It's been a while

I am redirecting this url to these locations for the time being:

www.newsscape.com and the experimental content development sandpit on Facebook -
https://www.facebook.com/newsscape/





WSP+++

Perfidious Facebook

Sorry - I have not been using blogger for some time while I have been on a mission to explore and understand every aspect of Facebook.

The way in which Facebook flatly refuses to engage in a discussion about any of its kangaroo court judgements means that it is impossible to regard it as a viable commercial partner.

"Restrictions such as a page being unpublished, reduced distribution and more." 

Wow. WOW... these folks make no attempt to conceal the arrogance with which they wield absolute power… this is also a confession of the granularity of their content "control" systems. They are The New Mafia.. ...a good title for my book...

The threats it makes when imposing one of its arbitrary notices reminds us that it can control every aspect of any Facebook presence to a degree which is beyond just dangerous. At the very least it is a threat to any society that is now infected by it.

I doubt if I will get much political support for this campaign in the run-up to an election, where the political parties are fully well aware of the pernicious and subversive value in using Facebook as an advertising platform. And Facebook almost certainly knows this.

After the upcoming UK election, hopefully, one party will emerge with a big enough majority to have the balls to conduct a root and branch review of all media, as it has evolved in the past 20 years with its unprecedented access to personal information to which it has become addicted. This will inevitably mean it is necessary to take Facebook apart and either ban it from this country or require it to operate in a much more transparent and responsive manner.

After a 12-month experiment in which I have immersed myself in the workings of Facebook, my NewsScape hobby project is reaching around 200,000 a week, which is nothing in the context of Facebook, but a reasonable circulation as far as specialist Media in the UK. The best post ended up reaching 12 million, and I'm embarrassed to admit it was very much along the lines of "duck on skateboard", rather than any sort of crucial cerebral commentary on a news story.

All part of the process of gathering evidence...

Halt! ...who goes there?

A LinkedIn request to connect with "Derrick Nathaniel" arrived and just seemed "MOST unlikely".

"I am Mr. Derrick and I have been working in the banking industry for many years and I am a man of my word and I make sure every work place on my table is well taking care of and make sure the customers in front of my desk are well satisfied as well as customers at home. I work very hard to actualise my dream and make sure anybody I work with, is well satisfied and will always want to work with me"

I barely knew the mutual contact, so I did an image search and was taken direct to what seem likely to be the real owner of that image (above). This reinforces my belief that you really should avoid any accurate photographic image appearing anywhere online - and never post your real birthday, but use a carefully noted "alternative" date (why not, HM The Queen has an "official" birthday as well as her "real" one?)

Then when the ID fraud starts, you can at least trace back to the source of the birthday used. Plus this looks like a bit of a clue, too... all the same name and bio!

I reported the user to LinkedIn - and it may be that I am doing Derrick Nathaniel a huge disservice, but I suspect not. I am more inclined to believe one of these returned by a simple google search.

I am sorry LinkedIn, and I am not sure what the simple solution is - or if there is one - but the time has come for some better provenance testing before you let anyone in off the street. You have achieved critical mass now, you can afford to make the verification process more tedious and raise the bar.

The "real" Duncan Lawrie private bank should clearly be all over this like a rash. I sent them a message after checking their website search returned no knowledge of Derrick Nathaniel - I shall look again later and if they have not posted a "Derrick Nathaniel" warning to others, I will be disappointed and concerned.

The worrying thing is that there are apparently 191 others who have connected - and more again on the repeat identities. Once LinkedIn confirms a case of fraud has taken place, does it contact all the connections of that fraudster to warn them to check any interactions they may have had? Or does that contact just "quietly disappear"..?

It is time to clean up Linked In - and ask the awkward questions. I just refreshed the Nathaniel page and his connections are still climbing steadily - now 206, 207, 208....

Facebook: an amoral terrorist drop box?

Daily Mail feature writer Steven Glover certainly thinks so, and addresses public concerns in this article.

