My favourite placard from yesterday's march:
So good.....
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Design by Andy Moyle
Quite!
More power to them I say!
(If that’s OK with everyone else of course, ahem…….?).
5.0m+ …. …. and counting.
Brilliant
Yes it’s brilliant, but will any of this lot pay a blind bit of notice?
I hope so…
It’s a great response!
5M is a big number but am sure online petitions can be easily gamed. Also lets not forget we had a referendum already!
Go on then
How was this gamed?
This from fullfact.org on “Is it possible to repeatedly sign a parliamentary petition using the same email address?”:
https://fullfact.org/europe/possible-repeatedly-sign-parliamentary-petition/
A House of Commons spokesperson told us “Many people share an email account with a partner or do not have access to email. To ensure that the petitions system is as accessible as possible, up to two people can sign from the same email address. An email address can only be used twice.
“The number of these signatures is strictly monitored to ensure that this feature is not abused. The number of these signatures on the article 50 petition is within the normal range–around 1%.
“The Government Digital Service have a number of ways of identifying and preventing fraudulent activity based around blocking, removing and monitoring signatures as appropriate.
“Some types of fraud are monitored to ensure that it does not affect the integrity of the petition. Evidence of fraud may affect whether the Petitions Committee choose to act on the petition.
“We do not comment in detail on fraud. Ideally someone who has tried to fraudulently sign the petition would never realise that they have failed.”
We verified this by testing the petition system, attempting to sign a petition three times from the same email account using different false names each time. On the first two occasions we were told our signature had been added to the petition, but on the third time the system told us we couldn’t sign again as we’d used that email address before.
The Petitions Committee also added on Twitter: “We don’t comment in detail about security measures. We use different techniques–automated and manual–to identify and block signatures from bots, disposable email addresses and other sources that show signs of fraudulent activity. We also monitor signing patterns.”
I was waiting for this response; and it arrives like clockwork. This is a UK Government and Parliament petition, so this is an important claim you are making. Let us suppose you are correct; even official Parliamentary-Government petitions are therefore easily ‘gamed’.
Where would that leave every source of public information, to say nothing of elections and referendums? If you are correct (I hazard you may be exaggerating, or are simply ill-informed: forgive me but it seems to me that so far, “Joe”, combined with a bald assertion, is not itself an obvious or decisive claim to authority in this field); nevertheless let us, for the sake of developing the thought, suppose that you are correct: very well, then you will not just have undermined the petition, but with this degree of ‘infiltration’ of our parliamentary process of democratic opinion formation, you are undermining much, much more than one petition: given the context, and the implications, you are undermining the broad public process of opinion formation-dissemination – including the public political process for achieving Brexit. You provide us with an excellent argument to revoke Article 50 on the grounds of misadventure, or much worse.
Well said
haven’t got a scooby what your on about..richard seems to so that’s alright
“This is a UK Government and Parliament petition” …call it what you like, you click online. Friend of mine has clicked for his wife and two sons (both at uni) regardless of what they want. Well you can’t do that down the polling station can you..
He must have had control of their emails then
So bluntly, I do not believe you
John,
I want this petition to be an important step towards sorting this mess out as much as you do but I’m afraid there’s no validation on site it’s very easy for someone with 2 (or more) email addresses to sign multiple times.
This may well be caught later in data cleansing but it’s not clear at the moment how quickly this is/will be done. Previous petitions that gained a lot of votes (eg Trump visit) we subsequently shown to suffer this problem.
In answer to your question about legitimacy, I think we have to be realistic about what a government can actually do and that they can’t control the internet (thankfully). The scope of the petitions site is only to propose debates in parliament. It’s not for holding referendums. This discussion illustrates very well wgy we have an electoral commission to oversee elections and referenda.
Whether or not we want to move to true electonic voting is another matter but there are significant trust issues to overcome before I’d be comfortable it could not be corrupted.
All that said, I still believe the extraordinary sucess of this petition is a welcome antidote to May et al’s ridiculous retoric about the will of the people. It definitely carries a lot of weight and “joe” and friends are getting clearly getting worried. I just prefer not to build my arguments on sandy foundations, that’s all.
In response to ‘terry’,
Just for a moment I confess that I had been preening myself on the clarity of my expression…… I am duly chastened.
In response to ‘Terry’,
My argument remains firmly and resiliently intact, perhaps it would help if you read it through – it applies whether or not the petition is ‘gamed’ (substitute ‘Terry’ for ‘Joe’, otherwise ‘mutatis mutandis’).
For information on old-fashioned elections, in 2017 there were 405 reported cases of alleged electoral fraud, according to the Electoral Commission: (https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/239973/Fraud-allegations-data-report-2017.pdf). Turning up at a polling station does not ensure immunity from fraud, or ensure its discovery. The greatest danger of fraud, however occurs at an earlier stage, especially in the world of mass electronic communications where personal data may be harvested and used without the knowledge of the user.
The problem with the approach you are taking is this: we never quite know what or who we are dealing with, or why or for what purpose they engage; for example is terry, Terry (or Joe for that matter)? How would I know? It is a little rich proposing the simple virtues of polling stations (which are not without problems of fraud), when YOU are using social media to make your point, asserting facts without providing any publicly verifiable evidence of the problem (anecdotalism simply doesn’t cut it – have you reported it to the authorities, as a public service?), withholding your full name, and wholesale adding to the ambiguities of meaning and purpose in this thread. In short, I rest my case (and thank you for illustrating the nature of the underlying problem so effectively for readers).
Adrian,
For the avoidance of doubt (I thought I had made this clear, but am ruefully disabused); my argument was not that the petition software is robust, but rather that challenging the petition’s robustness does not defeat my argument; thus, doubts about the security of the software system – if true – only serves to support my case.
