The dangerous first step towards the end of the World Wide Web as we know it – politicalbetting.com
The dangerous first step towards the end of the World Wide Web as we know it – politicalbetting.com
So one day, when this terrible virus is finally under some semblance of control, we will be able to go back to the pub. We will be able to do something that we have been unable to do for far too long – socialise face to face with our friends. Hopefully we will be able to resurrect the Political Betting pub nights and prove to each other we really are human after all and not the product of some social media bot factory in Chernogolovka. We will laugh, joke, catch up on all the personal news and gossip about what is happening in the world – informed of course by what is being reported in the newspapers both hard copy and, increasingly, online.
Comments
-
A bizarre thread attempting to defend the indefensible. Facebook is a disgusting organisation which, and this is the most bizarre aspect of RT's one-sided thread, constantly data mines to invade and intrude into personal privacy. One of its most egregious examples is in its new data privacy invasion rules on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.
Let's be clear about this. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has everything to do with profit. The more Facebook can invade your privacy, the more it can manipulate what you see, when you see it, and what you can be coerced into buying. Facebook and Google are duopolies controlling around 65% of your access to the news and where a monopoly exists you can be certain that there your freedom and right to access any news you like ... ends.
As I say, a bizarre article. Richard has pinned his ultra-libertarian ideals to the wrong mast.1 -
Watching TV reports on this last night was utterly baffling.
If anybody wants to access any news source on the internet why on earth does Facebook need to be involved?
Various people talking about damage to democracy - if anybody wants to access any news whatsoever why do they need to have anything to do with Facebook?
As for sharing links - if I see an article on a website which I want to tell a friend about, why not just send them an email or text?
It seems to me that people are getting brainwashed regarding the power of Facebook when there is no need whatsoever to use their services.1 -
Much of the talk about needing to regulate Facebook makes it sound like some essential monopoly along the lines of gas or electricity.
It's a complete farce - it is a completely optional leisure activity whereby people have fun sharing stories etc with their friends.
There's nothing essential about it. Nobody needs to spend a single penny on it if they don't like the way it operates.
There are numerous other ways to spend your leisure time.9 -
Finally I can't imagine how Facebook could be forced to enter the news market.
If Facebook says they have no interest in selling news (if links are deemed to come within the definition of a sale) then how can anyone make them sell news?
Nobody would dream of introducing a law to force Tesco to sell cars or Marks & Spencer to sell holidays (though they obviously can if they wish) - so how on earth can Facebook be forced to sell news?
The whole thing seems completely baffling.
If the response is that they are so powerful that they must be regulated in this way, surely the answer is that by removing all news links they'll be a lot less powerful so the problem goes away.5 -
Facebook certainly doesn't control 65% of access to news.Mysticrose said:A bizarre thread attempting to defend the indefensible. Facebook is a disgusting organisation which, and this is the most bizarre aspect of RT's one-sided thread, constantly data mines to invade and intrude into personal privacy. One of its most egregious examples is in its new data privacy invasion rules on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.
Let's be clear about this. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has everything to do with profit. The more Facebook can invade your privacy, the more it can manipulate what you see, when you see it, and what you can be coerced into buying. Facebook and Google are duopolies controlling around 65% of your access to the news and where a monopoly exists you can be certain that there your freedom and right to access any news you like ... ends.
As I say, a bizarre article. Richard has pinned his ultra-libertarian ideals to the wrong mast.
Top 10 UK news sources (per OFCOM).
1. BBC1
2. ITV
3. Facebook
4. Sky News (TV)
5. BBC website
6. BBC News Channel
7. Channel 4
8. Daily Mail
9. Twitter
10. Google
Link- see 19/115
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/201316/news-consumption-2020-report.pdf0 -
Hoo-boy.
An excellent stone to throw into the pool at this time, Richard.
An issue that goes back down to very old and fundamental questions of principle wrt the Net. Who owns it? And who has a right tocontrol it?
One bit of evidence still above the surface is ... why is it the site not called politicalbetting.co.uk ?
If it is like my old site used to be, it is a combination of .com being the de facto world domain, and the USA being about the only place in the world where the belief in free expression is a dogma which is above the principle of tactical Government control, and no one trusts other Governments - including the UK and Australia - not to try and control it for any number of reasons.
