Google’s advertising business is a negligence lawsuit waiting to be actioned

Apparently the New Zealand government says Big Tech will pay a ‘fair price’ for local news content under new legislation. Forget the newcomers like Stuff and The New Zealand Herald. The Fairfax Press, as the former was, was still running ‘The internet is scary’ stories at the turn of the century. What will Big Tech […]

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On the verge of a change for the better

I can’t find the original toot on Mastodon but I was led to this piece in the MIT Technology Review by Chris Stokel-Walker, ‘Here’s how a Twitter engineer says it will break in the coming weeks’. As I’ve cut back on my Twitter usage, I haven’t witnessed any issues, but it does highlight the efforts […]

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I’ve left the data farms but occasionally revisit the Matrix

Warner Bros.   Even though Twitter is now in its MySpaceX era, I won’t shut my account. I have scripts that run through it, and I don’t wish for some schmuck to come in later and claim my username. Mastodon has taken off this week, my Twitter notifications are at a low, and as I […]

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Kissing that Disqus advertising money goodbye (webmasters beware)

I’m going to have to write off what Disqus owes us. No response to this thread, and no response to a DM I sent at their request. Please DM us your account name and site shortname and we will be happy to look into this for you. — DisqusSupport (@DisqusSupport) July 8, 2022 I assume […]

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Back, on the new box

There are a few experiments going on here now that this blog is on the new server. Massive thanks to my friend who has been working tirelessly to get us on to the new box and into the 2020s. First, there’s a post counter, though as it’s freshly installed, it doesn’t show a true count. […]

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Amazon: as dodgy as the rest of them

Jane Pendry in the UK Tweeted this in response to a Tweet about Amazon, and I had to reply: Refuse to use them. They breached my data and have a policy of blaming the customer. — Jane Pendry (@senseabilityUK) November 26, 2021 Agreed. They claim I let someone into my Associates' account as their reason […]

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That’s the hat-trick: Twitter has locked Lucire’s account

Pixabay In the space of less than a month, another US social network has shut Lucire’s account down. This time it’s Twitter.    When going through the settings to see if Lucire could be verified, Twitter requested that we complete all the information. It specifically states that the date of birth should be entered, even […]

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Big Tech: you’ve already lost against mainland China

Big Tech often says that if they’re broken up, they won’t be able to compete with mainland China.    Folks, you’ve already lost.    Why? Because you’re playing their game. You believe that through dominance and surveillance you can beat a country with four times more people.    The level playing field under which you […]

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Lucire’s Instagram account is gone, for no reason

Lucire’s Instagram is toast (hopefully temporarily, but you never know), since they unilaterally allege without evidence that there was unusual activity. This is utter shite, but it’s just another day in Facebookland where actual spam is tolerated, and legitimate activity is penalized.    I’ve sent through the information they requested with a review promised in […]

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My first tech post in a while: how I use my social-computing time

Refreshingly, I’ve noticed that my more recent blog posts haven’t been about Big Tech as often. I haven’t changed my views: the ones I’ve stated earlier still stand, and Google and Facebook in particular continue to be a blight on democracy and even individual mental health.    A lot of the posts were inspired by […]

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