After my last post, it seemed fair to give Google a chance to respond. I filed some feedback with them, and, surprisingly, I got a reply. But then I was taken around in circles, again, just like in 2009, though the respondents arenât arseholes like âChuckâ all those years ago.
I clicked to claim this knowledge panel. You send me a verification. In that verification you have âReview infoâ. Itâs just a blue box. I canât click on it or do anything with it. Then when I go to the page to publish on Google Search, you tell me my address doesnât have permission. I canât remember how I got there, but you also show me another window saying someone is already managing my company on Google. That canât be so as Iâm the only person logged in via the Search Console and you verified that I was the right person.
Googleâs first response (links removed):
Hello Jack,
Thank you for contacting us.
You are currently the verified owner of the knowledge panel entity âLucireâ. If you donât see âSuggest an editâ option at the top of your knowledge panel, please confirm that youâre logged in to a Google account that was used for the verification. Also, check that your Web and App activity is turned on. If you are using a G Suite account, turn on the Web & App Activity settings in G Suite Admin.
If this issue still persists, please send us the following so that we can investigate further, examples of these images are attached:
A screenshot of your knowledge panel (please make sure that your verified email/Google account name is visible at the top right-hand corner); and
A screenshot of your âWeb & App Activityâ page.
Also, weâre hoping to bring more features to you in the future. Unfortunately, Posts on Google is not open to every entity at this time.
Regards,
Jay
Google Search support team
It would be rude not to comply.
Hi Jay:
I really appreciate your reply. In the past, whenever I’ve contacted Google, I get radio silence, so I’m really happy you’re there.
I signed in as me but there’s no ‘Suggest an edit’. I fail on the first hurdle, actually, as I believe I had turned my web activity off a while ago. Unfortunately, there’s no way for me to turn it back on or to access the first link you gave me.
I have a Gmail with a school I work with. Even though I’m logged in with [redacted], the verified address, I get prompted to log in with my school address when I hit your first link. I switch accounts, which is the logical thing to do, and log in again. Except the site prompts me to log in with my school address. It’s a never-ending loop.
Hopefully the attached screenshots will help with troubleshooting or to find out what I’m doing wrong.
The browser is Opera, which is Chromium-based, and it has no privacy settings or blocked cookies that might prevent me from accessing Google.
Thank you,
Kind regards,
Jack
Above: This is the knowledge panel screenshot Google keeps asking me for. I’m logged in, with the verified address, and there’s no ‘Suggest an edit’ as they claim. That’s actually why I contacted themâbecause I’m literate and I’ve already read their instructions, which are either wrong, or I’m encountering something unexpected on their systems.
Above: What happens when I click on Google’s web and app activity link that their reps send me. It asks me to verify my email but it’s the wrong address (this is the school one). I click ‘Next’ and get to the second screen, where I can choose the address that Google confirmed was the verified address, and the one used for its own search console. Notice the verified address has a green circle with a J inside it, just like in the top image. I then get taken to the third screen, but note that I have not been logged in. I sign in again. And guess what? We’re back to square one.
This is where it starts to go awry, because despite a really good start from Jay, who confirmed that my regular address was the one that was verified to edit Lucireâs knowledge panel, I next receive this.
Hello Jack,
If you got your Google Account through work or school, you might need to contact your administrator to turn on the Web & App Activity additional service for your organization.
If this issue still persists, please send us the following so that we can investigate further, examples of these images are attached:
A screenshot of your knowledge panel (please make sure that your verified email/Google account name is visible at the top right-hand corner); and
A screenshot of your âWeb & App Activityâ page.
Also, please confirm that youâre logged in to a Google account that was used for the verification and check that your Web and App activity is turned on. If you are using a G Suite account, turn on the Web & App Activity settings in G Suite Admin.
Regards,
Jay
Google Search support team
I fired this off in reply to Jay.
Hi Jay:
Thank you. A couple of things here.
The school account has nothing to do with this. I’m just saying that your server keeps defaulting to the school account and every time I log in with the correct verified account, it logs me straight out again. Every time I switch to the correct account, your system doesn’t like it.
You already have the screenshots. I already sent the screenshot with the knowledge panel. I have re-attached it. This is logged in with the correct, verified account, the one that’s used for the search console, and the one that was used to claim the knowledge panel.
