviper

Nah, I don’t think I’m far off the mark. The various strains of bigotry tend to be found in close proximity to one another.

It is also against the rules at The Standard to flame and provoke, but some regular trolls there have a free licence to harrass with virtual impunity. Malicious liars? ‘Felix’ has a longstanding habit of unsubstantiated accusations to try and manoevre people he chooses to eliminate from discussions into bans.

And this continues on another thread…

felixviper 9.1
11 January 2013 at 12:51 am

Oh look, another creepy stalker turning up just to leave off-topic sexist abuse for QoT.

It’s like this morning all over again.

Another day, another victim in the sights.

Labouring under free speech

Parties can allow or (try to) suppress free speech and discussion as much as they like. Their party, their rules.

Or as seems to be the case, their leader, their dictation of who can speak about what.

Blogs can censor and ban as much as they like, and they can encourage or attack a diversity of comments as much as they like.

Or as seems to be the case, his blog, his dictation of who can speak about what.

The Standard and Red Alert are widely seen as the online forums associated with the Labour Party. Red Alert is run by Labour MPs, The Standard is run by Labour Party members, and Labour has directly interfered with commenting there.

Both blogs seem to be mirroring Labour leadership in authoritarian behaviour enforcement, censorship and message control.

Red Alert revamp?

Labour deputy leader Grant Robertson hinted at a major revamp of Red Alert next year in one of his rare blog posts:

In terms of Red Alert, watch out in the new year for a re-launch with a different approach and way of doing things. Exciting times ahead.

If that includes ditching the paranoid censorship it may improve Red Alert substantially. It has been severely stifled by extreme moderation.

One of the most common comments in the blogosphere is “I’ve been banned from Red Alert” – and that’s seen across the political spectrum.

When I questioned my apparent banning with Clare Curran she said she didn’t trust me. If MPs can’t trust people to engage in honest discussion then they won’t be trusted, and they have a lot more to lose from that than us voters. And ex-voters. And ex-Labour voters.

Red Alert has turned a potential to engage into a part embarrassment. It will take a lot to turn that around.

The first step should be keeping MPs fingers off the ban buttons if they want to be seen as anything other than propaganda pushers and protectors. MPs should be encouraged to participate (much more than they have) but they can’t be players and referees at the same time.

Whatever Labour do to try and revive Red Alert it will be a challenge, starting with overcoming a severely tarnished reputation.

Request to reverse Red Alert bans

Therre was a couple of blog comments suggesting the reversing of mass bannings at Red Alert. At The Standard:

Neoleftie

Intesingly red alert isn’t being moderatated to the same degree these days…love live CV.
Maybe they should unban everyone and start again.

And at Red Alert itself:

GeoffCartwright

Uk without being rude or incurring the wrath of well CC perhap a salute to CV and freedom of speech is in order.
Also can I make a suggestion too.
We need a vibrant interactive labour blog so perhap delete the ban list and start again.
Labour is surely about freedom of speak differing opinion in broad broad tent of people.
We the people need a voice, we need connection and we need to interact in a free equal reasonable manner…
What say allow the banned voices back and start again…

CC refers to Clare Curran, who confronted CV (Colonial Viper) at the Labour Party conference over critical blog comments and then apparently heavied him and other Labour party members to cease commenting at The Standard.

However Curran has reiterated she wants to clamp down on free speech on blogs, to try and stop criticism of Labour (especially from within the party). So it’s unlikely she will listen – she may not hav even read the Red Alert request, because it hasn’t been deleted yet.

Alert! Red Alert has become a bloody blurt

More on  Labour gagging and the serious problems at Red Alert with a red flag warning. Lynn Prentice comments on the Colonial Viper gagging at The Standard:

Based on the known misuses that went on at Red Alert last year, Occams razor would tend to suggest the simplier explanation of technical means is a damn sight more likely than someone referring to themselves by their psuedonym in a email. Matching email addresses or IPs for a admin at RedAlert is a hell of a lot more likely.

