Best Of

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Has Andy Burnham got the gravitas to be PM?

I'm beginning to wonder.

Very Little Gravitas Indeed

Very little needed. How much gravitas did Truss or or Johnson have?

Let alone Trump!

We'll see.

I am predicting this will become a talking point/issue in say twelve months time.

Not sure the whole mate of the Smiths/could have been a guitar player in Stone Roses is gonna be working by next year as we enter a world of shit over EL Nino/Trump/Putin/Hormuz/inflation.

Of course it will become an issue. Literally anyone taking over as PM in 2026 will be heavily criticised and very unpopular by summer 2027.

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.

Newspapers and medical journals already accept responsibility for what they publish.

If a reader sets preferences, that is very different to the Social Media alogorithim choosing them.

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.

Newspapers and medical journals already accept responsibility for what they publish.

If a reader sets preferences, that is very different to the Social Media alogorithim choosing them.

So the first 2 people arrested in the protests outside Southampton police station have got 34 and 37 months each in prison

For what, exactly? Looks awfully “Two-tier” unless someone was seriously injured.

No one should be in any doubt by now that the courts take a f*cking dim view of violent disorder and rioting.

Been that way for a long long time.

Twitter seems to think this was the same judge who sentenced Lucy Connolly. Any truth to that?

"Twitter seems to think" = "Untrue with near 100% probability".

Sandpit is basically a conspiracy theorist.

He accepted an alternative position when presented with it - they don't do that.

Sandpit is just one of the billions of people who mistake social media for a news source.

Twitter is a great news source.
It just needs treating with a massive dose of scepticism.