As explained, your server will not let me in to get a screenshot of the web and activity page.
I am logged into the correct account.
As explained, you will not let me get to the web and activity page in order to get a screenshot.
Kind regards,
Jack
Jay wasnât the only one on my case. Tanvi sent me something even more left-field.
Hello Jack,
As informed please, you might need to contact your administrator to turn on the Web & App Activity additional service for your organization.
Also, please confirm that youâre logged in to a Google account that was used for the verification and check that your Web and App activity is turned on. If you are using a G Suite account, turn on the Web & App Activity settings in G Suite Admin.
If this issue still persists, please send us the following so that we can investigate further, as per attached image format:
âą A screenshot of your knowledge panel (please make sure that your verified email/Google account name is visible at the top right-hand corner); and
âą A screenshot of your âWeb & App Activityâ page.
Regards,
Tanvi
Google Search support team
Notice how they keep asking for the knowledge panel screenshot, and I keep sending it, but no one cares.
And they keep wanting this web and app activity page, which they wonât let me access. My response to Tanvi:
Hi Tanvi:
I am the administrator for my organization. There is no one else.
I am logged in to the account used for verification.
As explained, I cannot access the web and app activity page. Every time I do, you log me off.
I do not know what a G Suite is.
I re-attach for the third time the knowledge panel.
I cannot make a screenshot of my web and app activity page because you will not allow me access to it.
Kind regards,
Jack
They just need to check their own records to find I am the only person registered to look after Lucire, and if Iâm not, then their security holes are pretty damned massive. But doing something logical like that might cut to the chase too quickly, and we know from 2009 that Google likes giving you the run-around. I donât know who teaches them customer service but I bet itâs the English.
They keep asking for a web activity page that their own systems won’t let me access.
I think we can realistically chalk this one up to another failed Google service. I hope they can get it cleared up, as the knowledge panel is Wikipedia-based and, therefore, not accurate. While I don’t use Google, I know the majority of people do. Iâll continue being as nice as I can, as I want to see this fixed, but somehow I donât think it will be remedied any time soon. The folks on the frontline wonât understand why their systems cannot accept that one person has two separate email addresses and two separate Google accounts, one linked to each. Youâd think I was the first person ever to have two email addresses, just like Marty McFly telling his uncle that he has two television sets in 1955.
PS.: It just gets nuttier. Just because you keep asking the same things doesn’t mean the answers will change.
Hello Jack,
Thanks for proving screenshot but please provide screenshots as per attachment only.
Please confirm that youâre logged in to a Google account that was used for the verification and check that your Web and App activity is turned on.
To get access to your suggest and edit, please contact your G-Suite Admin. If you are using a G Suite account, turn on the Web & App Activity settings in G Suite Admin. To know more about G Suite please look into G suite Help Center.
Regards,
Tanvi
Google Search support team
Here you go, Tanvi. We can keep going around in circles and your firm will look more and more useless.
Hi Tanvi:
I have provided screenshots as attachments. I don’t know any other way to send you screenshots.
Again: I am logged in to the correct Google account and it was the one used for verification.
Again: I do not know if web and app activity is turned on because you will not let me access it.
There is no G Suite. I am not using a G Suite. I am the only person authorized to deal with this. I am the admin.
Please check your records. You will find that there is no one else authorized to deal with this matter. Mine is the only account that deals with the search console and it is the only account verified to edit the knowledge panel.
Kind regards,
Jack
P.PS.: September 10. Where did we get up to? I forget, because the same thing keeps happening. It’s Groundhog Day at Google.
Right, it’s back to Jay.
Hello Jack,
The screenshot that you have provided is not in the correct format, please resend the following screenshot in correct format so that we can investigate further, example of the image is attached:
A screenshot of your knowledge panel (please make sure that your verified email/Google account name is visible at the top right-hand corner). Please refer to the attached screenshot.
Regards,
Jay
Google Search support team
Fair enough. Jay included a screenshot of exactly what he wanted. I send this to Jay. (It makes no difference. See below.)
Hi Jay:
I wasn’t sure what you meant by correct format but the screenshot helps. Please find that attached.