But I suspect it isn’t that likely he was signed as colonial viper. We know that CC spoke to CV about being CV in person on at least one occasion. When she was threatening to “out” him during lobbying at this years conference.

In any case, he was operating under a psuedonym all and saying no more than you’d expect a party member to say. If describing the deficiencies of last years campaign is making the party lok bad, then the MP’s and their staff should look in a frigging mirror.

Quite simply you kind of think that Clare and some of the other MP’s would prefer that we were mindless bots…

Labour leadership and (some) MPs seem to want silent and subservient party slaves, but obviously Lynn hasn’t been (successfully) gagged by Clare Curran’s clampdown campaign yet.

Problem is that there have been similar leaks like this from people at Red Alert in the past. One resulted in someone losing their job. 

Basically when it comes to breaches on the net, you have to look at what is likely from the access and what has happened in the past. The presumption is that there won’t be any definitive proof and usually the behaviours are not illegal. So you warn people about likely idiotic behaviours instead. 

Some people running Red Alert have been doing some seriously stupid stuff for quite some time. Threatening to out people for mere political advantage kind of tops even the previous low of getting someone fired for comments that they left on RA.

I’m merely voicing my opinion on exactly how people should avoid such arseholes of the net.

Lynn has already warned any party members that they shouldn’t comment at Red Alert if they value the privacy of their information, safety of their pseudonym and if they value freedom of speech unimpeded by harrassment.

Promoted as a great Open Labour forum for the people Red Alert has become a bloody blurt for paranoid MPs.

Red Alert compromising anonymity?

Concerns about Labour’s use of social media keeps growing.

It’s widely known that contrary or dissenting opinions get a hard time at Red Alert. Comments get deleted and people get blocked from commenting – I’ve experienced both and I presume I’m still effectively banned from commenting there. That happens, site operators can allow or block whatever comments they choose.

But a comment by lprent at The Standard suggests something far more serious.

But I’d advise anyone who has used a pseudonym on Red Alert that could compromise them in real life to expect problems. The system operators over there are quite compromised, don’t act responsibly, and have been that way for some time. Quite simply they are not operating in a way that makes it safe to leave comments there unless you have cast-iron anonymity. 

Now lprent and I aren’t the best of buddies and there’s quite a bit of blogger game playing between us. He doesn’t like being told how to run his site (that’s another matter and quite ironic in the current context) and I won’t subject myself to his limitations of what I can say.

But his comment about Red Alert should be taken seriously, with his technical background and inside Labour knowledge and contacts he should know what he’s talking about there.

And when you add this information to this – Something sinister going on within Labour – then some big questions need to be asked about how Labour is operating in social media.

I don’t have any personal concern as I was always open about who I was when I was allowed to comment at Red Alert, but anyone who values anonymity and protection from political dirty tricks should heed lprent’s warning. And if your anonimity  has already been compromised then be warned.

A much wider issue

There is a wider issue than Labour and Red Alert here. If Red Alert has been breaching trust that will impact on the trust people will have for any political blog. It would discredit the whole political blogosphere.

Labour and Red Alert site operators need to come clean, or assure that they have been scrupulous.

In the meantime another message from lprent:

I’d advise people to think carefully before putting comments at Red Alert if your identity can in anyway be traced back to you. I guess that is why the comments are dropping like a stone over there.

It is quite unacceptable net behaviour.

I do have to ask why this is only coming out now?

Update:

lprent

There is little point naming the person(s) when what is actually required is a change of collective behaviour by caucus in the way that they handle a blogs and their net presence. In particular the malfeasant transfer of information that should be private out of Red Alert and matching it with other information, like comments on this site.

(referring to The Standard)

Peter (a different one)

 Nah, it’s more that some MPs are spending a large amount of their time trawling through blogs, and Facebook etc, and then intimidating members based on what they say, particularly if it doesn’t agree with them. I don’t know if its an overt strategy or policy of NZ Council, but it’s certainly a policy of about 3-4 core MPs, and there may even be a a rogue one in there who can’t help themselves.

From: http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-07122012/

Not ‘a right wing blogger’

TV3 gave fair coverage on Firstline of the issue I raised about the Green Party fundraising campaign for their poverty politics.