Another one is ... why was it even *possible* for Boris Johnson's website for his Mayoral Campaign for London Mayor to be taken down by mistake as collateral damage when a totally different website was in dispute with a lawyer about a publication.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/sep/21/digitalmedia.politicsandthemedia
This is why much of the political blogosphere in this, and other countries, is still built on infrastructure which is indexed from outside the country.
There are other fundamental arguments above that, including "does a link constitute republication" and "is a link text a copyright violation".
Then @Mysticrose's explosion is layered on top of that, based on assertions about a company using the resources of the net to encourage customers into an environment upon which they become dependent, whether it is appropriate for a government to claim to control *that*, and whether such an environment-provider can decide to repattern the service it provides unilaterally.
Does Facebook owe Australian users of its service a right to control that service? Does the Australian Government have a right to interfere in the way it has?
Time to check up on the Australian Law.
But play nicely, folks, to make this educational as well as hammer and tongs.
Since we are in a period of encouraging new header writers, let's have a header arguing the other side from @Mysticrose .4 -
Facebook? Forget about it. Try walking, talking to people, using the 'phone, sending emails, writing notes and letters.
The web's "social media" downside is that it gives too much leverage to individuals, although instilling scepticism from an early age would help.0 -
A nicely explained lead. I have sympathy with his argument, except that I suspect the motive is principally financial - governments see the big tech giants operating financially ‘above’ nations and their governments, and are looking for ways to tax them more effectively. The generalised concern about their power provides the political capital to make their move, but I doubt politicians are motivated, directly at least, by desire to control the content.
As so often in politics, it’s the wrong thing being done for the right reasons.1 -
I don't get the argument. Content has to be created, and that which is created by companies costs money. If Facebook provides links to said content and people click through to consume it then wouldn't everyone be happy? The story notes that a deal has been struck between Google and NewsCorp, yet if I go onto Google News it does not host stories and content, merely links to them. In this instance Google is driving traffic to News Corp not stealing from it.
So if Facebook's argument is that it has the right to offer plagiarised content that has been lifted from elsewhere and hosted on its own site, then surely the Aussie government is right? Facebook should allow people to *link* to news hosted elsewhere but not steal it for its own platform. Surely...0 -
I think the real risk of this law for the Australian media is that it won’t see them be paid for more content, it will just see their share of the market decline more rapidly and they will get even less money overall.
After all, why bother with the tedious business of searching the SMH less than user friendly page when CNN, BBC and about 1200 other news outlets will be more readily available through Google?0 -
0
-
Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.3 -
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.1 -
Having done more reading, it seems that Google have agreed to pay for content they intend to mine and place on their own platform. That seems perfectly fair. Otherwise, when Google and Twitter simply post links to the content hosted by its creator I don't see a problem.ydoethur said:What has Twitter said?
After all, their entire business model is effectively the sharing of links.
Just as @Scott_xP seems to have it as his mission in life to share all those links with us...0 -
@Richard_Tyndall is absolutely correct. Facebook is merely doing exactly what PB would do if there was a charge every time someone linked to a story.
It is - of course - entirely possible for websites to prevent any deep linking at all. One might be required to go via the homepage, and when you wanted to get the page on the latest juicy scandal, that could take the form of POST request which could not simply be copied and shared.3 -
Eh?Mysticrose said:A bizarre thread attempting to defend the indefensible. Facebook is a disgusting organisation which, and this is the most bizarre aspect of RT's one-sided thread, constantly data mines to invade and intrude into personal privacy. One of its most egregious examples is in its new data privacy invasion rules on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.
Let's be clear about this. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has everything to do with profit. The more Facebook can invade your privacy, the more it can manipulate what you see, when you see it, and what you can be coerced into buying. Facebook and Google are duopolies controlling around 65% of your access to the news and where a monopoly exists you can be certain that there your freedom and right to access any news you like ... ends.
As I say, a bizarre article. Richard has pinned his ultra-libertarian ideals to the wrong mast.
This case is very simple.
There is a law in Australia which says that if you link to a news story, then you have to make a small payment.
This means Facebook has two choices: (1) make the payment, (2) don't allow links to Australian news articles. They have chosen option (2).
This is *completely* different from your point about whether they invade privacy or behave badly.13 -
Eh?RochdalePioneers said:I don't get the argument. Content has to be created, and that which is created by companies costs money. If Facebook provides links to said content and people click through to consume it then wouldn't everyone be happy? The story notes that a deal has been struck between Google and NewsCorp, yet if I go onto Google News it does not host stories and content, merely links to them. In this instance Google is driving traffic to News Corp not stealing from it.