Kind regards,
Jack
SaiKumar is now on the case. He’s got what I sent to Jay.
Hi Jack,
Thank you for providing the screenshots.
Could you now please try the following and let us know if anything has changed? If not, please send screenshots.
Incognito mode
Mobile device
Different web browser
A screenshot of your âWeb & App Activityâ page (please make sure that your verified email/Google account name is visible at the top right-hand corner).
Regards,
SaiKumar
Google Search support team
This seems pretty reasonable.
Hi SaiKumar:
I’ve attached what I see in incognito mode. I’ve also attached the same screenshots using a fresh copy of Edge instead of Opera.
I can’t help you on a mobile device, sorry. It’s not something I’m prepared to use.
As discussed, Google will not let me access the web and activity page so I cannot supply a screenshot for you. What happens when I click on the link in your email is explained in my email sent on September 7 at 22.51 GMT.
Kind regards,
Jack
How many times to I have to tell them that they won’t let me access the web and app activity page? They keep asking, I keep telling them I can’t access it, and they ask again.
Hello Jack,
Thank you for sharing screenshot.
We need your a screenshot of your âWeb & App Activityâ page for our investigation. You are only providing screenshot of knowledge panel (please make sure that your verified email/Google account name is visible at the top right-hand corner).
Regards,
Tanvi
Google Search support team
At this point, I have my doubts if Google’s staff is even literate.
Hi Tanvi:
I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, Jay and Saikumar this, but I cannot give you a screenshot of the web and app activity page because your system will not let me access it. Please see my email from September 7, 22.51 GMT.
I have already provided you with the correct screenshot from the knowledge panel page but here it is again, from two different browsers.
Regards,
Jack
OK, I shouldn’t have sent Tanvi those SERP screenshots again, but what’s the bet she’ll come back and demand I send her the web and app activity page screen that they won’t let me access?
P.P.PS.: This feels like the final email for now.
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us. We are looking into this. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
Regards,
Tanvi
Google Search support team
I thanked her and I think we can leave it there for the next few years.
P.P.P.PS.: I actually got a reply (September 12, 21.56 GMT). Links removed because I can’t be bothered making them active.
Hi Jack,
Thank you for patiently waiting while we looked into the query for you.
We would request you to try to claim the knowledge panel using a different Google account. If you don’t have one, then create a Google account. Once you create a Google Account, use the email address to add it in the account. Please follow these steps in order to add users to your account:
Under âAdd people to this accountâ, click Start now.
If you need to switch accounts, use the dropdown menu next to your profile image to select the account you want to manage.
Click Add new user.
Enter the Google email address of your new user.
Choose whether the user gets manager permissions. To grant manager permissions, move the toggle to the right.
Click Invite.
You can set different permission levels for users:
Manager: Can suggest changes to the knowledge panel, and add or remove users.
Owner: The primary user on the account, and has the same permissions as managers.
Contributor: Can suggest changes to the knowledge panel.
You can read more about updating users here.
Regards,
Aghrajit
Google Search support team
I followed his instructions as they seemed pretty reasonable but, as it’s Google, they’re not really supposed to work.
Hi Aghrajit:
Thank you for your detailed instructions. I have followed them, added my other Google account [redacted], and invited myself as a manager.
I received the Google confirmation and clicked on ‘Get started’.
However, there is no link to allow me to claim the knowledge panel, just a link to give general feedback, as though I were a regular user. I don’t have any additional privileges.
Please find the resulting screenshots attached.
Kind regards,
Jack
I think they need to face the fact that their knowledge panels don’t work as advertised, a bit like how their blog review process didn’t work as advertised, or how their anti-malware warnings didn’t clear as advertised, or how their Ads Preferences Manager didn’t work as advertised, etc. Remember, this is the company that didn’t even know where the White House was in Google Earthâand it was version five when I discovered this!
At least Twitter works. Google, as usual, doesn’t.
I had a check to see how Lucire was performing in a Google search yesterday and noticed there was a Wikipedia box to the right, and a message saying that if it was about us, I could ‘claim’ the box. I clicked on the link, and as Google knows my email address is associated with Lucire through its search console, it verified me. ‘Congratulations, you’ve been verified’, according to the Google website, and I could ‘Add or change info’, with a ‘Review info’ box that I could click on.
