social media | Steve Woods

Lest we forget

12/11/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media

It’s Remembrance Sunday, the nearest Sunday to Armistice Day, November 11th, when the guns fell silent on the western front in World War 1 on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

In the USA, 11th November is known as Veterans Day and commemorated as a federal (i.e. national) holiday.

It’s a a day to commemorate the contribution of people in the two World Wars and later conflicts.

The second of those world wars was fought against fought against fascism, so it is disturbing indeed to see fascist rhetoric being employed by those on the right of politics such as the current alleged Secretary of State for the Home Department, one Sue-Ellen Cassiana Braverman KC, who has been described as ‘irresponsible and incendiary‘.

However, it’s not just Braverman who’s been pandering to fascist tendencies at this sensitive time of the year.

Over the Atlantic, disgraced former president Donald John Trump has also been rousing the right-wing rabble under the pretext of commemorating the dead of past conflicts, as is shown by his social media activity.

A second Trump term in the White House would be very dangerous for the USA and, as in the above social media post, The Donald has made it very clear he would go after all those who oppose him (i.e. vermin) and in the process turn the United States from something resembling a democracy to an authoritarian regime with distinct fascist overtones.

As Hillary Clinton remarked recently, it is very easy to slip from a democracy into fascism: “Hitler was duly elected. All of a sudden somebody with those tendencies, dictatorial, authoritarian tendencies, would be like ‘OK we’re gonna shut this down, we’re gonna throw these people in jail.’ And they didn’t usually telegraph that. Trump is telling us what he intends to do.“

At this point the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous postwar poem spring to mind.

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

Today is not only a day to remember the war dead, but also more importantly why exactly they fought.

Lest we forget.

Update 13/11/20203: This morning Braverman was sacked as Home Secretary. In a clear case of reverse nominative determinism, her replacement is James Cleverly, affectionately known by one political commentator as Jimmy Dimly.
Dumb Britain abuses 999 service

24/10/2023 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Social Media

According to Wikipedia, “999 is an official emergency telephone number in a number of countries which allows the caller to contact emergency services for emergency assistance“, with approximately 35 million calls being made per year.

The English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.) uses the emergency number to provide a certain number of emergency services – ambulance, fire brigade, police and coastguard being the main ones, as well as – depending on location – lifeboat, mountain rescue, cave rescue, mine rescue and bomb disposal.

However, and this is quite a significant however, one of the services not offered is advising the hard of thinking where they can get a haircut in the wee small hours, as the Bristol Post duly reported after reading Avon & Somerset Constabulary’s social media feed on X, formerly known as Twitter before man-baby Elon Musk spent his pocket money on the company.

The post reads:

999 call: Caller has stated he is in an emergency, as his local barbers are closed at 01:00am. Upon reflection, the caller agreed that it is unlikely that any barbers would be open at this time, and that this was not a Police matter.

The tweet was sent by Mr Plod as part of International Control Room Week which aims to highlight the work done by people working in 999 control rooms across the emergency services.
Dumb Britain personified

19/10/2023 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Social Media

One of the regular features of Private Eye magazine is its Dumb Britain column, which typically records the answers clueless quiz show contestants have given on TV.

The advent of social media has now enabled the entire population to show how stupid they can be without the need to apply to appear on a TV quiz show, as in the case of one unidentified woman from Armthorpe near Doncaster, which was duly reported 2 days ago by the Daily Mirror.

The story was also picked up by other tabloids, with Daily Mail commentards questioning the lady’s sanity – quite a feat given their single-digit IQs.

If Hamas were contemplating invading Yorkshire, their paragliding aviators would have to train really hard, given the distance between Gaza City and God’s Own County is several multiples of the current world paragliding record of some 612 km for a straight line flight.
Commission fires warning shot across Musk’s bows

13/10/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media, Tech
The EU Commission has announced it has sent a request for information to social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, under the Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). It follows indications of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech. Furthermore, the request also concerns compliance with other provisions of the DSA

The Commission reports it is investigating X’s compliance with the DSA, including the following:
- Policies and practices regarding notices on illegal content;
- Complaint handling; and
- Risk assessment measures to mitigate the risks identified.
X needs to provide the requested information to the Commission by 18 October 2023 for questions related to the activation and functioning of X’s crisis response protocol and by 31 October 2023 on the rest. Based on the assessment of the replies, the Commission will assess next steps. This could entail the formal opening of proceedings under Article 66 of the DSA.

The Commission can impose fines for incorrect, incomplete or misleading information in response to a request for information under Article 74 (2) of the DSA. If X does not reply, the Commission may decide to request the information by decision. In this case, failure to reply by the deadline could lead to the imposition of period penalties.

Your ‘umble scribe believes that the platform owner’s normal response to those he does not like – a turd emoji – will not placate the inhabitants of the Berlaymont building in Brussels (posts passim).
2020’s Stollen US presidential election takes the cake

26/08/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

On Thursday the perpetual victim otherwise known as the disgraced 45th President of the United States of America, one Donald John Trump, surrendered to the authorities at Fulton County Jail, Georgia on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results in that state, brining to four the number of times he has faced criminal charges in 2023.

During his 20 minutes in custody, the Fulton County Sherriff’s Department took the congenital liar’s fingerprints and photograph (aka a mugshot), the latter of which was released and in which the disgraced former commander in cheat shows off his compassionate and humane side to best advantage.

The Donald looking like his mother’s told the toddler him that he cannot have a cookie.

After leaving custody and returning to his perpetual hobby of cheating on the golf course, Trump found time to voice his continual grievances on his own Truth Social [sic] social media platform, griping yet again that the 2020 US presidential election being “RIGGED” (note block capitals. Ed.) and, er, “STOLLEN” (one more note block capitals. Ed.).

