Chris Friel
British philosopher who documented the Oxford Street bus audio dispute
| Chris Friel
| |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Philosopher |
| Known for | The 2023 paper "When Gnasher bit Auntie" |
Chris Friel (also published as Christopher Friel and Christopher Sean Friel) is a British philosopher. He is the author of a self-published paper, "When Gnasher bit Auntie" (January 2023), which examined the role of the anonymous account Gnasher Jew in the campaign against the BBC's reporting of the Oxford Street Chanukah bus incident.[1] The paper is not peer-reviewed. Its characterisations of Gnasher Jew and its reading of the audio are Friel's; they are not treated here as findings.
Philosophical work
Friel has published on the Canadian Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan under the names Christopher Friel and Christopher Sean Friel. Articles include "The Impoverished Replica: A Restatement of Lonergan Against Mechanism" (The Heythrop Journal, 2018) and "Transformation and Deliberation" (The Lonergan Review, 2014).[2][3]
"When Gnasher bit Auntie"
The paper, dated January 2023, runs to 21 pages (the PDF was created on 27 January 2023). Its abstract describes Gnasher Jew as "a 'senior officer' in Israel's 'troll army'" and argues that Gnasher organised complaints against the BBC's claim that an anti-Muslim slur could be heard from the bus. Friel writes that he promotes a "harmonising" interpretation "in which both English and Hebrew can be heard", and that "English certainly can be heard, notably the words, 'We'll come back when we're ready'". He also writes that he started the essay after looking systematically at Gnasher's tweets that mentioned the BBC.[1] Those characterisations and conclusions are Friel's.
On the audio itself, the paper documents about half a dozen listeners, several of them described as pro-Israel, who said they could hear "dirty Muslims" in English, and some who also reported a later English phrase. One, who described himself as a "Secular Yehudi", wrote: "Can you not hear it at 2 seconds in? There was mix of English and Hebrew speakers there."[4] Another, Chris Goodall, transcribed: "0:02, male voice: 'you dirty Muslims' 0:08, female voice: 'we are Jewish' 0:09, male voice: 'come back when we're ready'".[5] Ofcom, in its November 2022 ruling, "did not consider it necessary to make a determination on the contents of the audio".[6] According to Friel, the enhanced audio that Gnasher Jew posted on 3 December 2021 was produced "with the help of Digfind" (DigFind).[1]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Chris S. Friel, "When Gnasher bit Auntie", self-published paper, Academia.edu, January 2023.
- ↑ Christopher Sean Friel, "The Impoverished Replica: A Restatement of Lonergan Against Mechanism", The Heythrop Journal, 59.5 (2018), pp. 817–831, doi:10.1111/heyj.12768.
- ↑ Christopher Friel, "Transformation and Deliberation", The Lonergan Review, 5.1 (2014), pp. 39–52, doi:10.5840/lonerganreview2014514.
- ↑ @Tzioni2, X, 3 December 2021.
- ↑ @ChrisGoodall12, X, 13 December 2021.
- ↑ Ofcom, Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin, Issue 461: BBC News Online and BBC London News, 2 December 2021, 7 November 2022.