14-year old Molly Russel seemed an unlikely candidate for suicide according to her Father Ian, Shortly before ending her life, she’d been celebrating a joint birthday party for her elder sisters. It was only after her death that Ian reviewed her social media accounts on Instagram and Pinterest and found images of self-harm. A “Sunday Times” investigation found pictures of blood-spattered arms, a number of self-inflicted injuries and even an image of a naked girl sitting in a sink of blood emblazoned with the words, “she found relief in a knife”. Many of the rather indecent images contained hashtags such as #killmeplease.

The general consensus is that such material should;t be seen by children but implementing this is more problematic. The Times has reported that UK health secretary Matt Hancock wrote to tech companies such as Instagram’s owner Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Snapchat and Pinterest to tell them to remove disturbing material or face legislation.

Molly’s father would like to take this a step further by introducing an independent regulator to ensure indecent or illegal content can be removed from social media sites, who can be held accountable if they refuse. There may be some appetite for this as the Coroner leading the Inquest has indicated that he may order social media companies like Facebook to hand over Molly’s data: to date, they’ve refused to do so citing privacy concerns.

This was also an issue for Ian when he tried to unlock Molly’s iPhone and iPad-as the passcode is stored on the device, Apply employees were unable to help. The threat of being charged with perverting the course of justice is likely to push companies further in a direction where they take less responsibility for the content they create. A spokesperson for Instagram was quick to point out last week that images promoting self-harm or suicide are already forbidden by the platform. Clearly, the way forward is to support independent regulation of social media as the alternative of installing a government-mandated backdoor into devices and privacy policies would place a stranglehold on civil liberties.

As a parent, however, the only surefire way to keep your children safe from paedophiles, abuse and self-harm is to place a family PC in a communal area and make sure you’re there when your loved ones are using it. That way if your child sees something which troubles them, they can at least ask you about it.

Nathan Jordan

Jersey, Channel Islands

Pravda (Nathan Jordan)

Should the Dark Net be illegal?

January 27, 2019

The ‘Darknet’ is an umbrella term for the visceral undergrowth of the Internet where connections to websites are routed through multiple computers. If used correctly, this makes it very difficult indeed for law enforcement to trace people and sites on the dark web. This, in turn, has led to the rise of a number of pages offering illegal services such as underground markers for controlled drugs, illegal pornography sites containing indecent images and forums for hate speech. Given that these sites rely heavily on the anonymity of the darknet, why don’t world governments pour all their resources into shutting it down?

The first answer to this is that they can and do – several years ago web hosting provider Freedom Hosting was shut down for harbouring a number of illefal services suchas indecent images. The FBI also successfully catured Ross Ulbricht, the man behind the dark net drugs market “Silk Road” and shut down his site. However, the “onion” method of routing your connection through various serverss was actually originally invented by the US Navy as a way to protect personnel overseas. In countries with restrictive web censorship such as China, the dark net is one of the very few ways to access western news services.

Government workers can also e-mail their home country without giving away their real location. The dark web is a tool, much like a spade. A spade can be use
d to dig a ditch to build an prihanage or to assault an innocent persion. The fact that spades can be misused is no more a reason to ban them than the dark net.

Nathan Jordan

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A truly miserable “Les Miserables”

January 27, 2019

After reading Ron Shipley’s column in the Jersey Evening Post, I too have been comparing the recent series (Sunday’s 21:00 BBC1) very favourably with the 2012 musical version. Victor Hugo holds a special place in the hear of Channel Islanders, as he spent his exile both here in Jersey and in Guernsey, where Les Mis was written.

The BBC version follows the book much more faithfully: the incident where Valjean bitterly takes 40 sons from the young Savoyard petit-Gervais isn’t glossed over. Derek Jacobi has a stellar cameo as the Bishop and Thenardier is shown as being domestically violent towards his wife. The series paints an image of a truly miserable time, replete with assault, rape and murder: in one chilling scene Fontaine’s front teeth are pulled out for the horrified viewing pleasure of viewers. This indecent assault on the senses is coupled with her descent into prostitution being shown in far more graphic detail than in it’s twee musical version. It’s mo…READ MORE Powered by BloggerTheme images by Michael ElkanNATHAN JORDANVISIT PROFILE

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ravda (Nathan Jordan)

A truly miserable “Les Miserables” After reading Ron Shipley’s column in the Jersey Evening Post, I too have been comparing the recent series (Sunday’s 21:00 BBC1) very favourably with the 2012 musical version. Victor Hugo holds a special place in the hear of Channel Islanders, as he spent his exile both here in Jersey and in Guernsey, where Les Mis was written.

The BBC version follows the book much more faithfully: the incident where Valjean bitterly takes 40 sons from the young Savoyard petit-Gervais isn’t glossed over. Derek Jacobi has a stellar cameo as the Bishop and Thenardier is shown as being domestically violent towards his wife. The series paints an image of a truly miserable time, replete with assault, rape and murder: in one chilling scene Fontaine’s front teeth are pulled out for the horrified viewing pleasure of viewers. This indecent assault on the senses is coupled with her descent into prostitution being shown in far more graphic detail than in it’s twee musical version. It’s more filthy, more sexual and more violent- in short, more faithful to Hugo’s vision of a truly wretched time.

At the time of writing Valjean has yet to trudge through Parisian sewers with an injured Marius on his back but given that the series has pulled no punches so far, I doubt the Producers will worry over causing offence to squeamish
 viewers!

Nathan Jordan

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