So if Facebook's argument is that it has the right to offer plagiarised content that has been lifted from elsewhere and hosted on its own site, then surely the Aussie government is right? Facebook should allow people to *link* to news hosted elsewhere but not steal it for its own platform. Surely...
Facebook has chosen not to allow links. Which is the other perfectly permissible option they have.1 -
That's the problem, it is the links which they are being made to pay for. There is no stealing involved, the idea is that by merely linking to a site you need to pay for it.RochdalePioneers said:I don't get the argument. Content has to be created, and that which is created by companies costs money. If Facebook provides links to said content and people click through to consume it then wouldn't everyone be happy? The story notes that a deal has been struck between Google and NewsCorp, yet if I go onto Google News it does not host stories and content, merely links to them. In this instance Google is driving traffic to News Corp not stealing from it.
So if Facebook's argument is that it has the right to offer plagiarised content that has been lifted from elsewhere and hosted on its own site, then surely the Aussie government is right? Facebook should allow people to *link* to news hosted elsewhere but not steal it for its own platform. Surely...
Which is insane. A link should be a free advert for a site. Not something to charge. If sites aren't making money from all these free adverts to themselves then they need to sort their own business model out, not demand payment from every link.
Facebook are entirely in the right here.3 -
How many link posted here (along with the story details) do you click through to ?RochdalePioneers said:I don't get the argument. Content has to be created, and that which is created by companies costs money. If Facebook provides links to said content and people click through to consume it then wouldn't everyone be happy? The story notes that a deal has been struck between Google and NewsCorp, yet if I go onto Google News it does not host stories and content, merely links to them. In this instance Google is driving traffic to News Corp not stealing from it.
So if Facebook's argument is that it has the right to offer plagiarised content that has been lifted from elsewhere and hosted on its own site, then surely the Aussie government is right? Facebook should allow people to *link* to news hosted elsewhere but not steal it for its own platform. Surely...
Certainly a number of posters say they get the majority of their news just by reading this site. Now that activity is not going to make much difference to the potential income of any news organisation, but laws such as the Australian one could potentially shut this site down.
Many of Facebook’s billions of users get most of their news there. It’s a hard problem for news organisations, which increasingly will get all of their revenue from online. Richard is right to say that this law is the wrong solution, though, and understanding that as a ‘defence’ of Facebook is misguided.4 -
Good morning, everyone.
A link tax was nuts when the EU proposed it (did that go through?). Seems crackers.0 -
Here to Hear, or Here to There ?RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here...0 -
If the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
Also, this somewhat ties in with right wing Labour...
https://twitter.com/Muqadaam/status/1362390826928787456
Yesterday was the 2 year birthday!
They are kind of like UKIP in that their huge vote tallies pushed their former party towards them, I mean you can hold onto ideology but you can't find that kind of popularity.
Edit: In reference to the twitter response to Starmer's speech it was quite amusing...
The positive quote tweets to his speech consisted almost completely of people actually employed by the Labour party or the fabians. I counted 3 that weren't and one of those was Tom Watson, one of the others was mildly critical and positive.
There was one positive quote tweet from someone not paid and not Tom Watson!0 -
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.6 -
If PB can’t even decide whether Facebook is singular or plural, what hope have we of sorting out the ‘tax’ condundrum?2
-
No.Morris_Dancer said:Good morning, everyone.
A link tax was nuts when the EU proposed it (did that go through?). Seems crackers.
Amazingly, wiser heads prevailed.1 -
Mr. B2, some words can be tricky. Like family or team.0
-
The only one I had any particular time for was Luciana Berger.TheJezziah said:
If the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
Also, this somewhat ties in with right wing Labour...
https://twitter.com/Muqadaam/status/1362390826928787456
Yesterday was the 2 year birthday!
They are kind of like UKIP in that their huge vote tallies pushed their former party towards them, I mean you can hold onto ideology but you can't find that kind of popularity.
Edit: In reference to the twitter response to Starmer's speech it was quite amusing...
The positive quote tweets to his speech consisted almost completely of people actually employed by the Labour party or the fabians. I counted 3 that weren't and one of those was Tom Watson, one of the others was mildly critical and positive.
There was one positive quote tweet from someone not paid and not Tom Watson!3 -
A good piece, well argued from Mr Tyndall.
This is not the right solution, but it indicative of the increasing tensions between governments, traditional media and social media.