Actually, it’s just a coloured rectangle. Clicking on it does nothing.
Maybe it’s my privacy settings, so I used my fresh, unblocked, Google-can-plant-what-it-likes Chromium browser. I log in as me on Google. And here’s what I get.
Another variant is the below:
âThis account doesn’t have permission to publish on Google Search.’ Um, it does. You just told me I did.
The box remains claimed but there’s not a damned thing I can do.
Long-time readers will remember my pointing out many years ago how the Google Dashboard isn’t accurate, especially when it comes to arithmetic. Nothing has changed.
Google says I have one task. Well, I can’t, since I’ve never used it. Click through: I have none, and Google returns a ‘Get started’ page. Google says I have two albums. Again, impossible. Click through: I have none. It says I belong to one group. Click through: zero. I’m honestly astonished at how bad they are. If you can’t do maths, you probably shouldn’t be working with computers.
Finally, I see Facebook has forced a lot of people to change to its new template. I actually don’t care what the UI looks like, as I’m not there sufficiently to care. And I bet that if you were Māori, you’d want to have the old template back, since you can’t type macronized vowels. The macron just winds up on the baseline on any Chromium browser.
One friend tried to replicate this on Windows and couldn’t, so this might not be a universal issue.
The font being called by the stylesheet is Segoe UI Historic. I have it installed, and it’s not something I’ve ever edited. I will point that that, according to Character Map, no macronized vowels are visible in the relevant Unicode range, though I haven’t opened it in Fontlab to confirm. If the browser has to substitute, that’s fine. But what font (indeed, which of the Segoe fonts) has macrons on the baseline? It appears to be Microsoft’s Segoe, so if it’s not a Facebook linked font (the code inspector suggests it isn’t), then we can point the finger at Microsoft for a buggy font on a standard Windows 10 computer. Either way, someone in a Big Tech outfit goofed.
I had bookmarked this on my cellphone but because it’s my cellphone, it takes a long time to get it on this blog. I have to remember to grab the phone, then look up the post. But it’s your regular reminder that Facebook usually does nothing, despite saying it actively takes down hateful content. As I noted on The Panel in late August, eight copies (I believe in part) of the Christchurch massacre still exited on the platform as of March 15, 2020. The lies are laid bare once more.
Two people murdered by a white supremacist called to arms by a Facebook post Facebook refused to take down is an âoperational mistakeâ.
Genocide. Subverted elections. Holocaust denial. A live-streamed massacre. What evidence do we need? https://t.co/qRaPgV1OeX
As a company, they also take their sweet time in removing bots. Here’s Instagram in a message to me on August 27 (it’s not the only 2018 report they responded to that week):
Itâs interesting to note that someone as noted as Doc Searls encountered a Facebook bug, which prompted me to comment with the below.
Few things work on this site now. Iâve frequently been unable to share since I joined in 2007. Every now and then I canât like things, and regularly, Facebook removes the choices of hearts, sad face, angry face, etc. If I type a link, Facebook sometimes appends some letters from the status update to the end of it, so when it generates a preview, that results in a 404. Every now and then, with increasing frequency, whatever I type into a status update appears in all caps and bold type (and no, I donât have caps lock on). On almost all groups I see three postsânothing older. Notifications and messages fail to load over 90 per cent of the time. Often I cannot comment, but I can highlight the words âWrite a commentâ, so I have to resort to making an image featuring text and paste it in the comment box! I cannot see my advertising preferences: they have not loaded for the last few years, even if I leave the window open for an entire day while I am out (I only get a spinning wheel).
Iâm no tech, but as a layman what I see is a website disintegrating, with more and more bugs weighing it down. Above is what I experience now but if I go back over the years (especially when there was a Getsatisfaction forum), there were other bugs. I still remember when Facebook stopped working on the 1st of each month! But 2020 certainly marks the year when I get a whole bunch of bugs simultaneously.
My theory has always been that Facebookâs resources are all spent hosting bots that there is nothing left for legitimate users!
