A study into the claims made by left-wing group ‘Hope Not Hate‘ has found the organisation exaggerated “hate speech” claims by over 3000 per cent following the murder of Jo Cox MP. The Economist magazine investigated the claim by the group — led by left-wing political operative Nick Lowles — that 50,000 tweets were sent “celebrating” the murder of the MP or praising her killer.
The investigation concluded: “Hope Not Hate misrepresented the findings of its own report when first releasing it to the press”, adding: “The report itself gave a confusing impression of the number of tweets that celebrated Ms Cox’s murder. We estimate that, in reality, of hundreds of thousands of tweets mentioning the MP by name, the number that celebrated her death was at most 1,500, and probably much lower”.
The news mirrors the story of “anti-Islamophobia” group TellMAMA which lost government funding in 2013 for exaggerating the number of anti-Muslim attacks in Britain. Hope Not Hate has used TellMAMA as a source, even publishing opinion columns by its director Fiyaz Mughal.
The Economist also highlighted how “Britain’s largest newspapers leapt to publish the shocking findings” of Hope Not Hate’s flawed report:
“Hope Not Hate admitted that its initial press release was incorrect and said that it was later changed. The charity referred us to the study’s authors, Imran Awan of Birmingham City University and Irene Zempi of Nottingham Trent University. Mr Awan agreed that newspaper headlines had oversimplified the study’s findings. Even so both authors retweeted articles repeating the press release’s false claim”.
The authors of the report also refused to share their data with the Economist for the purpose of an investigation, claiming they had encountered death threats.
“So we undertook our own analysis, examining tweets from June and July that included the terms “Jo Cox” or “#JoCox”—some 341,000 unique messages. Of a random sample of 800 of these, none was celebratory, and just four seemed to be derogatory toward Ms Cox, criticising her support for Syrian refugees, for instance. From this, simple statistics suggest that the true number of tweets cheering the politician’s murder would lie between 0 and 1,500. (The Hope Not Hate report reproduces about 30.)”
Hope Not Hate also “misled” the British press, public, as well as politicians by claiming a “key theme” at the time was the calling of Thomas Mair — Jo Cox’s killer — a “hero”. But the Economist found: “In fact, many tweets containing the word “hero” were referring either to Ms Cox herself or to a pensioner who was injured while intervening to save her”.
The Economist then measured a random sample of Brexit-related tweets in an attempt to find widespread “xenophobia” and has since declared: “Of these, we judged less than 1% to be xenophobic or worse”.
Hope Not Hate has for years worked in collaboration with the left-wing Mirror newspaper and hard-left Searchlight magazine. Between the groups, they repeatedly target UK Independence Party figures including former leader Nigel Farage.
The organisation — which is partly funded by the same Hawaii-based hedge fund manager who supports direct action groups like ‘Black Lives Matter’ — recently attacked reformist Muslims like Maajid Nawaz, Zuhdi Jasser, and Raquel Saraswati as “anti-Muslim”.
In 2015, former Labour member and left-wing activist Anne Marie Waters denounced the group as being on the “extreme left”. The group also shares trustees with groups that campaigned against Britain leaving the European Union.
The news comes as Brendan Cox, the widower of Jo Cox MP, hit out at Nigel Farage for claiming the Berlin attack was the responsibility of Germany’s leader Angela Merkel. Mr. Cox, who worked for former Prime Minister Gordon Brown — himself a major supporter of Hope Not Hate — set up a crowdfunding page named “Jo Cox’s Fund” shortly after his wife was murdered. The proceeds of the money raised were to be donated to the Royal Voluntary Service, Hope Not Hate, and the White Helmets in Syria.
Source: The Economist
Kindadukish's Blog - I am not a number, I am a free man (The Prisoner) 
Thanks for clarifying the report of 50,000 tweets celebrating Jo Cox’s murder. I saw the headline and was shocked, but I also assumed it was exaggerated. You are, of course, right to highlight the underhand tactics of Hope Not Hate. Still, the sentiment behind that organisation’s name is good and, personally, I’m much more worried about the far right than the far left. After all, Jo Cox was murdered by a man with extreme right wing views.