Governments see social media as unaccountable behemoths, spending disinformation and polarisation among society while not paying taxes.
Traditional media has been slowly dying for a while, with huge numbers of redundancies especially at local publications and in smaller countries. They also have the ear of governments.
Social media have been laughing all the way to the bank for years, without a thought as to their negative externalities of their business to society. Australians see Facebook as a massive oil tanker polluting their coastline.
We will be seeing a lot more attempts by government to rein in social media companies in the coming months and years, especially as we see them responsible for spreading more disinformation, and they think of themselves as above regulation by any single state.1 -
Why isn't the Scottish football child abuse report all over the media?0
-
People struggle with nuance. Bad people, or bad organisations, aren't always in the wrong.
Facebook may be - in aggregate - bad for the world. But it doesn't mean they aren't right in this particular case.8 -
Why do you think Facebook are going to lose the fight - they make their profit from charging companies for links to their products? They are never going to pay for links as it destroys their entire business model.
The law is stupid and the only thing of interest was Google's rapid change of viewpoint (from removing all links to paying) after Microsoft decided it was worth paying Murdoch to try and purchase some users for Bing.
0 -
Morning folks
Many thanks to OGH for putting up my thoughts on this. I said when I sent it over that I thought it probably wouldn't be a popular position but hoped it would stimulate debate.
Just before I went to bed I had a count up of the number (including repeats of the same link) on the previous thread. There were something in excess of 50. And that was not a particularly heavy link thread compared to others. Debate on here cannot really survive without links to media articles. It is a basic demand of proof in many cases, not least because of course context is all and simply making a claim without showing context is open to massive misinterpretation (at best) and abuse (at worst). A link tax would kill that. What is happening in Australia, if allowed to spread, will kill that.
I think this matters far more than people realise - and certainly far more than Facebook or even Google.4 -
But only after Spain tried it with Google and Google closed down the local Google News site.rcs1000 said:
No.Morris_Dancer said:Good morning, everyone.
A link tax was nuts when the EU proposed it (did that go through?). Seems crackers.
Amazingly, wiser heads prevailed.
Spanish news websites lost 20% of their audience and that lose was felt more by smaller sites without the name recognition that results in people going there directly.
https://twitter.com/natematias/status/13621956167309148202 -
You are conflating arguments. The question of privacy invasion and paying tax on profits is entirely separate from this. Those arguments only apply to the big companies like Facebook who have the weight and reach to get try and get away with it. This argument applies to everyone. It can and will entirely change the way the internet works.Mysticrose said:A bizarre thread attempting to defend the indefensible. Facebook is a disgusting organisation which, and this is the most bizarre aspect of RT's one-sided thread, constantly data mines to invade and intrude into personal privacy. One of its most egregious examples is in its new data privacy invasion rules on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.
Let's be clear about this. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has everything to do with profit. The more Facebook can invade your privacy, the more it can manipulate what you see, when you see it, and what you can be coerced into buying. Facebook and Google are duopolies controlling around 65% of your access to the news and where a monopoly exists you can be certain that there your freedom and right to access any news you like ... ends.
As I say, a bizarre article. Richard has pinned his ultra-libertarian ideals to the wrong mast.4 -
Yes, it's a bit like the freedom of speech argument. Standing up for freedom of speech means siding with that idiot in Scotland cheering on the death of a 100 year old veteran, or Tommy Robinson, or the worst of Corbyn's antisemitic friends.rcs1000 said:People struggle with nuance. Bad people, or bad organisations, aren't always in the wrong.
Facebook may be - in aggregate - bad for the world. But it doesn't mean they aren't right in this particular case.
The alternative is a long slippery slope into authoritarianism, where saying that women have children is a crime that costs you your job.6 -
Half listening to the radio while feeding the dog, I thought I heard something about an anti-holiday campaign group. This lockdown is going from bad to worse, I thought.
Turned out it was anti-poverty. A much more sensible campaign.1 -
For some reason when I read the article on my phone it didn't show who the author was. Now I know it's yours Richard, it was an excellent article and I agree with you completely.