I didnât even add that I canât see any Facebook video now (they donât play at all), and there’s no point posting Instagram links as, despite the two companies having the same parent, Facebook won’t show the image:
As to the new look, I have very little confidence. When asked why I was switching back to the classic template, something which will be impossible soon, I wrote (not that these schmucks will care):
You canât tag companies when editing text. You have to begin writing on a clean line, often retyping the post to do it. Waste of time, youâre making Facebook less and less relevant.
When looking at groups people in a group queue have joined, you canât see as many, which makes it harder for group admins to detect fake accounts (as you guys are pretty useless at doing it).
When a friend (a person of colour in the US) wondered why she was seeing a lot of attacks against the Republican National Convention and none against the Democratsâ, even though she is apolitical, I responded (inter alia):
Facebook has plenty of ex-staff and insiders who point out it will always amp up things to get people upset or outraged, as scientificallyâthanks to the work of Professor Fogg at Stanfordâpeople engage more with these. Armed with what they have collected, the algorithms will make a call one way or another to ensure they show you things that will provoke a reaction. As the algorithms have been designed predominantly by white American men (and I know: not all white American men fit into this), I really believe they wonât take in the experiences of people of colour like us, and arguably they wonât understand the international nature of your work. For instance, Facebook used to stop working on the 1st of each month, as our walls would freeze on the 30th or 31st. We would have to wait till it was the 1st in California, which meant in our summer, we would have to wait 21 hours each month for Facebook to work normally. These folks arenât smart when it comes to âoutside Californiaâ, let alone outside the US.
Finally, I will leave you with this gem (every now and then I come up with one) from Twitter:
These days, some say their opinions are as valid as the next personâs. No, theyâre not. Not if theyâre badly argued or reasoned. A fair society doesnât mean all opinions are equal. And an unfair society means that bad opinions have undue weight. In my opinion.
With the new season of Alarm fĂŒr Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei nearly upon us, I decided Iâd pop into my Facebook group (Iâm still an admin) to see what had been happening. Iâve been there a few times this week and I have discovered some of the siteâs latest features.
Groups: these now have three posts. Thatâs it. Three. It doesnât matter how long they have been running, Facebook doesnât want you to be bothered by history or anything so stupid. Therefore, after the third post (fourth if youâve just posted something), youâve reached the end. Saves heaps on the server bills, since I guess theyâre not as rich as they would have us believe.
(This bug has been around for years but now itâs the norm, so maybe they eventually figured out it was a cost-saving feature.)
On groups: welcome to the end of Facebook. This is the last post.
Comments: donât be silly, you shouldnât be able to comment. This is a great way for Facebook to cut down on dialogue, because they can then just propagate nonsense before an election. We know where Zuckâs biases are, so they want to be a broadcaster and publisher. You can select the word âReplyâ in the reply box, you just canât type in it. (Again, an old bug, but it looks like itâs a feature. Iâm still able to like things, although on many previous occasions over the last decade or more that feature was blocked to me.)
Commenting: they let me have one reply, but replying to someone who has replied to you? Forget it, it’s impossible.
In the reply box, you can highlight ‘Reply’ but you can’t type in there. That would be too much to ask.
Notifications: these never load, had haven’t done for a long time. Remember the ad preferencesâ page? They donât load, either, so Facebook has now extended the âcircleâ to notifications. If you donât see notifications, you wonât need to continue a threadânot that you could, anyway, since they donât let you comment.
If you knew what your notifications were, you might stay longer and post stuff that makes sense. No, Facebook is for people who want to spread falsehoods among themselves. You have no place here.
Messages: why not roll out the same spinning circle here, too? They should never load, either, because, frankly, email is far more efficient and everyone should just give up on using Facebookâs messaging service.
Time to go back to email: if you were ever silly enough to rely on Facebook for messaging, then you’re out of luck.
I once thought that I encountered bugs on Facebook because I was a heavy user, but as I havenât even touched my wall since 2017, this cannot be the reason. I also used to say their databases were âshot to hellâ, which could be the case. And I still firmly believe I encounter errors because Iâm more observant than most people. Remember, as Zuckâs friend Donald Trump says, if you do more testing, youâll find more cases.
I’ve even found the “end” of Instagram, at the point where nothing will show any more.
The end of Instagram: when you can find the limit to the service.
