At the beginning of July I noticed Facebook had changed its reporting options. Gone is the option labelled ‘Fake account’, replaced by ‘Harmful or spam’. It’s a small change that, I believe, is designed to get Facebook off the hook for failing to remove fake accounts: since you can’t report them, then you can’t say […]
Read More… from Facebook continues to give in to fake accounts, much like the UK with COVID-19
I haven’t done one of these since February, where I look at the COVID-19 positivity rates of selected countries. The arrows indicate the direction of change since that post. Happily, I imagine with the vaccine roll-outs, we are seeing drops, though there is a new wave in Taiwan, contributing to a rise; other territories showing […]
Read More… from COVID-19 infections as a percentage of tests done, June 28
When you see the utter dog’s dinner the British government has made of COVID-19, namely turning their country into a petri dish for mutations while they plunder the place with impunity, you have to wonder why many there still prefer these current Tories, when even Max Hastings and Sir Nicholas Soames don’t. Is it because […]
Read More… from Why the British people still prefer Boris Johnson
Don’t take what Facebook says about Trump seriously. As Christopher Wylie reminds us: When I reported Facebook to the US authorities, I received a permanent ban for whistleblowing. When Donald Trump incited a violent insurrection at Congress, he received a temporary two year ban that would let him back in time for the 2024 campaign. […]
Read More… from Remember, Facebook usually says one thing, then does the opposite
This is a pretty typical story: find fault with Big Tech, try to alert the appropriate people in the firm, get fired. Julia Carrie Wong’s excellent article for The Guardian shows a data scientist, Sophie Zhang, find blatant attempts by governments to abuse Facebook’s platform, misleading their own people, in multiple countries. Of course […]
Whichever side you are on with Facebook imposing a ban on Australians sharing news content, this says it all about the level of intelligence over at Menlo Park. In Australia, Facebook has not only de-platformed legitimate governmental bodies and non-profits, it has de-platformed itself. Maybe taxing these companies would have been easier, and […]
Read More… from Reduced Facebook? Australia is the lucky country
Further to my Lucire op–ed on January 8, and my blog post on January 11, I hinted that this could happen. From the World Socialist Web Site: On Friday, Facebook carried out a purge of left-wing, antiwar and progressive pages and accounts, including leading members of the Socialist Equality Party. Facebook gave no explanation […]
Read More… from In the ‘I told you so’ department: Facebook purges left-wing, anti-war accounts
I did indeed write in the wake of January 6, and the lengthy op–ed appears in Lucire, quoting Emily Ratajkowski, Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden. I didn’t take any pleasure in what happened Stateside and Ratajkowski actually inspired the post after a Twitter contact of mine quoted her. This was after President Donald Trump was […]
Buzzfeed’s article, on departing Facebook staff who write ‘badge posts’, wasn’t a surprise; what was a greater surprise was just how long it took for such news to surface. Badge posts are traditional farewell notes at Facebook, and not everyone has had rosy things to say. One wrote, ‘With so many internal forces propping […]
Nigella Lawson saying 'Microwave' like this has made my Christmas already pic.twitter.com/ByXTDVIloq — 🍯 (@EtceteraWithEst) December 8, 2020 Very humorously, Nigella Lawson mispronounced microwave, only to have Those Who Have No Humour get up in arms and Ms Lawson having to clarify that she indeed knew how to pronounce the word the Tory way. Maybe […]