Dawn Huczek/Creative Commons 2·0 This Tweet was probably half in jest: Twitter 2009. I like apples.I like pears.That’s cool.Yeah. Twitter 2018. I like apples.So you’re anti pears then.No, I just prefer apples.So you hate pears.I never said that.Fucking pear hater.I don’t hate pears!Yes you do. You make me sick. Scum. — Amanda (@Pandamoanimum) September 13, […]
Tag: 2010s
Forced to take prime-time nostalgia trips
‘There’s an old Polish proverb …’ I believe it’s ‘Reality television can’t stop the motorways in Warsaw from getting icy.’ I’ve always known what sort of telly I liked, and often that was at odds with what broadcasters put on. In the 1970s, my tastes weren’t too dissimilar from the general public’s, but as […]
How Silicon Valley and the Soviet Union are alike
Anton Troynikov’s banner on his Twitter account. I really enjoy Yakov Smirnoff’s old jokes about the Soviet Union, and the Russian reversal that is often associated with him. In the 21st century, I’ve used the odd one, such as, ‘In Russia, Olympics game you!’ and ‘In America, internet watch you!’. I’m sure I’ve done wittier […]
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People are waking up to Wikipedia’s abuses
Tristan Schmurr/Creative Commons Welcome to another of my “I told you they were dodgy” posts. This time, it’s not about Facebook or Google (which, finally, are receiving the coverage that should have been metered out years ago), but Wikipedia. The latest is on a Wikipedia editor called ‘Philip Cross’, a story which Craig Murray […]
The folly of Windows 10
Now that I’ve gone four days without a BSOD, it does appear Microsoft realized it had rolled out another lemon, and, nearly two months later, patched things. Goodness knows how many hours it has cost people worldwide—the forums have a lot of people reporting BSODs (maybe it’s confirmation bias, but I really don’t remember this […]
Twitter’s shadow-banning: not just in the US, as Kiwis get caught up, too
Anthony Quintano/Creative Commons We’ve had years of Google and Facebook acting like arses, but it’s disappointing to see Twitter give us more and more causes for concern. In 2017, we saw them change their terms and conditions so speaking power to truth is no longer a requirement. You can’t help but think that the […]
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The perfect storm: there’s a spike in users being told by Facebook they have malware today
Many years ago, I was locked out of Facebook for 69 hours. It was completely a Facebook database problem, but in those days, they just locked you out without any explanation. It happened on a Friday. I believed I would not get back in till Facebook staff got back to work on Monday—and I was […]
Being an optimist for a better post-Google, post-Facebook era
Interesting to get this perspective on ‘Big Tech’ from The Guardian, on how it’s become tempting to blame the big Silicon Valley players for some of the problems we have today. The angle Moira Weigel takes is that there needs to be more democracy in the system, where workers need to unite and respecting those […]
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I don’t do paid blog posts here (so don’t ask)
I know we all get these emails from time to time, but they still annoy me. If ‘Peter’ had visited this blog, he would know that every single post since 2006 has been my own, unpaid, unsponsored thoughts. Why would I change that now? You may say it’s a fair question, and […]
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YouTube under fire for child exploitation videos—with ‘three unpaid volunteers’ monitoring reports
The Murdoch Press has rightly kept its pressure up on Google, with a cover story in The Times, ‘Adverts fund paedophile habits’ on November 24 (the online version, behind a paywall, is here). Say what you will about its proprietor, but Murdochs have been happy to go after the misdeeds of Google: the earlier […]