"Do internet giants have a moral obligation to tell the authorities if they unearth terrorists planning an outrage? Almost everyone would say that of course they do...."

And so here’s a can of the very finest worms that technology can contrive to put together, that goes to the heart of the timeless debate on the nature of freedom: freedom of expression, or freedom to conspire to murder? Where and how are the lines to be drawn. It's intellectually very easy to end up in either camp with an air of self righteousness.

Many people are all too keen to exploit what's left of their freedoms to destroy themselves through there own wilful stupidity (and the Darwin awards are a wonderful journey through this topic) - but where is the point at which intervention is called for (and by whom)? Many would suggest the breaking point is when others are put in jeopardy by the selfish assumptions of the libertarian. And in the case of the UK's NHS, when the individual wilfully damages their own health and expects the public purse to repair the damage.

Should Facebook be taken to task for failing to report blatantly obvious terrorist conversations to the UK security services? Given the way Facebook advertising operates, no one is going to believe for a second that Facebook does not have the means to spot not just the keywords, but the context and surrounding circumstances that scream out - "hey, this person is clearly up to no good!"

So given that Facebook employs the most invasive and inquisitive analysis of every keystroke typed and picture posted on the site, Glover's seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction by the already highly regulated UK press as it faces further controls from misguided busybodies who are keen to assist all those who have something awkward to hide. The sophistication of the surveillance process being carried out is beyond extreme, and a long way beyond a simple keyword scan. It is fast approaching the full panoply of psycho-analytical techniques once featured as science fiction in movies like Minority Report. There is lots of advice out there from the Greats:

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. Abraham Lincoln"

I have long suspected that there is an unholy alliance between the tech behemoths and governments – a series of satanic deals and Mephistophelean arrangements that allows the online behemoths to carry on driving a coach and horses through monopoly, copyright, privacy and tax legislation in return for providing a level of snooping on private citizens' intelligence that all governments secretly crave, but that no democracy could possibly "sell" to the voters. I even suspect this story of being contrived to make it seem as if Facebook doesn't already shop its users as a matter of course.

Edward Snowden's intervention clumsily made an important point about confidentiality of information that applies equally at the personal level: unless you have been through some sort of "Stepford" conditioning and are the most boring person imaginable, we all going to say things in "private" (whatever that means these days) that we would be horrified to find exposed in the "media".

God help any politicians for actually speaking their mind and saying what they really think; it's bound to upset someone - although it should be welcomed as providing a window on the soul of the real person, that is usually hidden behind the spin and carefully managed messages. The complex task of managing expectations around "social mores" tries to define what that maelstrom of confused morality and hypocrisy known as "public opinion" regards is "appropriate" and "inappropriate" - and where and how to operate the ever shifting definitions.

So do you really want to vote for the real person - warts and all? Would you make allowances for candour that offset any uneasiness that you might feel as a result of insights into the inconvenient truth and character insights? Or would you prefer to continue to see only the carefully sanitised and spun version, that focus groups have defined as "safe and electable"? There is a clear implication in life that suggests those who speak candidly in the wrong place and time betray a fundamental flaw of judgement that can never be trusted with any important confidence. A loose canon in the organisation is becoming the greatest fear of our times, now that nothing is ever forgotten or can ever be undone. It means most people of character and opinion fail to make the cut of public life, Winston Churchill would not be electable in these newly puritanical times; mind you, Jimmy Savile would have not have latest very long, either. Swings and roundabouts.

Many celebs of the 60s and 70s bemoan the reality that bedding a 14 year old fan was the "done thing" and no one batted an eyelid; indeed it was expected - but doubtless someone reading this will be tutting that I should even approach the point of seeking to excuse or condone such behaviour. So please excuse me (victims of modern social engineering) if you have been excised of the ability to think and judge for yourselves by the endless propaganda of mind-controllers and nanny statists, who are determined to think for all of us.

