Nima

Nobody does racist, antisemitic, and islamophobic caricatures quite like the British press.

24 hours since the Daily Mail published in print and online, several lies about us and they still haven’t corrected any of them. The journalistic malpractice is deep here. They have yet to add our comments despite asking for it. They have yet to correct lies about where @Nimaeux went to school. They are yet to remove the line about where he lives. They are yet to remove the line where they claim NewsCord and its founder supports Hamas and the Chinese government. They are yet to remove the line about Tech for Palestine overseeing our funding round. They are yet to remove the line about how NewsCord’s campaigns don’t have the functionality to edit and view complaints before users submit them. They absolutely can. On every single campaign. This is an integral feature of our work. The lies reek of desperation. This is proof we are doing something right.

From @Nimaeux (Nima), regarding the full-page hit piece today by the Mail: "There is nothing more vindicating than watching the misinformation rag that is the Daily Mail run a full-page hit piece on your organisation, and on you personally. It claims to be about our Ali G campaign. In reality, it's full of disgraceful tangents, written to damage our credibility and to intimidate me. The "journalist" who wrote it, @guyadams, did some incredible work digging through my LinkedIn, where he decided my past workplaces were relevant. Then he went a step further and exposed where I live. I don't mean the borough. He printed, in the paper and online, the two-square-kilometre area I live in. Population: just 12,000 people. How is that of journalistic interest? What is that, if not an intimidation tactic? Then the misinformation. Remarkably, he went after the school I went to as a child. He claims I went to a private school in West London that costs £32,000 a year. That is outright false. I grew up in Hackney and went to a state school from years 7 to 11. After achieving good grades, I got into a grammar school in North London for years 12 and 13 (A Levels). Apart from a few tutors during my GCSEs, my parents haven't paid a penny towards my education. He then says I support Hamas and the Chinese government. Couple that with the fact that he has exposed the 2 km² area in which I live, an incredibly dangerous lie. His whole case for the China claim hinges on a campaign we ran about the BBC's coverage of the Nepal and Tibet floods, where the BBC claimed Chinese social media was suppressing footage. The BBC has since changed its coverage. And that's what Adams and the Mail take as proof that we support the Chinese government? He then lies about Tech for Palestine's role in our organisation. We are incredibly proud to be part of T4P's incubator programme since close to its inception. But they have played zero role in our funding round, contrary to what Guy Adams claims. Do you see what this so-called news outlet is doing? They want to make you uncomfortable. They'll do everything to push an agenda except the one thing they market themselves on: telling the news. So why go to all this trouble? Because our campaign to get cinema chains around the world to refuse to screen the new Ali G film has ruffled all the right feathers. Over 50,000 emails have now gone to cinema chains worldwide. The outlets most prolific at spreading hatred and racism are the very ones most offended by it. The BBFC, also a target of our campaign, still hasn't classified the film, and says no request has even been submitted. To recap why we're doing this. Ali G is sold as satire about a white man "trying to be Black". In practice, the character reinforces harmful, racist stereotypes about Black people, Jamaicans in particular, built on what he thinks that culture is. In his quest to be Black, he's a misogynist, he takes drugs, he swears, and he leans on trope after negative trope. If you know Black culture, this won't faze you. It's an unfunny, boring, rinsed take on something that might have been funny two decades ago. But think about the people for whom this is their first exposure to Black or Jamaican culture. They're none the wiser. They think what Ali G is trying to be is how Black people actually live. The rags are furious. They're desperately trying to tie our campaign to Sacha Baron Cohen's advocacy for Israel. That attempt is a concession. They're scrabbling for any explanation of this campaign that avoids the real one: this racist, vile show has no place in our society. The Mail dug deep for its explanation. Its key reason: the rest of our campaigns focus on Western media's bias against Palestine. Conveniently, it left out our campaign about Professor Jason Arday. The Daily Mail was one of the targets of that campaign, and our complaint against it is now with IPSO. The Mail published 30 articles about Professor Arday in just nine days. Adams also calls this a sinister, AI-driven campaign backed by Silicon Valley and our investors. This is outright false. We consulted with Black people in our community who were horrified at the comeback of Ali G, and made a decision to run a campaign by ourselves. Like we do for all our campaigns. Every complaint comes from a genuine person taking part. Our tech is the next step on from the copy-and-paste campaigns people have run for years. Each person can take part once and can edit their message before it's sent. These are real people who agree with the campaign and were moved enough to act. People use AI to write emails all the time now. Our tech simply uses that so thousands of your voices can't be ignored. The Mail, other outlets and, sadly, the UK Cinema Association are hiding behind the word "AI" so they don't have to answer real complaints from real people. And just to show you how morally bankrupt their so-called journalism is: the article says I was approached for comment and declined. They reached out two days ago. I replied the same day. I'm seeking legal advice and assessing our options against the Mail. We want to use this to finally hold them accountable. Please share this with anyone who, for some bizarre reason, still reads the Mail. Whatever you think of what I've just said, they have published false information about NewsCord and about me. They don't care about delivering you the news. They're playing a whole different game, and you can refuse to take part today." Our campaign is still live and ready for you to take part in: newscord.org/action/cinemas-…

