Best Of

Elon Musk is retweeting Rupert Lowe again:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2064396727344320767

Musk’s comment:

Only Restore Britain can save Britain.

It is the only way.

That’s a nakedly partisan political comment to someone with likely several million UK followers, during a restricted election period.

Will one of the other parties ask for a ruling from the Electoral Commission on what might be the value of such posts, if they need to be included in by-election spending, and ask Lowe to produce any communications he may have had with Mr Musk?

Eh?

So if Lord Sugar or Tony Robinson or other celebs who've endorsed Labour in the past make naked partisan comments, does that get counted against their budget?

Many ways to criticise Musk and Restore, but celebrities making comments is neither new nor actionable surely?

That’s a fair argument, that it’s the same as a newspaper endorsement coming from the proprietor or editorial team. But what if they’re foreigners widely read in the UK.

There’s plenty of both positives and negatives about Mr Lowe, but I was thinking it’s an issue that hasnn’t come up before, so might be worthy of somebody getting a ruling on what is or isn’t allowed.

The simple solution to most of our Social Media related woes is to make any platform that uses an alogorithm other than chronological liable as any other media publisher. It would cut them down to size very quickly if they didn't shape up.

You do not think users should be able to choose what they want to see, and block what they do not want under your "chronological only" rule? Would you apply "chronological only" to other media? Newspapers would become unreadable, as would medical journals. It sounds fine but it completely ignores reality.

Eh?

Back in the day, on Facebook, say, your feed would be a reverse chronological order of posts by the people whose posts you wanted to see. That would be it. Same with twitter. And then you could actively search for other things, such as posts about a subject or place you were interested in.

Then the social media companies started using algorithms to curate what they showed you, so they'd shove all this crap in front of you that you hadn't chosen to see, but that would annoy you and keep you scrolling for longer, while you tried to find the posts from the people you wanted to follow.

The whole point is that social media is now a space where an algorithm edits your experience, in the same way that a newspaper edits what news it presents, and so if they want to use an algorithm they should abide by the same rules as newspapers.

If they're only a neutral place for other people to do their own thing then they should not use algorithms to interfere in what you see.

Perhaps people should ask for their money back.

Has Andy Burnham got the gravitas to be PM?

I'm beginning to wonder.

If Justin Trudeau, a former drama supply teacher, could be PM of a G7 nation for a decade I am sure Cambridge educated Burnham could manage.

Zelensky was a comic actor too. Perhaps there is something in this, might we have been happier with a PM Mirren or Grant? Maybe in the future Emma Watson?

"I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis." - Boris.

Elon Musk is retweeting Rupert Lowe again:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2064396727344320767

Musk’s comment:

Only Restore Britain can save Britain.

It is the only way.

That’s a nakedly partisan political comment to someone with likely several million UK followers, during a restricted election period.

Will one of the other parties ask for a ruling from the Electoral Commission on what might be the value of such posts, if they need to be included in by-election spending, and ask Lowe to produce any communications he may have had with Mr Musk?

Eh?

So if Lord Sugar or Tony Robinson or other celebs who've endorsed Labour in the past make naked partisan comments, does that get counted against their budget?

Many ways to criticise Musk and Restore, but celebrities making comments is neither new nor actionable surely?

But Musk isn’t just commenting. He’s broadcasting his message to the world through the social media platform he owns. Twitter is programmed to push his thoughts at people. That’s closer to if Lord Sugar took out a paid advert.

That's not new though, Murdoch has broadcast his messages to the world through platforms he owns for decades. When has it ever been expensed?

Sandpit asked whether Lowe had had communications with Musk. If someone endorsed you, that’s one thing. If a candidate arranges with someone for the equivalent of a paid ad, that’s something that could come under rules around election communications and donations.

What's the precedence for that?

Politicians have regularly had correspondence with Murdoch et al.

More than just correspondance: see Blair's pilgrimage to Murdoch.

The one area where Lowe does need to be *slightly* careful, though, is to make sure he's disclosing all his Twitter/X earnings. If he really is taking in 10k+/month then that should be disclosed in the Register of Interests.

Per The Telegraph:

"Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) used a “deeply flawed” analysis to justify £140m in loans to a skyscraper tycoon, a court has heard.

The Mayor’s authority has been accused of failing to carry out basic checks on property developer Daren Whitaker before approving loans worth roughly half of its public housing investment fund.

The legal challenge has been brought by Aubrey Weis, a rival developer, who argues the loans amounted to an unlawful subsidy for projects linked to Mr Whitaker."

