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School dinners

· Children's issues · Education & Academia · How very odd!

I came across the nine-year-old girl blogging about her school dinners a few weeks ago. Now the local council have banned her from taking photos of her meals because they did not like the attention she generated. I think this amounts to a freedom of speech violation because the school canteen is not private property, it is controlled by the state. The council has annoyed the Internet; The Streisand effect looms over them.

June 15th, 2012 |

11 comments to School dinners

  • Brian Micklethwait
    June 15, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    Rob

    Had anyone actually complained?

  • Rob Fisher
    June 15, 2012 at 1:43 pm

    There is conflicting information. Here is the council’s statement.

    They are saying that negative press coverage caused distress to staff, so one might imagine that staff complained. But the girl’s dad says that the staff and the school were supportive.

  • Johnathan Pearce
    June 15, 2012 at 1:56 pm

    Maybe they were hoping for a Michelin 3 star.

    Of course, given that these children are sent to school compulsorily, this adds to the piss-poor nature of this situation.

  • Sam Duncan
    June 15, 2012 at 2:26 pm

    Thanks to the BBC’s open and transparent attitude to editing, the page to which Rob links now tells the story of how the enlightened Council lifted the ban, which had no doubt been imposed in error, with no indication that it ever said anything otherwise.

    The majority of comments underneath now look like swivel-eyed “right-wingers” jumping to conclusions about “PC gone mad”. Job done.

  • Rob Fisher
    June 15, 2012 at 3:02 pm

    Strange that the BBC would change the whole story rather than just put an update at the top, as a blog would do.

    This must be the fastest Striesand effect ever. Perhaps blogs do make a difference; though this was an MSM story too.

  • Brian Micklethwait
    June 15, 2012 at 3:17 pm

    As to what did this U-turn, I think the mainstream media were indeed central, but the responses that regular people could stick up about it must also have made a huge difference. This surely affected both the fact of and the speed of the U turn. If the mainstream media had ignored this, they would just have missed a great story. The rest of us would still have piled in, as soon as we heard about it.

    There were 982 comments on the blog posting itself when I first looked about an hour ago. Just now there were 1193. I’m betting that very few said stop it you naughty little girl.

    Instapundit should be told about this. He loves stories about bloggers being banned or harassed or generally mucked about, and the speed with which the banners, harassers and muckers about regret it.

  • George
    June 15, 2012 at 4:08 pm

    Off Topic:

    Are we going to get a Samizdata review of Prometheus, is at as poor as everyone is saying?

    Personally never thought the Alien films were that great anyway.

  • Perry de Havilland
    June 15, 2012 at 4:35 pm

    George:

    1. Stay on-topic.

    2. My one word review of Prometheus: excellent

  • Ted Schuerzinger
    June 15, 2012 at 5:48 pm

    We hear a lot about how schools propagandize against bullying, but stories like this show how the State is the biggest bully of them all.

  • Vinegar Joe
    June 15, 2012 at 11:34 pm

    @Sam Duncan

    Thanks to the BBC’s open and transparent attitude to editing, the page to which Rob links now tells the story of how the enlightened Council lifted the ban, which had no doubt been imposed in error, with no indication that it ever said anything otherwise.

    What? You think Winston Smith doesn’t need a job?

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