President Trump should bend — but not break — Big Tech
Americans’ increasing focus on this fall’s elections has awakened in me a tinge of nostalgia for the good old days…
Portrait of the week
Home At a few hours’ notice, the government removed Spain from the list of countries from which it was possible…
Has Trump turned you into a masochist?
Welcome back to the Red Room, Democrats. On Thursday morning President Trump fired off a stream of consciousness tweet tinkering…
If a video is viral, who cares if it’s fake?
After two months, the ‘mostly peaceful’ label for the riots gripping American cities is wearing a touch thin. That’s not…
How did I end up in Epstein’s black book?
Every time Jeffrey Epstein is in the news, I start getting calls from strangers wanting to scream abuse at me.…
Dark arts
Welcome to the world you created, J.K. Rowling
The lost boys
The roots of incel subculture – and its magnificent memes – stretch back to Goethe’s Werther and beyond, says Nina Power
Speak up for J.K. Rowling
Nerds everywhere are frantically googling tattoo removal services this week, as the author who inspired their ink failed to STFU…
Twitter’s fact-check reignites calls for big tech regulation
Twitter began ‘fact-checking’ President Trump’s tweets for the first time last week, raising questions about the role that social media…
It is a pity both Trump and Twitter can’t lose
It may be the ultimate Kissinger Dilemma: Donald Trump versus the platform that helped make Donald Trump president. Contemplating war…
Twitter spreads riot porn — but censors a President vowing to restore law and order
If you have been following the Minneapolis riots on Twitter or Facebook, you may have come across an edgy new…
Trump vs Twitter: the battle begins
When Tony Wang, general manager of Twitter in the UK, described the company as the ‘free speech wing of the…
Facebook is right. Twitter is wrong
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey opened up a Pandora’s box two days ago by dropping a fact-check on a tweet by…
Clapping for Caroline
One of the nice things about having a column in The Spectator is that I get a chance to reply…
Disinfectant Donnie
Do you know what the real ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ is? No, not the fauxtraged shrieks of liberals at everything the…
Twitter is manipulating the election
Twitter announced last month it would start flagging content the company and moderators decided was manipulated to deceive their users.…
How far should we go to defend free speech?
This week sees the official launch of the Free Speech Union — an organisation that stands up for the speech…
Trump uses provocative terms because he wants to provoke
We should be bored by now — perhaps we are. Certainly, the anger against Donald Trump’s tweets isn’t quite as…
Joe Biden versus the internet
The paradox of Joe Biden is well known. How does the experienced, effective, formidable politician turn into such a fiasco-stalked…
Like Twitter, but with food: Market Hall Victoria reviewed
The Market Hall Victoria is an international food shed opposite the station terminus. I have long hated Victoria, thinking it…
Society cannot be run by Twitter mobs
Two considerable injustices were undone this week. The first was the reinstatement of Sir Roger Scruton to the government’s ‘Building…
‘Doubling down’ is Donald Trump’s greatest triumph
For three years, we have been told what Donald Trump is. We have been told that he is a racist,…
Petronella Wyatt: I’ve been turned into a curiosity – and Boris is to blame
I am beginning to feel like a sort of fairground curiosity: one of those pickled things in jars that Victorians…
Common sense is the real generation gap – just ask John Cleese
As I write these words, I regret to inform you, John Cleese is on his way to being cancelled. Now…
Is war with Silicon Valley a Trump 2020 strategy?
The world, or at least Twitter, awoke Saturday morning to an extraordinary series of retweets from the site’s most infamous…
