London Mayor Axes Cyber Crime Victim Support Line (ft.com) 29
London's mayor has axed a cyber crime helpline for the victims of online abuse, triggering a backlash from campaigners who argue that women and girls will be left struggling to access vital support. From a report: The service, which was shut down on Tuesday, assisted victims of fraud, revenge porn and cyberstalking to protect their digital identity. During its 18-months of operation it led to 2,060 cases being opened. The helpline was launched in 2023 as a one-year pilot scheme with $220,000 in funding from the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac), and was later extended by six months.
Conservative London Assembly member Emma Best said an informal evaluation showed the helpline "was working" and was going to be extended for another year. However, Sadiq Khan said that the scheme would be closed. "It was a pilot and pilots are what they say on the tinâ... we will receive an end of project report, we have collected the data and the results of that report will inform our future work," he said, speaking at Mayor's Question Time.
Conservative London Assembly member Emma Best said an informal evaluation showed the helpline "was working" and was going to be extended for another year. However, Sadiq Khan said that the scheme would be closed. "It was a pilot and pilots are what they say on the tinâ... we will receive an end of project report, we have collected the data and the results of that report will inform our future work," he said, speaking at Mayor's Question Time.
Inconvenient findings? (Score:2, Insightful)
Lemme guess, did the numbers show that the vast majority of perpetrators were of the minority kind?
So ... (Score:2)
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all of them
"women and girls will be left struggling" (Score:5, Insightful)
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What is "per capita", precious?
Also lower in immigrant communities.
It turns out that people who can be kicked out of the country worry about that happening. Who knew?
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Nah, it's not like that. The men and boys are the ones answering the help line. So the women and girls (can't we just say "females"?) can call up the men and boys and tell the men and boys what needs to be done to make the women and girls feel better, and THEN the women and girls can bitch and complain about how the men and boys didn't do it | right | fast enough | with a smile | etc.... then they can sit back with other women and girls and the echo-chamber gets louder and prouder.
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People don't teach their sons and daughters ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... online 101: Through-away and spoof accounts for anything but the most critical things: professional official named online publication, professional PR or legally binding business transaction.
All else: Spoof accounts, Pseudonyms, single-identity mail addresses and online accounts, etc.
This is the very first thing my daughter learned from her IT daddy when she got her first netbook at the age of 16 on which I already had set up one realname and one spoof account. She listened and to this day is careful what she does online and with what identity. That's daddys smart girl right there. She's had no problems with online bullying ever. Naturally.
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What part of that isn't "smart" or practical? Why is her number of sexual partners, relevant to the internet?
Nope. Wrong. (Score:2)
She's a nerd/romantic and late-bloomer just like I am and her mother is. I think she did make-up once or twice, one of those being a professional makeup Training I got for her birthday so she learns it properly if she ever needs it. She couldn't care less. Chucks are her go-to shoe, Yoga, Permaculture, Meditation and living in grass huts her daily shtick. She might perhaps be closet lesbian, but that's none of my business. She's grown up and does her thing.
However, if she should ever choose to be a slut, sh
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Not having regular access to the internet swamp during her tweenie years meant her social behaviour was based on real-world niceties, not the SJW hiding behind a keyboard, persona. Presumably, your paranoia taught her to not giver her real identity to strangers, and to not blast-out petty/emotional messages for others to use as 'evidence'.
It's getting hard... (Score:2)
to tell the April Fools items from reality.
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to tell the April Fools items from reality.
We've been stuck in April Fools for about two decades now. Any day now we'll get to the punchline. AAAAAAAAAAny day now.
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That was my initial thought as well, an online search threw up the ft.com link as the first response and this Slashdot article as the second one.
The third "find" made that one less likely, a Tory party press release saying that keeping the scheme open would only have cost £85,000 - and that press release was dated 4 days ago.
budget (Score:3)
how many of the 2060 cases were closed sucessfully.
my feeling is (without RTFA or looking at data) that most cyber crime has no resolution. and it also seems like there was no budget to actually do anything with the reported crimes. hopefully what this means is that when they go to enact it in real vs pilot project, they fund it correctly and all the conservatives are there to support the budget... right.
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and it also seems like there was no budget to actually do anything with the reported crimes.
That's because this was a victim support scheme. If you want to know about the crimes you should ask the police.
Holding my breath (Score:2)
It will be interesting to see the output of the project, but for some reason I wouldn't hold my breath... at least there is FOI.
Hopefully they checked to see if certain actions work and distribute them to the general police, especially when it comes to trying to get things like revenge porn offline.
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It's contagious! (Score:2)
What are the chances that an equivalent to the Department Of Greed and Evil has sprung up in England, just waiting for its own spiffy acronym and cartoonish badge?
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What are the chances that an equivalent to the Department Of Greed and Evil has sprung up in England, just waiting for its own spiffy acronym and cartoonish badge?
Very low, also we tend to do very formal, regal badging over here, coats of arms with slogans in Latin or at least French.
What's happening is the economy is being squeezed and no-one really wants to be taxed more so governments all across the UK are having to make cuts. Unfortunately this often means hard decisions. As we're at the start of most electoral terms, the hardest cuts are being made now.