The BBC reveals an interesting double standard in response to Stage 2 complaints. The complaint was about their refusal to clarify that Israel had not provided evidence to back up their claim regarding one of their attacks in Gaza. The BBC says that they don't need to make this clear because it should be implicit that no evidence was provided. The BBC, in previous complaint responses, has said that it includes qualifiers relating to the Gaza Health Ministry, such as "Hamas-run", for "transparency" (we'll post an example of this response as a reply to this tweet). So why does the BBC reduce credibility for "transparency" purposes for the oppressed, but leave it open as it's apparently "implicit" for the oppressor? It's this repeated double standard from the BBC which has destroyed its credibility and exposed its complicity in whitewashing a genocide.

New campaign: demand cinemas worldwide refuse to screen the new Ali G film. Sacha Baron Cohen retired Ali G in 2007. Amazon has revived him. On 23 October, Ali G: Who Iz I? opens in cinemas worldwide, and Sony Pictures is selling it to the public with the line "He iz back. We ain't liable." The distributor is joking about liability. But the screens belong to the cinemas, and a booking is a choice. In January 2000, the Guardian reported the verdict of Black British comedians under the headline "Comics find Ali G is an alibi for racism". Felix Dexter said the act lets "the liberal middle classes laugh at black street culture" while keeping their sense of political correctness. The catalogue behind it hurt community after community. The Kazakh American Association told Amazon that in Borat "a white person adorns a Kazakh persona" and belittles everything Kazakhs stand for. Kazakh children were bullied at school off the back of the joke. On The Dictator, Jack Shaheen said "Arabs are being ridiculed again and again and again", and Dean Obeidallah called it a "modern-day minstrel show". Studios sell films. Cinemas choose them. No film is owed a screen. So we've created a campaign where you can voice your opinion to the cinemas. One click sends up to 20 personalised letters in your name to the booking desks of Odeon, Cineworld, Regal, Vue, Everyman, Picturehouse, Showcase, Cinemark, Harkins, B&B, Landmark, Cineplex, Event, Kinepolis, VOX, Reel, Pathé, CinemaxX, Cinépolis, Cinemex and Nordisk Film. Every address is verified on the chain's own website. Non-English chains get the letter in their own language. You read every letter before it is sent. The chains decide their bookings in the next eight weeks. Ask them to refuse this one: newscord.org/action/cinemas-…

The NewsCord Chrome extension auto-highlighted this excerpt from a BBC News article where uneven qualifications were applied. The point of the extension is that you can read the news as normal but see linguistic or manipulative techniques highlighted for you in real time. Add it to your browser and let it do its thing in the background: chromewebstore.google.com/de… Firefox, Opera and Brave plugins coming soon.