But there was one inaccuracy – I was referred as ‘a right wing blogger’. That’s hilarious.

I happen to comment predominately on right wing blogs such as Kiwiblog and Whale Oil because they are very open forums, with little restriction to commenting. The troops there will also laugh at me being called a right wing blogger.

I don’t comment any more on the major left wing blog The Standard because after being banned a number of times I have been permanently banned. They took exception to me questioning and highlighting some of their blatant lies, abuse and harrassment in posts and comments.

I was often referred to as a righty, a tory and a RWNJ at The Standard, but that was just abuse or relative to the left of Labour or Mana commenters who abuse rather than engage in discussion.

I have also been blocked from commenting at Labour’s Red Alert by Clare Curran, particulalry ironic as Clare talks about supporting open government, but in practice tries to control the party message as much as most politicians.

I don’t see myself as either left or right. I’m soft of a centrist but support both leftish and rightish policies as I see fit. Hard core righties and hard core lefties don’t understand this pragmatic political approach but centerish is by far the most common starting position for many in politics, obviously for United Future but also including much of both National and Labour stances.

Addressing Clare Curran’s refusal to engage

Some people wonder how out of touch with the people Labour MPs are. Here’s an example – a very hypocritical example.

Clare Curran has been posting on Red Alert criticising Bill English’s availability to the public:

A message to Bill

Bill English, it appears many people in your electorate don’t want you to sell our assets. And how about being a bit more available to them!

How many electorates aren’t being well served by National MPs?

And how much direct constituency work they do and what options are open to constituents if they try to approach their local MP and are rebuffed, ignored or can’t make contact because it’s always closed.

After I commented Clare made some direct and indirect accusations – which are false.

I posted a comment and link to a response this morning, that comment appeared but soon disapeared.

I emailed Clare to explain and seek clarifiation and justification for her accusations. She replied, effectively saying she didn’t believe me.

And she said she would “not be engaging with you further.”

I posted a comment on Red Alert to explain my side of the story. This comment wasn’t accepted, it seems to have been automatically blocked. This is what I said.

I’ve exchanged emails with Clare trying to clarify accusations she made. She makes her own assumptions and simply refuses to believe me.

She closed with:
“Red Alert and Labour MPs on facebook and Twitter engage in real debates and conversations. But people who have malicious intent should not be tolerated by anyone on the internet.

Feel free to publish my comments as no doubt you will.

I shall not be engaging with you further.”

The irony in that is obvious, in a post accusing another MP of not being available.

I don’t believe her accusations (to me) are malicious, just poorly reasoned, and wrong. I don’t act maliciously, I often speak up against online maliciousness.

In a comment above Clare said “I’m worried that many electorates are not being well served. This post is not a stunt.”

The irony (and hypocrisy) is obvious, where she runs a campaign accusing another MP of not being available to the public but at the same time refuses to engage, and censors blog comments.

Labour MPs are being widely criticised for a lack of engagement with the public. For example, see the comments on a left wing blog, The Standard: What the polls are saying.

And Labour MPs, while actively criticisng other MPs and people, remain blind to their own disconnect with the real world, and the reasons for that.

That’s sad.

Supporting Darien Fenton supporting business

Darien Fenton posted in Red Alert on The migrant worker exploitation morass. I was a bit half cocked and snarky in a comment and she called me on it – fair enough. I didn’t think things through, assumed too much, and as Darien said it was”an irrelevant political shot “.

I need to look more into the migrant worker issue and may comment on that later.

In response to one of my assumptions Darien explained her support for businesses:

Just so you know, I always defend good employers and businesses. We need them. That was one point in my post – much of the contact I’ve had has been from small business who are concerned that they can’t compete with employers who break the law. They were supporting the comments I have made in the media and asking me to keep at it.

I’ve been hearing quite a bit of “workers good, employers bad” in other places, I let that influence my comments too much.

It’s good so see that people like Darien who actually get involved in problems have a better understanding of the good and the bad of any group. That often doesn’t come across well in the media.

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