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There is no far right in the UK, the BNP has faded into insignificance and no other group has replaced it. But then I guess you are one of those who views anyone who voted “out” as a racist xenophobe. You should be worried about Corbyn and his idealogical zealots who are intent on introducing the UK to the wonders of communism, they are a far greater danger than anything on the so called right. Jo Cox was murdered by a man with right wing views, numerous people have been murdered throughout Europe by islamic fanatics, ergo all muslims are rabid fanatics according to you. I suspect you are one of Corby’s followers and that would explain a lot about your comments, but I am a forgiving soul and I know that in due course you will see Corbyn for what he really is, a pathetic 70s leftie who has never grown up and still thinks that Castro did wonders for the people of Cuba, that explains why thousand left in droves for the USA.
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Stponeyfish quite rightly draws reference to the deeply unpleasant right wing views related to the killing of Jo Cox however many fewer there were in reality. I realise we are now in 2020 so I guess I can assume some of your views have changed. For instance that the far right clearly exist in the UK – witness the intrusion at the Black Lives Matter demonstrations last week. Corbyn has now gone thank goodness, but not for the reasons you discuss but mainly because he was out of his depth and his politics were not of the times. Stoneyfish in no way suggests that Jo Cox murderer was an Islamic fanatic, it was acknowledged in the reports resulting from her death that she was murdered by a right wing extremist. To then reply with your own character assassination based on the worry of “extreme right wing views” and then introducing Jeremy Corbyn as the harbinger of doom struck me as the strangely hysterical response of as obsessive. Am still trying to work out where “Stoneyfish” mentioned Brexit, Corbyn, Muslims as rabid fanatics and Castro and Cuba – not a single word I can identify. I therefore conclude that it must be your good self that holds right wing islamophobic and deeply disturbing views buy hay ho.
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Thank you for your belated response but if you want to look at the “far right” tell me how many councillors they have in the UK , how many MPs? The few councillors elected in recent years very quickly lost their seats and not ONE far right MP has been elected (unlike in France).
The man who murdered Jo Cox was a right wing sympathiser with severe mental health problems, which in no way excuses what he did. I note you mention the intrusion by right wing thugs in the BLM demonstration, but fail to mention the intrusion of far left thugs in the same demonstration, the ones that viciously attacked anyone expressing views not in tune with theirs or BLM. The ones who viciously attacked police on horseback, threw Molotov cocktails at a police car and attacked police officers on foot who were simp[ly trying to do their job.
As regards my “islamophobia”, there is no such thing, as a phobia is an irrational fear of something, so let me suggest you look up the following 9/11, 7/7, Madrid, Bali, Beslan, Lee Rigby, Daniell Pearl, Ken Begley, Charlie Hebdo, Paris, Nice, Brussels, Mumbai, Boko Haram, Slaughter of Yazidis, then come back and tell me what they ball have in common.
AS regards BLM who continually complain the system works against them, let me quote from a letter to the Times this week:-
• The system that doesn’t work for non whites?!
• Apart from the Chinese minority who get excellent school grades, way beyond White British and go on to earn more on average than their White British countrymen
• Apart from the Indian minority who also get much better school grades and go onto earn more than white British
• Apart from Black African’s who get better school grades than white British!
• Odd that, skin colour and race holds back the Black Caribbean community but not the Black African perhaps the huge numbers of Black Caribbean fathers who go missing can shed some light on it.
• Over 50% of Black Caribbean children grow up in single parent households (a huge disparity on White, Chinese, Indian and even Black African). These kids are statistically more likely to do poorly at school and turn to crime. Black lives matter, of course they do, just a shame so many Black Caribbean fathers don’t think if that when they abandon their children.
Unpalatable truths, and if you dare raised these issues you will be accused of being a racist!
Finally, I note you have nothing to say about the creative ramblings of Tell Mama, a discredited organisation!
Feel free to respond and I will try and respond appropriately to any valid points you raise.
Oh, and by the way I was a lifelong Labour supporter until the antisemites hijacked the party.
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