This is a very dangerous idea. Simply linking to a site should never be charged. If it was a charge for copying and pasting that would be fair enough but that's not the case.0 -
What is needed is a more effective way to tax internet advertising revenues.2
-
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!2 -
Facebook, like Google relies entirely upon public opinion for its survival. I am not certain they will lose this battle but it seems likely to me that they will eventually surrender. And in that surrender lies the danger. Because it is in accepting the principle that we allow Governments to exercise unwarranted control over what we can see on the internet.eek said:Why do you think Facebook are going to lose the fight - they make their profit from charging companies for links to their products? They are never going to pay for links as it destroys their entire business model.
The law is stupid and the only thing of interest was Google's rapid change of viewpoint (from removing all links to paying) after Microsoft decided it was worth paying Murdoch to try and purchase some users for Bing.1 -
But in all those cases they are looking at the wrong thing:-Sandpit said:A good piece, well argued from Mr Tyndall.
This is not the right solution, but it indicative of the increasing tensions between governments, traditional media and social media.
Governments see social media as unaccountable behemoths, spending disinformation and polarisation among society while not paying taxes.
Traditional media has been slowly dying for a while, with huge numbers of redundancies especially at local publications and in smaller countries. They also have the ear of governments.
Social media have been laughing all the way to the bank for years, without a thought as to their negative externalities of their business to society. Australians see Facebook as a massive oil tanker polluting their coastline.
We will be seeing a lot more attempts by government to rein in social media companies in the coming months and years, especially as we see them responsible for spreading more disinformation, and they think of themselves as above regulation by any single state.
Local papers were actually killed off not by social media but by Craigslist and similar sites which destroyed their profit base that was local classified advertising. Around the same time Jobsites destroyed the equally profitable job advert market and Rightmove slow destroyed estate agent advertising.
That gave people less reasons to buy the local paper (hence reducing a second income source) which resulted in less reporting so even less reason to purchase the paper.
Social media still drives people to news sources - without links from other sites no one would visit them in the first place (as Google demonstrated back in 2014).
And there is a way of fixing it but that requires subscription services and a standardised pay to view page solution.4 -
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.3 -
Yes and no. Newspapers aren't losing readers because of cragislist, and advertising revenue correlates with readership reach.eek said:
But in all those cases they are looking at the wrong thing:-Sandpit said:A good piece, well argued from Mr Tyndall.
This is not the right solution, but it indicative of the increasing tensions between governments, traditional media and social media.
Governments see social media as unaccountable behemoths, spending disinformation and polarisation among society while not paying taxes.
Traditional media has been slowly dying for a while, with huge numbers of redundancies especially at local publications and in smaller countries. They also have the ear of governments.
Social media have been laughing all the way to the bank for years, without a thought as to their negative externalities of their business to society. Australians see Facebook as a massive oil tanker polluting their coastline.
We will be seeing a lot more attempts by government to rein in social media companies in the coming months and years, especially as we see them responsible for spreading more disinformation, and they think of themselves as above regulation by any single state.
Local papers were actually killed off not by social media but by Craigslist and similar sites which destroyed their profit base that was local classified advertising. Around the same time Jobsites destroyed the equally profitable job advert market and Rightmove slow destroyed estate agent advertising.
That gave people less reasons to buy the local paper (hence reducing a second income source) which resulted in less reporting so even less reason to purchase the paper.
Social media still drives people to news sources - without links from other sites no one would visit them in the first place (as Google demonstrated back in 2014).
And there is a way of fixing it but that requires subscription services and a standardised pay to view page solution.0 -
If we're judging by actions then Corbyn ushered in an eighty seat majority for the Tories, nearly a decade after the Tories entered Downing Street.ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
Thanks Jezziah! 👍2 -
Excellent article and I think this is a part of a wider problem of governments using legislation with a desire to show something is being done rather than a coherent plan showing why their country will be better off after the additional legislation. Too little thought, too much media pressure, too many laws, too quickly passed, not enough dissent and review from tightly managed political parties combining for bad government.Richard_Tyndall said:
You are conflating arguments. The question of privacy invasion and paying tax on profits is entirely separate from this. Those arguments only apply to the big companies like Facebook who have the weight and reach to get try and get away with it. This argument applies to everyone. It can and will entirely change the way the internet works.Mysticrose said:A bizarre thread attempting to defend the indefensible. Facebook is a disgusting organisation which, and this is the most bizarre aspect of RT's one-sided thread, constantly data mines to invade and intrude into personal privacy. One of its most egregious examples is in its new data privacy invasion rules on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.