No one’s posting much these days. In the early 2010s, there’d be no way I’d ever get to see the end of my friends’ updates.
Solution: donât use Facebook. And definitely don’t entrust them with your personal data, including your photosâeven if you trust them, they’ll potentially get lost. From what I can tell, the site’s increasing inability to cope suggests that its own technology might fail them before the US government even gets a chance to regulate! Andâthe above topics asideâit may be time to regulate Facebook and pull in the reins.
Above: The 4,243th model entered into Autocade, now on 20,008,500 page views: the Maxus G50.
Autocadeâs passed the 20,000,000 page-view mark, sitting on just over 20,008,000 at the time of writing, on 4,243 models entered (the Maxus G50 is the newest), an increase of 101 models over the last million views.
As itâs the end of July, then itâs taken just under four months for the site to gain another million page views. Itâs not as fast as the million it took to get to 18,000,000or the previous million milestone.
To be frank, the last few months have been a little on the dull side for updating Autocade. No Salon de GenĂšve meant that while there were new models, they werenât all appearing during the same week at one of the worldâs biggest car shows. And itâs not all that interesting talking about another SUV or crossover: theyâre all rather boxy, tall, and unnecessary. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, itâs that we have certain behaviours that arenât really helping our planet, and surely selfish SUVs are a sign of those?
I donât begrudge those who really use theirs off-road, but as a statement of wank, Iâm not so sure.
So many of them seem like the same vehicle but cut to different lengths, like making cake slices and seeing what remains.
During the lockdown, I put on a bunch of older models, too, which made the encyclopĂŠdia more complete, but I imagine those who come to the site wanting data on the latest stuff might have been slightly disappointed.
It does mean that we didnât see much of an increase in traffic during lockdown here, but the opposite.
As is the tradition on this blog, here was how the growth looked.
March 2008: launch
April 2011: 1,000,000 (three years for first million)
March 2012: 2,000,000 (11 months for second million)
May 2013: 3,000,000 (14 months for third million)
January 2014: 4,000,000 (eight months for fourth million)
September 2014: 5,000,000 (eight months for fifth million)
May 2015: 6,000,000 (eight months for sixth million)
October 2015: 7,000,000 (five months for seventh million)
March 2016: 8,000,000 (five months for eighth million)
August 2016: 9,000,000 (five months for ninth million)
February 2017: 10,000,000 (six months for 10th million)
June 2017: 11,000,000 (four months for 11th million)
January 2018: 12,000,000 (seven months for 12th million)
May 2018: 13,000,000 (four months for 13th million)
September 2018: 14,000,000 (four months for 14th million)
February 2019: 15,000,000 (five months for 15th million)
June 2019: 16,000,000 (four months for 16th million)
October 2019: 17,000,000 (four months for 17th million)
December 2019: 18,000,000 (just under three months for 18th million, from first week of October to December 27)
April 2020: 19,000,000 (just over three months for 19th million, from December 27 to April 9)
July 2020: 20,000,000 (just over three-and-a-half months, from April 9 to July 26)
Unlike the last entry on this subject, the Alexa ranking stats have been improving, despite the slow-down in traffic.
For a while, weâve been thinking about how best to facelift the Lucire website templates, to bring them into the 2020s. The current look is many years old (Iâve a feeling it was 2016 when we last looked at it), which in internet terms puts this once-cutting edge site into old-school territory.
But whatâs the next step? When I surf the web these days, so many websites seem to be run off one of several templates, and there arenât many others out there. After you scroll down past the header, everything more or less looks the same: a big single-column layout with large type.
I know we have to make things responsive, and we havenât done this properly, by any means. The CSS will have to be reprogrammed to suit 2020s requirements. But I am reminded of when we adopted many of the practices online publishers do today, except we did them nearly two decades ago.
Those of you who have been with us a long time, and those who might want to venture into the Wayback Machine, might know that we provided âappsâ for hand-held devices even then. We offered those using Palm Pilots and the like a small, downloadable version of the Lucire news pages. We had barely any takers.
Then Bitstream (if I recall correctly) came out with tech that could reduce pages to a lower resolution and narrower pixel width so those browsing on smaller devices could do so, and those of us publishing for larger monitors no longer needed to do a special version.
