If you look back at all the tech companies I’ve called out, deep down I did so as a warning. If they show this contempt for the user, then it’s symptomatic of greater problems. Everything from Google switching your ad preferences’ opt-outs back to opt-ins and the stonewalling when it came to deleted blogs, to […]
Read More… from After warnings were ignored, we now arrive in the new tech mainstream
I had bookmarked this a while back: the statement by former Google employees who were sacked for not supporting the company’s involvement with the Israeli government and military. Some were not even part of the employees’ sit-in protests. But Google is too weak to be able to handle dissent, and clearly doesn’t support the welfare […]
A great quote from Penn Jillette in Cracked: Einstein comes up with this idea E = mc² — a profound, powerful, mind-blowing idea — and he has to work forever to make people understand that and to share that reality. Woodward and Bernstein are pretty sure the president of the United States committed crimes, and […]
Read More… from Tech musings from a non-tech: search engines and the nightmare of AWS
Meta (including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and presumably Whatsapp) is taking user content for its ‘generative AI’. I don’t remember signing up for this, but then I stopped using these sites regularly. Allegedly you can opt out of this. I opted out of ad preference collection there and it made no difference, but in case it […]
Over a decade ago, I watched as Facebook intentionally broke organic reach and Lucire’s plummeted 90 per cent overnight. It was clear what Zuckerberg’s grift was: to get us to pay to boost posts. But there was already, back then, plenty of reasons you shouldn’t: it was buggy as heck. Fast forward to 2014 and […]
Read More… from States of play for Facebook, Linkedin and OnlyKlans
When I first started working, there was a profession called corporate identity. It wasn’t called branding. I noticed the vernacular change in the 1990s, more so in the early 2000s when even Wally Olins started using it more to describe what Wolff Olins did. You just have to follow the market. We’re at a point […]
The Hon Debbie Ngarewa-Packer MP was right when she questioned our government’s decision to ban Tiktok from parliamentary devices. If it’s about foreigners getting hold of data, then why not ban Facebook and Instagram? Last I looked, Tiktok had not, unlike Facebook, been party to any genocides. Parliamentary Services says at least Meta is American […]
Read More… from If you take out Tiktok, then why not Meta, too?
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 […]
Read More… from I’ve left the data farms but occasionally revisit the Matrix
Not much of my old Drivetribe channel left now Sadly, I was late to the demise of Drivetribe—though as some on Reddit point out, the brand still exists on other channels. But as for hosting the content themselves, that ended in January, and we content creators had till then to get our stuff off. […]
Read More… from Farewell to Drivetribe—and a reminder to keep your own copies
This was somewhat disappointing. This chap contacts me, seemingly wanting permission to repost our Instagram images. His personal info has been removed. Hello there, We have reviewed your page and we truly loved your work! We’d like to repost your pictures on our profile. Our account is [redacted] and we have over 200.000 […]
Read More… from Instagram scammers are next-level lazy (and greedy)