Stollen, Mr disgraced former president? According to Wikipedia, “Stollen is a cake-like fruit bread made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Orangeat (candied orange peel) and candied citrus peel (Zitronat), raisins and almonds, and various spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs, vanilla, other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan, may also be added to the dough. Except for the fruit added, the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished bread is sprinkled with icing sugar.”.

Stollen. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

It has yet to be determined by the courts whether a German Christmas speciality is less of a threat to the constitutional integrity of the United States of America than its 45th head of state and his credulous supporters.

If it did come to a vote and your ‘umble scribe was enfranchised, he would always vote for a German Christmas than someone who can’t even be honest when he plays golf.
Nature conservation – a reminder

01/08/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Social Media, Tech

From my social media feed on Mastodon today.

For those whose German isn’t quite as good as your ‘umble scribe’s, the caption reads “Protect our animal species before it’s too late”.

Presumably X marks the site – or point – of the extinction. 😀
New Twitter logo – a suggestion

23/07/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Tech

Today’s Grauniad reports that Elon Musk, the super-rich man-baby allegedly in charge of social media platform Twitter, wants to change the company’s famous blue bird logo. Announcing his intention, Musk is said to have tweeted: “And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds”.

Since being acquired by Musk in October 2022, Twitter has had its business name changed to X Corp and it is on a design involving an X that Musk wishes logo efforts to be concentrated, with him also announcing the following:

“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make (it) go live worldwide tomorrow.”

As someone with an intense dislike for Musk and all he stands for, your ‘umble scribe has not been on Twitter since his takeover and has deleted his account* despite the large number of friends and contacts I’d made on the platform all over the country and the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, your correspondent would like to suggest to Musk not to bother with a logo featuring an X, but something far more familiar to those with whom Twitter comes into contact, particularly if they are from the fourth estate or the media in general. It’s shown below for the benefit of Musk and his cultists.

No, your eyes are working perfectly. It is the turd emoji. And it’s appropriate for many reasons. Firstly, there’s the mismanagement of the platform since Musk’s acquisition, including allegedly unlawful sackings of staff and the reinstatement of accounts of previously banned persons (such as that of the deeply unpleasant disgraced former 45th president of the US of A).

Furthermore, press and media inquiries to Musk/Twitter now receive the turd emoji as their sole response to him/the company. It is hence far more representative of what the company has become under its present ownership, not to mention the mindset of its billionaire proprietor.

However, if brown’s not your favourite colour, an alternative could be to tint the turd emoji the shade of blue used by the social media platform.

* = Now on Mastodon, but that’s the subject of a future blog post. 😀
Facebook’s parent company fined €1.2 bn. for GDPR breach

22/05/2023 Steve WoodsGDPR, Privacy, Security, Social Media, Tech

Meta, the parent company of social media platform Facebook, has been fined a record €1.2 bn. by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) in relation to breaches of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in respect of user data transfers from the EU to the USA, Irish broadcaster RTE reports.

The company has been given five months to implement changes to such data transfers.

The DPC said Meta had infringed the GDPR by continuing to transfer EU user data to the US despite a ruling by the European court of justice requiring strong protection of such information, adding that the data transferred by Facebook under a measure called standard contractual clauses “did not address the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms of data subjects that were identified by the [European Court of Justice] in its judgment”.

Meta has said it will appeal the decision, as well as commenting that it was disappointed to have been singled out when using the same legal mechanisms as thousands of other companies providing services in Europe.

The EU and the USA have agreed a new data transfer framework which is expected to be in place later this year.

This is the largest ever fine levied in the EU for a privacy breach. The previous record penalty of €746 mn was imposed on Amazon in 2021.
Auntie crosses the Atlantic

07/05/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

The BBC has always prided itself on the high standard of its English, both spoken and written.

However, that may well a thing of the past if one of today’s social media offerings from the BBC Politics Twitter account (byline: the best of the BBC’s political coverage. Ed.) is to be believed.

Yes, you did read that correctly; license [sic]; twice; in two sentences.

Either Auntie is employing an American to curate the BBC Politics Twitter account or an illiterate.

If the latter, some remedial English lessons are clearly needed, as well as practice, particularly if use of the verb to practise is contemplated in future. 😀

In amongst the predictable responses from licence fee objectors and refuseniks, numerous replies to the tweet pointed out the basic orthographic difference between British and American English. However, no acknowledgement or correction of the error has been forthcoming over 10 hours after the original tweet was posted.
Bilingual illiteracy

26/04/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Social Media

Playwright Oscar Wilde gave his character Lady Augusta Bracknell some memorable lines in his play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Of these, one in particular related to the difference between misfortune and carelessness:
To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

In the case of contractors working for gas supply company Wales & West Utilities in Abertawe/Swansea, carelessness seems to be their modus operandi, as per this report on the Swansea Bay News website.

On a job outside Llangyfelach Primary School, the utility’s contractors managed to spell school incorrectly as shcool. Sharp-eyed Cymraeg-speaking readers will aslo notice that its Welsh equivalent ysgol is also misspelt as ysool, although this appears to be from an earlier job, judging by the colour differences in the asphalt.

Image credit: Rob Jones

Speaking to the BBC, Wales & West Utilities said the cock-up had occurred during repairs to the local gas network. Its spokesman Phil Whittier said: “Unfortunately, (we) have misspelt the word ‘school'”. However, denied any responsibility for the misspelling of ysgol. The BBC reports that Swansea Council has been contacted about that incorrect spelling.

The error has gone around the world, being mocked as far afield as Australia, with some parents suggesting on social media those responsible be made to write school out correctly one hundred times.

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