Katherine Denkinson

Bonus protest pup

This afternoon @indivisableabroad.bsky.social & @americansforaction.bsky.social gathered at the Mayflower Steps in Plymouth to share info on Trump, ICE & the worrying trends linking anti-immigration sentiment in the US & UK.

Further pics/vids/details available if any editors are interested.

A year after racist riots erupted across England and Northern Ireland following the murder of Bebe King (aged 6), Elsie Dot Stancombe (aged 7) and Alice da Silva Aguiar (aged 9) in Southport, Amnesty International has found that social media platform X played a central role in the spread of false narratives and content which incited violence against Muslim and migrant communities. Our analysis of X’s open-source code reveals that the platform’s content ranking algorithms prioritise the type of content that can spread misinformation and hate, with deeply inadequate safeguards to prevent human rights abuses. “Our research demonstrates that these design choices significantly exacerbated human rights risks for racialised communities in the wake of the Southport riots– and continues to present a serious human rights risk today,” said Pat de Brún, Amnesty International’s Head of Big Tech Accountability. Islamophobic and xenophobic rhetoric on X after Southport Attack Within hours of the murder of the three young girls and attempted murder of ten others by 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, incendiary posts by far-right influencers went viral on X. Within 24 hours, posts falsely claiming the attacker was Muslim, a refugee and/or a migrant who had arrived by boat reached an estimated 27 million impressions. Our analysis of the recommender system and the removal of safeguards at X demonstrate that it is set up to amplify this type of harmful content and that there are few safeguards to prevent it. The net result was a staggering amplification of hate speech and anti-migrant sentiment. Andrew Tate, a notorious online influencer, posted a video falsely claiming the attacker was an “undocumented migrant” who “arrived on a boat” whilst Elon Musk claimed that “civil war is inevitable”. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s (also known as Tommy Robinson’s) posts on X, including claims such as there being “more evidence to suggest Islam is a mental health issue rather than a religion of peace”…

New research out today: Amnesty International has found that X/Twitter played a central role in the spread of false narratives and content which incited violence against Muslim and migrant communities in the UK last summer

Row erupts as PSNI escort drag queens from venue after protest at children storytelling event A row has erupted over a drag queen storytelling event in east Belfast last week.

Full BT article here: m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...

Drag queens ‘escorted’ from a story hour by police b/c of an anti-drag protest. I wrote about this growing hate 2 yrs ago & it’s not going to improve unless we tackle moral panics head-on. bylinetimes.com/2023/06/22/n...

The Turning Point Takeover: The Growing Network Bringing Trump’s Politics to the UK The Women's Safety Initiative is getting more attention, but its ideological underpinnings deserve serious scrutiny, reports Katherine Denkinson

The Turning Point Takeover: The growing network of “grassroots” groups bringing Trump’s politics to the UK. My latest for @bylinetimes.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2025/08/05/t...

Freelance journalists given rare chance to 'right wrongs' of unfair payment practices Govt consultation provides opportunity for freelance journalists to improve their pay terms. The NUJ's Tim Dawson explains.

Useful information for freelancers: pressgazette.co.uk/news/freelan...

AI-generated images of people throwing bottles of food in the sea towards Gaza shared online – Full Fact There have been genuine reports of Egyptians doing this, but the images in these posts aren’t real and were made using AI.

Images which appear to show people throwing plastic bottles filled with food into the sea towards Gaza aren’t real.

Although there have been genuine reports of people doing this, some viral images circulating online were made using AI.

'Anti-clickbait' Facebook page relaunches after Ladbible complaints led to takedown The Anti-Clickbait Society 2.0 is a Facebook page dedicated to tackling the use of clickbait headlines on social media.

Clickbait is lucrative, but it’s killing trust in the news. These guys are fighting back and the usual suspects want them silenced: pressgazette.co.uk/news/anti-cl...

YouTube video by BionicandtheWires Mushroom Playing Keyboard

Randomly discovered that scientists rigged up a system that lets mushrooms play music. Although the way it works, it’s more like hearing them talk, which is even cooler. m.youtube.com/watch?v=kmlF...

Met Police have dropped the charges against Mo Chara t.co/9zWik8XPGU

Marcus Arduini Monzo has been sentenced. Judge Bennathan noted that, had he “been in his right mind” the sentence could hv been 50yrs but, “taking into account [his] mental ill health & previous good character” his sentence was life w/ a minimum of 38yrs 309 days.

After some discussion the MPTS have agreed that his erasure from the register will be active immediately.

Since Oct last yr I’ve been attending the tribunal hearing of anti-vax doctor David Cartland for harassment of other professionals & “attempting to flout the [vaccine] exemption procedure”.

This morning they determined “his misconduct was fundamentally incompatible with continued registration”.

Psst… go follow Bristol Radical Film Festival bsky.app/profile/bris...

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Plymouth anti-fascists vs the Great British “Strike”.

Controversial Spy-Tech Firm’s Inclusion at NHS Confederation Expo Leads to Speaker Pulling Out An internal NHS Confederation email acknowledged that 'many colleagues will have concerns' about Palantir's inclusion

🔴NEW: Controversial Spy-Tech Firm’s Inclusion at NHS Confederation Expo Leads to Speaker Pulling Out

An internal NHS Confederation email acknowledged that ‘many colleagues will have concerns’ about Palantir’s inclusion

Me / Olly Haynes, for @bylinetimes.bsky.social:
bylinetimes.com/2025/05/07/p...

Naomi's 24 Hour True Crime Podcast for Victim Support Help Naomi Channell raise money to support Victim Support

This afternoon I will be participating in a 24hr charity podcast raising money for Victim Support. If you want to join the audience or donate, details are in the link! www.justgiving.com/page/24hourp...

Aw cheers!

Crowdfund site used by Wootton linked to shadowy think tanks Exclusive: Democracy 3.0 hosts campaigns by politicians, but lacks transparency about donations

His crowdfunding platform has an..interesting..history too www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-mone...

Hospital tells family brain-dead Georgia woman must carry fetus to birth because of abortion ban A hospital is using a breathing tube and other measures to keep a brain-dead Georgia woman's body functioning because she is pregnant.

Georgia keeping a braindead woman on life support b/c she was ~9wks pregnant & to remove it contravenes their abortion laws…wtaf apnews.com/article/preg...

I’m not a poet, but I had some thoughts about Starmer’s speech…

7 reasons I will not let my kids anywhere near social media or online gaming platforms.

🌟 Looking for some very specific experts for a big project I’m working on.🌟

Psychologists with knowledge of the role of disgust in rape/sexual offences (ie male rapists/offenders who are viscerally disgusted by women) - I need to pick your brains. If that’s you, come say hi. Thanks!

Suspected 4chan Hack Could Expose Longtime, Anonymous Admins Though the exact details of the situation have not been confirmed, community infighting seems to have spilled out in a breach of the notorious image board.

The anonymous image board 4chan has survived years of controversy, weathering user and advertiser boycotts as well as damning accusations that it incubated hate speech that may have fueled mass shootings

This week, though, a series of outages led to speculation that the site had been hacked.

2 wks ago a female astronaut returned after being stuck on the ISS for 9 months. Why are we giving similar levels of coverage to a pop star & a billionaire’s wife doing an 11 minute publicity tour?

Bournemouth Writing Festival to host first naked session Writers are being urged to

Lit festival holding ‘naked writing workshop’, with quotes from the guy organising it & two male attendees…are any women going & were their opinions sought? bbc.in/4i98ccm

Dan Wootton tricked colleague into sending intimate pictures, court told The former Sun and GB News journalist is accused of posing as a woman online to

Will be interesting to see how this pans out… www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...