Monthly Archives: November 2024

  • EU Commission fines Meta €797 mn.

    Steve WoodsPolitics, Privacy, Social Media, Tech

    Meta logoUS technology giants are finding out the hard way that their usual anti-competitive stateside business practices are frowned upon on this side of the Atlantic, particularly in the Berlaymont building in Brussels, headquarters of the EU Commision.

    A few months ago, X, the failing social media site formerly known as Twitter, was notified by the Commission that the latter was in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers (posts passim).

    This week it was the turn of Meta, the parent company of Facebook

    This week the Commission announced it had fined €797.72 million for breaching EU ant-itrust rules by tying its online classified advertising service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified advertising service providers.

    The Commission’s investigation found that Meta is dominant in the market for personal social networks, which covers at least European Economic Area (‘EEA’), as well as having national domestic markets for online display advertising on social media.

    In particular, the Commission found that Meta abused its dominant positions in breach of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’) by:

    • Tying its online classified advertising service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook. This means that all Facebook users automatically have access and get regularly exposed to Facebook Marketplace whether they want it or not. The Commission found that competitors of Facebook Marketplace may be foreclosed as the tie gives Facebook Marketplace a substantial distribution advantage which competitors cannot match; and
    • Unilaterally imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified advertising service providers who advertise on Meta’s platforms, in particular on its very popular social networks, Facebook and Instagram. This allows Meta to use ad-related data generated by other advertisers for the sole benefit of Facebook Marketplace.

    The Commission has ordered Meta to bring the conduct effectively to an end and to refrain from repeating the infringement or from adopting practices with an equivalent object or effect in the future.

    The fine of €797.72 million was set on the basis of the Commission’s 2006 guidelines on fines.

    In setting the level of the fine, the Commission took into account the duration and severity of the infringement, as well as the turnover of Facebook Marketplace to which the infringements relate and which therefore defines the basic amount of the fine. In addition, the Commission considered Meta’s total turnover, to ensure sufficient deterrence for a company with resources as significant as Meta’s.

    Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy, said: ” Today we fine Meta €797.72 million for abusing its dominant positions in the markets for personal social network services and for online display advertising on social media platforms. Meta tied its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and imposed unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers. It did so to benefit its own service Facebook Marketplace, thereby giving it advantages that other online classified ads service providers could not match. This is illegal under EU anti-trust rules. Meta must now stop this behaviour.”

  • Ovine emissions reduction – update

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

    Along with dogs, sheep are believed to be one of the earliest animals to be domesticated by humans.

    According to Wikipedia, sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia and their domestication date is estimated to fall between 11,000 and 9000 BCE in Mesopotamia and possibly around 7000 BCE in Mehrgarh in the Indus Valley.

    For some reason, sheep are very popular on the Mastodon social media network and Thursday, 7th November, was peak sheep day, with photos and videos being posted all day, together with the customary hashtags, although these were all Welsh, e.g.#defaidodon (sheep of Mastodon). One very humorous sample is shown below.

    Post reads - One of the last coal-powered sheep. Most sheep are all electric now.

    Picking up on the theme of the post, domestication has involved a long process of selective breeding to arrive at today’s breeds, which bear little resemblance to their wild ancestors. For much of their history, most sheep were powered by charcoal before the Industrial Revolution, but this soon changed to coal due to its higher calorific value. With the climate crisis underway at present, sheep powered by electricity and renewables are now being developed; and there is even talk of fuelling them with biomass. 😉

  • Badenoch talks sh*t

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Kemi Badenoch, official portraitYesterday, newly elected Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch took part in her first Prime Minister’s questions in that role.

    However, the session did not necessarily turn out to her advantage and The Guardian’s political sketch writer John Crace took full advantage of her failings to mock her performance unmercifully.

    However, her lack of political guile was not Badenoch’s only failure at the despatch box yesterday. Her failure to understand the English language was also revealed.

    As reported by Sky News, KemiKaze (as Mr Crace terms her. Ed.) challenged Keir Starmer on remarks made by current Foreign Secretary David Lammy in 2018 about the present president-elect of the United States, the disgraced former 45th president, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat, one Donald John Trump.

    The prime minister and the foreign secretary met him [Mr Trump] in September.