Times change, all history in mostly bunk and always spun by the winners. All society moves on and adapts; it should be free to do this in the context of the realities and requirements of current times - and not under the cosh of the bullying political correction that causes people to be dishonest with themselves. Never mind dishonest with those around them - and nowhere is this duplicity more obvious than in the dreadful professional political class that has broken the world. This veil of contrived probity inevitably slips and we occasionally get a candid glimpse of the real person when an unguarded social media moment occurs. Ex cabinet-minister David Mellor's petulant tirade recorded (without his knowledge, of course) in the back of a London cab is a classic. The irony is that such moments of candour and truth then result in the "honest" politician being fired for giving a glimpse of their true selves!

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. Ronald Reagan"

Genuine freedom to be yourself - where being yourself involves a trip outside the presently fashionable mores of the moment - is definitely a thing of the past when every one carries a phone camera and digital recorder. The moment of madness when you mooned at the Queen will be around the world in seconds. Those worms in the Facebook can are really wriggling by now!

Facebook's crude invasion of my "privacy" really came home to me a couple of years back when within seconds of being tagged in a photo on someone’s feed, I got weight loss commercials. Bloody cheek. So I now block all tagging and use the magnificent Adblock software.

So does Facebook conflate the notion of freedom of the people and their right to express themselves with its own freedom to exploit every unwitting nuance in a user's interactions with the world for its shareholders' gain..? Yes, of course we know it's all there is small print somewhere, but small print is widely (but unwisely) regarded as joke and few users are ready to spend the same money on having their lawyer check it out that companies like Facebook and Apple spent on getting teams of duplicitous legal hacks to assemble documents of supreme ambiguity and one-sided benefit.

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. George Washington"

If you use Facebook you already are the product, not the customer. You already only have as much choice in the matter as those sheep in George's abattoir!

The matter of being in any way responsible for what Facebook users are saying boils down the The old idea of “common carrier” immunity was devised to absolve postal and other transport services of responsibility for transporting “unlawful” content and cargo by accepting that it would be impractical, impossible and unreasonable to do otherwise. It carried into the world of telecoms - no phone company could reasonably control what was said by its users. It is plainly evident that online companies have easy access to the content they carry and so the ancient defence of Common Carrier is not credible.

Meantime, in many countries the thought police have already transformed freedom of speech into freedom not to offend. And boy, there are a lot of people who are easily offended these days - race and religion and all manner of vociferous minorities have created sanctuaries where only comments that exude tolerance, sweetness and light are permitted. There is no progressively less scope for freedom of expression - but never in the history of human experience has any authority ever handed back or cancelled any ability to suppress any individual freedom, without a bloody struggle.

Automated surveillance of everyone and everything is out of hand, requiring all those engaging in it to pass their discoveries to "government" is probably the thin end of a very big wedge. Maybe the answer is not to require Facebook to pass on terrorist clues to security services, but to ask - then order - Facebook (and the rest!) to desist from any and all automated interception of its users and their content, and rely on the people to report the misdeeds as they are uncovered by real people in the course of real life. It's about being a responsible society, and that should be an opt-in mindset.

If that means they cannot fund from advertising based on stealing identities, then so be. They will have to charge for the services! Meantime, we are all paying for Facebook and Google's so-called "free services" with something that is far more precious than mere money.

"Real freedom is having nothing. I was freer when I didn't have a cent. Mike Tyson"

Governments know this, and are scared of groups like survivalists who simply don't need them. They all want their citizens to have something to lose; it makes keeping them in line under the threat of losing that something, a lot simpler.

Great Myths of Our Time

"Technology gives us time to have fun, get educated etc..."

Only a lucky few.

The big challenge is that the world up to 1995 - managed by (relatively costly) “50 something” managers on the basis of ground-in experience, was progressively handed by “the big boards” over to the 20-something technorati with no baggage of traditional experience where “20 years experience” means one year repeated 20 times, to the new happening, connected, low cost online world with their exciting new techno ways where there was no relevant 20 years of experience to pay for. Instead, the brave new age of globalisation through cheap overseas call centres and manuals printed in 30 languages. And global PSU! Kids also meant lower costs of employment – and frequently obsessively on the job 12+ hours a day ...since they seem mostly have no lives and pesky families to interrupt their zeal for the shiny and new.