Nothing new here. In fact, £140 million is a fraction of the loans to that one developer. Maybe the court case will make it more prominent to voters but I'm hundreds of miles away. Anyway, here is the Telegraph story if anyone wants to read it and possibly change their bets:-

Burnham ‘relied on deeply flawed analysis’ to pay out skyscraper loans
Developer accuses Mayor’s authority of bypassing basic checks before approving £140m fund
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/01a9fcc213c566e4

Gift link so no paywall.

Elon Musk is retweeting Rupert Lowe again:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2064396727344320767

Musk’s comment:

Only Restore Britain can save Britain.

It is the only way.

That’s a nakedly partisan political comment to someone with likely several million UK followers, during a restricted election period.

Will one of the other parties ask for a ruling from the Electoral Commission on what might be the value of such posts, if they need to be included in by-election spending, and ask Lowe to produce any communications he may have had with Mr Musk?

Eh?

So if Lord Sugar or Tony Robinson or other celebs who've endorsed Labour in the past make naked partisan comments, does that get counted against their budget?

Many ways to criticise Musk and Restore, but celebrities making comments is neither new nor actionable surely?

That’s a fair argument, that it’s the same as a newspaper endorsement coming from the proprietor or editorial team. But what if they’re foreigners widely read in the UK.

There’s plenty of both positives and negatives about Mr Lowe, but I was thinking it’s an issue that hasnn’t come up before, so might be worthy of somebody getting a ruling on what is or isn’t allowed.

The simple solution to most of our Social Media related woes is to make any platform that uses an alogorithm other than chronological liable as any other media publisher. It would cut them down to size very quickly if they didn't shape up.

You do not think users should be able to choose what they want to see, and block what they do not want under your "chronological only" rule? Would you apply "chronological only" to other media? Newspapers would become unreadable, as would medical journals. It sounds fine but it completely ignores reality.

Eh?

Back in the day, on Facebook, say, your feed would be a reverse chronological order of posts by the people whose posts you wanted to see. That would be it. Same with twitter. And then you could actively search for other things, such as posts about a subject or place you were interested in.

Then the social media companies started using algorithms to curate what they showed you, so they'd shove all this crap in front of you that you hadn't chosen to see, but that would annoy you and keep you scrolling for longer, while you tried to find the posts from the people you wanted to follow.

The whole point is that social media is now a space where an algorithm edits your experience, in the same way that a newspaper edits what news it presents, and so if they want to use an algorithm they should abide by the same rules as newspapers.

If they're only a neutral place for other people to do their own thing then they should not use algorithms to interfere in what you see.

Elon Musk is retweeting Rupert Lowe again:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2064396727344320767

Musk’s comment:

Only Restore Britain can save Britain.

It is the only way.

That’s a nakedly partisan political comment to someone with likely several million UK followers, during a restricted election period.

Will one of the other parties ask for a ruling from the Electoral Commission on what might be the value of such posts, if they need to be included in by-election spending, and ask Lowe to produce any communications he may have had with Mr Musk?

Eh?

So if Lord Sugar or Tony Robinson or other celebs who've endorsed Labour in the past make naked partisan comments, does that get counted against their budget?

Many ways to criticise Musk and Restore, but celebrities making comments is neither new nor actionable surely?

That’s a fair argument, that it’s the same as a newspaper endorsement coming from the proprietor or editorial team. But what if they’re foreigners widely read in the UK.

There’s plenty of both positives and negatives about Mr Lowe, but I was thinking it’s an issue that hasnn’t come up before, so might be worthy of somebody getting a ruling on what is or isn’t allowed.

The simple solution to most of our Social Media related woes is to make any platform that uses an alogorithm other than chronological liable as any other media publisher. It would cut them down to size very quickly if they didn't shape up.

You do not think users should be able to choose what they want to see, and block what they do not want under your "chronological only" rule? Would you apply "chronological only" to other media? Newspapers would become unreadable, as would medical journals. It sounds fine but it completely ignores reality.

Eh?

Back in the day, on Facebook, say, your feed would be a reverse chronological order of posts by the people whose posts you wanted to see. That would be it. Same with twitter. And then you could actively search for other things, such as posts about a subject or place you were interested in.

Then the social media companies started using algorithms to curate what they showed you, so they'd shove all this crap in front of you that you hadn't chosen to see, but that would annoy you and keep you scrolling for longer, while you tried to find the posts from the people you wanted to follow.

The whole point is that social media is now a space where an algorithm edits your experience, in the same way that a newspaper edits what news it presents, and so if they want to use an algorithm they should abide by the same rules as newspapers.

If they're only a neutral place for other people to do their own thing then they should not use algorithms to interfere in what you see.

Perhaps people should ask for their money back.