Let's be clear about this. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has everything to do with profit. The more Facebook can invade your privacy, the more it can manipulate what you see, when you see it, and what you can be coerced into buying. Facebook and Google are duopolies controlling around 65% of your access to the news and where a monopoly exists you can be certain that there your freedom and right to access any news you like ... ends.
As I say, a bizarre article. Richard has pinned his ultra-libertarian ideals to the wrong mast.3 -
Are newspapers losing readers because of people sharing links to the newspaper?IanB2 said:
Yes and no. Newspapers aren't losing readers because of cragislist, and advertising revenue correlates with readership reach.eek said:
But in all those cases they are looking at the wrong thing:-Sandpit said:A good piece, well argued from Mr Tyndall.
This is not the right solution, but it indicative of the increasing tensions between governments, traditional media and social media.
Governments see social media as unaccountable behemoths, spending disinformation and polarisation among society while not paying taxes.
Traditional media has been slowly dying for a while, with huge numbers of redundancies especially at local publications and in smaller countries. They also have the ear of governments.
Social media have been laughing all the way to the bank for years, without a thought as to their negative externalities of their business to society. Australians see Facebook as a massive oil tanker polluting their coastline.
We will be seeing a lot more attempts by government to rein in social media companies in the coming months and years, especially as we see them responsible for spreading more disinformation, and they think of themselves as above regulation by any single state.
Local papers were actually killed off not by social media but by Craigslist and similar sites which destroyed their profit base that was local classified advertising. Around the same time Jobsites destroyed the equally profitable job advert market and Rightmove slow destroyed estate agent advertising.
That gave people less reasons to buy the local paper (hence reducing a second income source) which resulted in less reporting so even less reason to purchase the paper.
Social media still drives people to news sources - without links from other sites no one would visit them in the first place (as Google demonstrated back in 2014).
And there is a way of fixing it but that requires subscription services and a standardised pay to view page solution.1 -
Google provides the Go To index for the world - but it controls what it displays.Richard_Tyndall said:
Facebook, like Google relies entirely upon public opinion for its survival. I am not certain they will lose this battle but it seems likely to me that they will eventually surrender. And in that surrender lies the danger. Because it is in accepting the principle that we allow Governments to exercise unwarranted control over what we can see on the internet.eek said:Why do you think Facebook are going to lose the fight - they make their profit from charging companies for links to their products? They are never going to pay for links as it destroys their entire business model.
The law is stupid and the only thing of interest was Google's rapid change of viewpoint (from removing all links to paying) after Microsoft decided it was worth paying Murdoch to try and purchase some users for Bing.
Facebook provides the news of what your friends are doing - Facebook doesnt control what Facebook's users post.
I suspect Facebook can live without Australian news and will accept a lot of grieve because the other option is losing complete control over it's business model.0 -
That was the first election since 1865 where a governing party that had lost seats at a previous election made a net gain of them, and the first time ever a party that had been in government for nine years or more increased their majority.Philip_Thompson said:
If we're judging by actions then Corbyn ushered in an eighty seat majority for the Tories, nearly a decade after the Tories entered Downing Street.ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
Thanks Jezziah! 👍
It was a stunningly bad performance by Labour from every metric. It just should not have happened.4 -
I do hope you are right.eek said:
Google provides the Go To index for the world - but it controls what it displays.Richard_Tyndall said:
Facebook, like Google relies entirely upon public opinion for its survival. I am not certain they will lose this battle but it seems likely to me that they will eventually surrender. And in that surrender lies the danger. Because it is in accepting the principle that we allow Governments to exercise unwarranted control over what we can see on the internet.eek said:Why do you think Facebook are going to lose the fight - they make their profit from charging companies for links to their products? They are never going to pay for links as it destroys their entire business model.
The law is stupid and the only thing of interest was Google's rapid change of viewpoint (from removing all links to paying) after Microsoft decided it was worth paying Murdoch to try and purchase some users for Bing.
Facebook provides the news of what your friends are doing - Facebook doesnt control what Facebook's users post.
I suspect Facebook can live without Australian news and will accept a lot of grieve because the other option is losing complete control over it's business model.0 -
The move of advertising to online was indeed a massive factor in the decline of both local newspaper sales and economics. The two biggest players in that market, by far - Google and Facebook.eek said:
But in all those cases they are looking at the wrong thing:-Sandpit said:A good piece, well argued from Mr Tyndall.
This is not the right solution, but it indicative of the increasing tensions between governments, traditional media and social media.
Governments see social media as unaccountable behemoths, spending disinformation and polarisation among society while not paying taxes.