I mean by this, that if the petition software is not robust this merely illustrates the weakness even of Government/Parliament sponsored public information on which we must rely in our system of democratic political debate in Britain. The elector must be able to rely on this to ensure trust in the system. This is quite fundamental, but it does not arbitrarily stop at the door of this petition. It has wider consequences, for the reliability of public political debate in this country, and the production and dissemination of the data on which we rely in public debate. For example, it matches the concern with the reliability of information, and the dissemnation of facts in the public sphere during the 2016 Referendum. In short the criticism does not just undermine the authenticity of the petition (indeed all such petitions), but extends to the wider reliability of open debate in our system and the flow of information on which it rests, particularly following the data-harvesting scandals of 2018.
In short, Brexiteers cannot cherry-pick the data-sets to suit their convenience. I might add that if Government/Parliament are using official petitions (petitions can command debates in the House of Commons), that are easily ‘gamed’, then we really are all at the mercy of charlatans. At which point self-preservation offers a reliable axiom: trust no one. The prospect, then is bleak for our democracy; which is precisely what we are now experiencing, and trust has virtually disappeared.
It is worth noting that a petition to ‘Leave the EU without a deal in March 2019.’ is also on the go and has seen a rise in activity over the last few days no doubt as a response to the ‘revoke 50’ petition. For the record it was debated in January and has been on the go for about 5 months. As of about 10.30pm it stood at about 532,000.
This gives us some context with which to look at the numbers who want to revoke article 50 – the petition has just reached 5.3 million.
so of the almost 6 million people who have stated a preference in these 2 petitions we have 9% wanting a no deal brexit and 91% wanting to stay.
It can and will be argued that 5.3 million is less that the 17.4M who voted to leave but it is a spurious comparison ( and as such can be expected from from of our politicians and media) It will also be pointed out that UK residency is the criteria for signing the petitions so many of those who signed may not be voters. Can’t argue with that but if we remove 2.9 million signatures, just in case every European national in the country had signed the petition that still leaves us with the following –
20% want no deal brexit and 80% would rather no brexit
I acknowledge that none of this argues against the idea that a majority wants brexit, however I think it fairly screams that a majority do NOT want a ruinous no deal brexit.
No Deal should never have been on the table.
A 4% difference between the Leaver and Remainers is too close. The referendumb was not a GE where when the other sides lose, we accept the majority and get on with life. Yet it has been treated like one. Who said it should be? Hopefully a public enquiry might point stuff like this out.
The referendumb was about gauging public opinion and the 48% Remain had in my view the right to be listened to and have their views taken into account. Not having a ‘No Deal’ position would have been a fair thing to do.
The No Deal Option actually undermines A50 in my view when you consider that the Government’s own impact assessment of BREXIT says it will damage the economy. A50 is about leaving, but the question as to how we leave (hard or soft) is left far too open. A50 therefore is like issuing a blank cheque.
It is bad law from bad a Government – incompetence writ large. It is not good enough.
And it will be history that records whether or not the online petition is taken into consideration or not. Parliament will simply undermine itself if the response is not debated.
As it is undermined itself all the way through this debacle with people like Anna Soubry in it who says she stands up to BREXIT but not enough to overcome her interpersonal hatred of Jeremy Corbyn to the extent that she supported her own leader when the vote of confidence was held (even though she knows May was pushing the country to disaster back then).
I don’t like what has happened to Soubry (death threats etc.,) but she has hardly done us a favour with that confidence vote. Party loyalty came first – not the country. Lets see what happens this week and as Richard says, Bercow could be pivotal if the politicians tie themselves up in knots yet again because they cannot see beyond their own immediate concerns.
“He must have had control of their emails then..so bluntly, I do not believe you”
I don’t care if you believe me or not!!..access to family emails is hardly a constraint!! ..easy to do multiple emails as well trivial setting up new accounts..however you dress it up it isn’t the same as a postal vote or going to a polling station
So you admit you may have delivered some BS and still defend your actions?
Why not admit you’re a troll Terry?
Just providing some balance to the discussion which is often all in the same direction..whether it the leave or the remain campaign, the tories or the labour party, the capitalists or the marxists, everyone exaggerates the truth when it suits i don’t care which side of the fence you are. Here is another case in point;
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/01/05/peoples-vote-march-attended-third-number-organisers-claimed/
This site is not run by the BBC
I do not require ‘balance’ if the result is nonsense
Not easily.
At the basic level, each signature has to be confirmed by clicking on the email link.
At a higher level, the IP address sending is also checked for multiple attempts from the same address.
And there are more checks, such as from other countries. 1million attempts from Moscow would show, and be removed.
Incoming votes are checked against expected votes, from each area, and spikes from automated systems are spotted and removed.
And even more levels of security that it does not want to tell about.
I think the number of [detected] fake attempts is at the 200,000 level….and removed..
Thanks
I am sure you are right
Brilliant placard! Saturday was a good day for “the quiet ones” indeed. Can they ignore us?
‘Government could ignore indicative votes…’
Surprised, Marie? No, me neither.
(As ‘reported’ a Comments thread in The Graun this morning, there was no reference to a million marching, or indeed 5,000,000 petitioning on R4/by John Humphrys this morning, nor indeed was any of it featured on the front spreads of any of the Sunday newspapers. Ignored? – we already have been. Airbrushed even…)
“no reference to a million marching, or indeed 5,000,000 petitioning on R4/by John Humphrys this morning,…”
Is that THE Mr Humphries …the one from the BBC hit comedy series ‘Are You Being Servile’ 🙂
Agh! “drag on” not “drag-on”. It’s got so bad it’s destroying people’s literacy.