So that was the scene 20 years ago. Did apps, no one cared; and eventually tech came out that rendered it all unnecessary. It’s why I resisted making apps today, because I keep expecting history to repeat itself. I can’t be the only one with a memory of the first half of the 2000s. As a non-technical person, I expect thereâd be something like that Bitstream technology today. Maybe there is. I guess some browsers have a reader mode, and thatâs a great idea. And if we want to offer that to our readers, it canât be too hard to find a service that we can point modern smartphone users to, and they can browse all sites to their heartsâ content.
Except I know, as with so many tech things, that it isnât that easy, that in fact itâs all so much harder. Server management hasnât become easier in 2020 compared with 2005, all as the computing industry loses touch with everyday people like me who once really believed in the democratization of technology and bridging the digital divide.
Back to the templates. I wrote on NewTumbl yesterday, âRemember when we could surf the web pretty easily and find amazing new sites, and creative web designs, as people figured out how best to exploit this medium? These days a lot of websites all look the same and thereâs far less innovation. Have we settled into what this mediumâs about and thereâs no need for the same creativity? Iâm no programmer, so I canât answer that, but it wasnât that long ago we could marvel at a lot of fresh web designs, rather than see yet another site driven by the same CMS with the same single-column responsive template. Or people just treat a Facebook page or an Instagram feed as their âwebsiteâ, and to heck with making sure itâs hosted on something they have control over.â
And thatâs the thing: I havenât visited any sites that really jumped out at me, that inspires me to go, âWhat a great layout idea. I must see if I can do something similar here.â My very limited programming and CSS design skills arenât being challenged. This is a medium that was supposed to be so creative, and when I surf, after finding a page via a search engine, those fun moments of accidental discovery donât come any more. The web seems like a giant utilitarian information system, which I suppose is how its inventor conceived it, but I feel it could be so much more. Maybe the whole world could even get on board a fair, unbiased search engine, and a news spidering service that was current and didnât prioritize corporate media, recognizing that stories can be broken by independents. Because such a thing doesnât really exist in 2020, even though we had it in the early 2000s. It was called Google, and it actually worked fairly. No search engine with that brand name strikes me as fair today.
I am, therefore, unsure if we can claim to have advanced this medium.
Whaddya know? Uploading an Instagram video with an Android 7-based phone is fine if itâs on a Chinese OS and not a western one. This was a bug I wrote about nearly two years ago, and I wasnât alone. Others had difficulties with their Android 7 phones with getting Instagram videos to play smoothly: the frame rate was incredibly poor. The general solution posted then was to upgrade to Android 8.
I never did that. Instead I would Bluetooth the files over to my old Meizu M2 Note (running Android 5), and upload to Instagram through that. It wasnât efficient, and soon afterwards I stopped. By 2020 I gave up Instagramming regularly altogether.
With my switch over to a Meizu Chinese OS (Flyme 8.0.0.0A, which on the M6 Note is still Android 7-based) earlier this week, I uploaded one video and it appears to be perfectly fine.
So all those who wrote on to Reddit and elsewhere with their Android 7 problems, this could be a solutionâthough I know it wonât appeal to those who arenât familiar with the Chinese language and would rather not get lost on their own phones. Those who managed to upgrade their OSs have likely already done so.
I donât particularly have it in for Google and Facebook. Iâm only pointing out the obvious: if you say your policy is x, or your product is y, then donât deliver us z. Put it into non-electronic terms: if you sell me a car and I put it into first gear, and it instead reverses, then I will complain. And if you look back through 11 years of critique, that is what lies at the foundation of every post about them. Medinge does Brands with a Conscience, Big Tech does Brands without a Conscience. Once they start being honest and levelling with people, then Iâll stop pointing out their hypocrisy.
Speaking of which, a Facebook user calling themselves Barbara Black has taken a photo of former Miss Universe New Zealand Tania Dawson, using Taniaâs photo as her profile pic and, of course, catfishing men. You know where this is going: despite numerous reports from Taniaâs friends since the D-Day anniversary, including multiple ones from me, nothing has been done. Facebook tells me that there has been no violation of their terms. Some have actually found it impossible to report the fake profile, as their screen fills up with gibberish.