    Did the foreign secretary take that opportunity to apologise for making derogatory and scatological references, including, and I quote, ‘Trump is not only a woman-hating Neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath, he is also a profound threat to the international order’, and if he did not apologise, will the Prime Minister do so now on his behalf?
    The remarks in question by Mr Lammy appeared in Time magazine in the year in question under the headline I’m a British Lawmaker. Here’s Why I’m Protesting Trump’s Visit to the U.K.
    Donald Trump balloon in Parliament Square protest in 2018
    Donald Trump balloon in Parliament Square protest in 2018

    Whilst Mr Lammy’s remarks could be regarded as derogatory if one’s politics tend towards the (extreme) right, like Ms Badenoch’s, there is nothing your ‘umble scribe could find in what Lammy wrote for Time that could in any way be described as scatalogical, as per her question from the despatch box.

    Is it possible Kemi Badenoch does not understand the definition and usage of that particular adjective?

    Your correspondent believes this is definitely the case. As anyone with access to a dictionary – be it online or analogue – will confirm, the adjective scatalogical has two meanings, i.e.:

    1. characterised by obscenity or preoccupation with obscenity, especially in the form of references to excrement; and
    2. of or relating to the scientific study of excrement.

    Whilst Mr Lammy condemns Trump in the strongest terms for his racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and other shortcomings, the language used is not peppered with obscenities relating to bodily functions or faeces, so how Ms Badenoch can characterise Lammy’s language as derogatory (it was honest. Ed.) let alone scatalogical is beyond the mental abilities of your ‘umble scribe, unless as intimated in the title to this post, she was using her anus as her major organ of speech. which only serves to emphasise her ignorance.

  • Susie’s quiet comment

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

    Susie Dent is a lexicographer and etymologist who has appeared in “Dictionary Corner” on the Channel 4 game show Countdown since 1992.

    Susie also has a presence on man-baby Elon Musk’s Twitter/X social media platform and usually posts her own chosen word of the day, which is frequently influenced by that particular day’s news agenda.

    Here is her contribution for today, 6th November 2024, following on from the news that disgraced former president, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat Donald John Trump has been elected the 47th president of the USA.

    Post reads: Word of the day is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve.

    All your ‘umble scribe will say is that the US was faced with an IQ test yesterday: and failed it; abysmally.

  • Cymru, politics and the English Home Counties

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Some would argue that Wales has been an English colony for centuries, especially since Henry Tudor II’s two acts of union of 1535 and 1542.

    In more modern times the development of the British state has resulted in the creation of a colonial administrator in Whitehall in the shape of the Secretary of State for Wales, as well as a corresponding position in the official opposition’s shadow cabinet..

    Where possible these positions have usually been filled by someone of Welsh origins or having at least some tangible or imagined connection to Cymru; the current Secretary of State is Jo Stephens, who was born in Abertawe (aka as Swansea by monoglots. Ed.)and brought up in Mynydd Isa . However, this is not always possible.

    At the July general election, the governing Conservatives lost all their seats in Wales to other parties – Plaid Cymru, the LibDems and the victorious Labour Party. Overall, the Blue Team’s parliamentary representation was reduced from 344 to a rump of 121.

    Such a collapse has implications for the depth and extent of any talent pool – never a very deep or extensive body of water to begin with – available to the party leader when forming the shadow cabinet, as the Blue Team’s new leader Kemi Badenoch has discovered.

    Official portrait of Mims DaviesWith not a single Tory MP from a Welsh constituency to choose, Ms Badenoch has had to resort to picking an English MP, and has alighted on Mims Davies, the member for East Grinstead and Uckfield in Sussex, as reported by Wales Online which helpfully points out that Ms Davies' constituency is 200 miles away from Cymru's administrative capital of Caerdydd/Cardiff.

    What about that tenuous Welsh connection? It would appear that apart from having a Welsh surname, Ms Davies’ only link to Cymru is that she just happened to study politics and international relations at university in Abertawe, according to her Wikipedia entry.

    Ms Davies’ affinity to the Home Counties reminds your ‘umble scribe of the appointment of another Tory Home Counties dishonourable member to the post of actual Secretary of State for Wales – one John Redwood, who served for the best part of two years in that capacity and whose most memorable act in all that time was not know the words of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau and attempting to mime them, a scene that was captured in video (he’s no Jeff Astle! Ed.).

    Enjoy! 😀