The world is waking up to what Meta has been for a long time

I don’t need to say much now that the world is waking up. So what’s new? This was exactly where Facebook was heading in the 2010s. Appeasement depending on which way the wind is blowing. Principles? Look elsewhere. Zuckerberg’s only principle is safeguarding his wealth. I’ve said for years to simply shut it off. If […]

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Wix’s terms of service are just for show—they’re OK with fraud

Ethical players, steer clear of Wix. Unlike most hosts, their terms and conditions are just for show, and are unenforced. In other words, I can report fraud, but they won’t lift a finger. From me to Wix, December 10: Dear Wix Abuse Team:   A customer of yours has posted false content, misrepresenting me and […]

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Emerald Sky: incapable of doing the hard work without trading off someone else’s good name

  There are still some disinformation articles out there that Semrush caused, and one that was more recent—after Semrush’s admission that my name was actually never trending—is from a mob called Emerald Sky Group (emeraldskygroup.com). I’ve advised them on email and in the comments to a sycophantic post about them that what they have written […]

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Classic Car Catalogue closes over copyright claim

One of the reasons Keith Adams sold AROnline, a site that he put decades into, was someone alleging he had infringed copyright over a photograph. So he paid up. But for long-term survival, he turned to the team at Great British Car Journey, who had deeper pockets, as AROnline was in danger of closing down. […]

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“AI”? Facebook’s bot city has already been around for a decade

I’m surprised that people are surprised that this is where Facebook is going. In the words of my friend Richard MacManus, in reference to this interview with Mark Zuckerberg in The Verge: ‘Mark Zuckerberg basically just confirmed that your feeds will soon be full of AI-generated content. Another reason the fediverse needs to exist: so […]

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Semrush doesn’t care about potentially botched data, or resulting disinformation; offers useless advice

PS., September 18, 1000 UTC: Semrush has reached out to me privately and seems willing to look into things. I won’t divulge private messages but this could be the breakthrough I had hoped for.   P.PS., September 20: This is the follow-up.   Semrush has responded on Reddit to what I posted yesterday: it helps […]

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Fake news fuelling riots? The warnings were there as bots industrialize disinformation

For anyone who has followed my battles with bot-written and bot-based junk this year, this should come as no surprise:     The UK riots were fuelled by the same kind of website, with the same raison d’être. This one was in Pakistan, where, sadly, some of the disinformation sites about me have come from. […]

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Enforcing long-held laws: Google is a monopolist, violating Sherman Act s. 2

  Congratulations to the US Department of Justice on its first scalp in its antitrust lawsuit against Google, filed in 2020. Judge Mehta in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the plaintiffs in United States et al v. Google LLC that Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly […]

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Big Tech lies: that’s the default position

If we take everything Big Tech says as a lie, then we wouldn’t be far off what is happening, rendering my recording of the examples I encounter in daily life unnecessary. We know they lie, and it would actually become more unusual to record the times they tell the truth or follow through with something. […]

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XScreenSaver’s privacy policy lays bare Google’s disgraceful conduct

After saying that I wouldn’t blog about these, along comes one that is too priceless to ignore. XScreenSaver has been on the Google Play store but was facing deletion unless it included a privacy policy. Since it collected no data, its creators didn’t feel it was necessary, but as Google insisted, they wrote a cracker. […]

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