Yet again itâs Facebook being on the side of the spammers, bots and phonies, as usual, because they have the potential to help their bottom line.
I can safely say that all my reports of fake or compromised accounts this year have resulted in no take-downs whatsoever, making it far, far worse than what I experienced in 2014 when I said that Facebook faced a bot âepidemicâ (I used that very word).
Very easy prediction for 2020: despite COVID-19, Facebook will have to remove more fake accounts than there are people on the planet. I reckon it has already happened but they wonât admit it. I just donât know when people will wake up to the fact that this dubious site isnât serving them, but at least the fakes have got to such a point now that everyday people recognize them: at some point, we will either know someone, or be that someone, who has been catfished or cloned. Iâve been off it for personal stuff for three years and have missed nowt.
From Bob Hoffmanâs The Ad Contrarian newsletter of May 24: âtwo weeks ago a study by the ISBA and PcW that reported that half of every âprogrammaticâ ad dollar is scraped by adtech middlemenâ and âAccording to a paper written by Fiona Scott Morton, an economist at Yale University, Google pockets about 40Âą of every online ad dollar before it ever gets to a publisher. Not just search dollars, not just programmatic dollars, but all online ad dollars.â Just one more reason I refuse to sign these:
Iâm not part of the 90 per cent. And the bastards at Google are rich enough. Let them share it with illegal content mills as they are peas in a pod. Another solution for legitimate publishers is dearly needed.
At least there’s been some sort of work with the commissions agencies take in other media, and that’s typically at 15 per cent here. Google is taking the piss with its automated systems.
We know the US doesnât have the balls (or funding?) to take them on at this point, but how about other sovereign territories in which Google operates? Surely they have to comply with our laws, too?
Out of curiosity, why do people visit Autocade? We havenât had a big jump in visits with COVID-19 (contrary to some other motoring sites), as I imagine encyclopĂŠdias arenât as fun as, say, AROnline, where at least you can reminisce about the British motor industry that was, back in the day when Britain had a functioning government that seemed terrible at the time when no one could imagine how much worse it could get. Obviously we havenât had as many new models to record, but are they the reason people pop by? Or are the old models the reason? Or the coverage of the Chinese market, which few Anglophone sites seem to do? If you are an Autocade fan reading this, please feel free to let us know why in the comments.
One moan about Facebook. Go on.
Sometimes when I pop inâand that remains rarelyâand look at the Lucire fan page, Iâll spot an automated Tweet that has appeared courtesy of IFTTT. Itâs had, say, no views, or one view. I think, âSince there have been no real interactions with this bot entry, maybe I should delete it and feed it in manually, because surely Facebook would give something that has been entered directly on to its platform better organic reach than something that a bot has done?â
With that thought process, I delete it and enter the same thing in manually.
Except now, as has happened so many times before, the page preview is corruptedâFacebook adds letters to the end of the URL, corrupting it, so that the preview results in a 404. This is an old bug that goes back yearsâI spotted it when I used Facebook regularly, and that was before 2017. Itâs not every link but over the last few weeks there have been two. You then have to go and edit the text to ask people, âPlease donât click on the site preview because Facebook is incapable of providing the correct link.â Now youâre down some views because people think youâve linked a 404. Not everyoneâs going to read your explanation about Facebookâs incompetence. (Once again, this reminds me why some people say I encounter more bugs there than othersâI donât, but not everyone is observant.)
This series of events is entirely counterintuitive because it means that bot activity is prioritized over actual activity on Facebook. Bot activity is more accurate and links correctly. And so we come back to the old, old story I have told many times about Facebook and bots and how the platform is bot city. In 2014, I rang the alarm bells; and I was astonished that in 2019 Facebook claims it had to delete over 5,400 million bot accounts. You should have listened to me then, folksâunless, of course, bots are part of the growth strategy, and of course they are.
So, when feeding in links, remember this. Facebook: friendly to bots, not to humans. Itâs probably not a bad way to approach their site anyway.
Iâve looked at my May blogging stats going back a decade (left sidebar, for those on the desktop skin) and itâs always quieter. I blog less. I wonder why this is. The beginning of hibernation? The fact that less interesting stuffâs happening in late autumn as the seasons change?