Thus we have arrived at a situation where the workers are treated like factory animals, beautifully admitted and illustrated by the desire for Google and Apple to offer to freeze staff embryos… how long before Google and Apple try and clone their outstanding employees? Maybe there's already a mini Steve Jobs or five, lurking in the wings.

The rush into self-service-online-everything (including by government) means everyone is assumed to have computer literacy skills that probably only 20% possess (one per household), and the rest are struggling. So importing kids from the EU (and all over) is helping.

Government expectations are probably that the demographic problem of age and technophobia will literally “die out”. And it’s true to say that if government actually tried to address them, by the time it did, we’ll all be dead anyway.

So meantime, it’s brutal for all those caught in the vortex. The UK struggles on with this transformation of reality in the form of “pseudo employment”, compressed salaries, disappearing pensions.

Challenging times. So for too many “normal people” outside the techno-bubble (of which LinkedIn is probably emblamatic) – which is just as dissonant as far as the punters are concerned as the much discussed and decried political-media bubble, for far too many, he dividend of technology means wondering where the next meal is coming from.

Us techno-bubble dwellers should not kid ourselves; the real people who hate the politicians have the handmaidens of globalisation in their sights as well, and that means us. It’s hardly surprising the excluded masses are now voting in droves for “none of the above”.

The peasants are revolting

There is a real mood to tackle the dissonance with the Westminster/media bubble and a desire to sort out – the peasants are revolting.   I now think UKIP could get 30% next May – and I can see 100+ defections after Reckless romps home.

I also think people are also going to vote for candidates more than parties for the first time ever – and well loved MPs will sense this and gain confidence. There is a lot to be said for standing away from tribal party politics this time.

But there remains the concern that the “vote UKIP wake up with Ed” threat will intervene at the last moment, so maybe stalwart tories sick of Dave’s pseudo Blairism can fend off the traitor overtones of switching parties, but would vote for those stalwart local MPs who have the confidence to stand as an independent conservative/ labour  candidate, representing their voters, and reserving the right to use their judgement on any post election “alignments”. 

And they could also ask the electors to endorse that decision in an instant local referendum. Leading on to also offering their constituents ongoing regular local polling, to keep in sync with their mood – within reason.

Dare we treat the electorate like grown ups? Plenty of our perilously isolated political class will hate the idea, but we are we are now largely because those politicians have failed in so many ways to notice that world is a very different place to their familiar one of expense fiddles, establishment cover ups, and utterly futile foreign adventures that cost billions of pounds and hundreds of lives. 

How is my support?

The process of voting is very different from the days when it took a rider 3 days to go fro London to York. But the current UK parliamentary voting process is pretty much unchanged since that time. The absurdities in order:-

1. Once every five years
2. Can be won "outright" with way less than 50% support
3. Crass (corrupt, even) boundary fixing

Moreover, we now live in a world where if you ever do manage to reach a human in a support role in a company that is looking for any old excuse to pester you, you will be bombarded by email and text to rate the encounter.

Our politicians don't have to go the whole ludicrous CRM hog, just allow us to vote on key issues more than once every 5 years, please. And they do not need to use the usual costly ballot box process - which in its self is all too easily perverted anyway.
Meanwhile, this just in..

Hi, BT Business Complaints here. We'd like to ask 3 questions about your recent call with us. Text your reply at your normal text rate. Text STOP to opt out.

Note the replies are my expense!  
Three are equally keen to waste my time at no cost to themselves;

I could go on and find many more examples - we probably all could. At least the nagging to rate eBay and Amazon transactions results in a useful consumer satisfaction index and rating - most of these "internal surveys" do not see the light of day as they would be too awkward and embarrassing.
All this is just the latest manifestation of the "passing the buck" culture that has overtaken just about every aspect of our lives, and means that modern businesses are managed by a combination of process, statistics and automata, not human beings. It will all have to end in tears eventually, with a return to common sense.