Traditional media has been slowly dying for a while, with huge numbers of redundancies especially at local publications and in smaller countries. They also have the ear of governments.
Social media have been laughing all the way to the bank for years, without a thought as to their negative externalities of their business to society. Australians see Facebook as a massive oil tanker polluting their coastline.
We will be seeing a lot more attempts by government to rein in social media companies in the coming months and years, especially as we see them responsible for spreading more disinformation, and they think of themselves as above regulation by any single state.
Local papers were actually killed off not by social media but by Craigslist and similar sites which destroyed their profit base that was local classified advertising. Around the same time Jobsites destroyed the equally profitable job advert market and Rightmove slow destroyed estate agent advertising.
That gave people less reasons to buy the local paper (hence reducing a second income source) which resulted in less reporting so even less reason to purchase the paper.
Social media still drives people to news sources - without links from other sites no one would visit them in the first place (as Google demonstrated back in 2014).
And there is a way of fixing it but that requires subscription services and a standardised pay to view page solution.
Rightmove is one of the most annoying website business models - basically the estate agents got together to protect their oligopoly, and did it early enough to entrench themselves online. There's a huge market for disruption there, cutting out that expensive middleman with a basic advertising and conveyancing service.1 -
It was Starmers fault for his mad actions on Brexitydoethur said:
That was the first election since 1865 where a governing party that had lost seats at a previous election made a net gain of them, and the first time ever a party that had been in government for nine years or more increased their majority.Philip_Thompson said:
If we're judging by actions then Corbyn ushered in an eighty seat majority for the Tories, nearly a decade after the Tories entered Downing Street.ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
Thanks Jezziah! 👍
It was a stunningly bad performance by Labour from every metric. It just should not have happened.0 -
Oh but they are - I know people who used to buy the paper for the job adverts. And I'm not that old.IanB2 said:
Yes and no. Newspapers aren't losing readers because of cragislist, and advertising revenue correlates with readership reach.eek said:
But in all those cases they are looking at the wrong thing:-Sandpit said:A good piece, well argued from Mr Tyndall.
This is not the right solution, but it indicative of the increasing tensions between governments, traditional media and social media.
Governments see social media as unaccountable behemoths, spending disinformation and polarisation among society while not paying taxes.
Traditional media has been slowly dying for a while, with huge numbers of redundancies especially at local publications and in smaller countries. They also have the ear of governments.
Social media have been laughing all the way to the bank for years, without a thought as to their negative externalities of their business to society. Australians see Facebook as a massive oil tanker polluting their coastline.
We will be seeing a lot more attempts by government to rein in social media companies in the coming months and years, especially as we see them responsible for spreading more disinformation, and they think of themselves as above regulation by any single state.
Local papers were actually killed off not by social media but by Craigslist and similar sites which destroyed their profit base that was local classified advertising. Around the same time Jobsites destroyed the equally profitable job advert market and Rightmove slow destroyed estate agent advertising.
That gave people less reasons to buy the local paper (hence reducing a second income source) which resulted in less reporting so even less reason to purchase the paper.
Social media still drives people to news sources - without links from other sites no one would visit them in the first place (as Google demonstrated back in 2014).
And there is a way of fixing it but that requires subscription services and a standardised pay to view page solution.2 -
I get most of my news from here so look at newspaper site less than otherwise, so yes with the scale of facebook I am sure they are losing readers. There is an issue here, and to an extent Facebook are leeching off the work of newspapers. But, that doesnt mean that the Australian legislation solves the issue, it merely has created a bigger issue.Philip_Thompson said:
Are newspapers losing readers because of people sharing links to the newspaper?IanB2 said:
Yes and no. Newspapers aren't losing readers because of cragislist, and advertising revenue correlates with readership reach.eek said:
But in all those cases they are looking at the wrong thing:-Sandpit said:A good piece, well argued from Mr Tyndall.
This is not the right solution, but it indicative of the increasing tensions between governments, traditional media and social media.
Governments see social media as unaccountable behemoths, spending disinformation and polarisation among society while not paying taxes.
Traditional media has been slowly dying for a while, with huge numbers of redundancies especially at local publications and in smaller countries. They also have the ear of governments.
Social media have been laughing all the way to the bank for years, without a thought as to their negative externalities of their business to society. Australians see Facebook as a massive oil tanker polluting their coastline.
We will be seeing a lot more attempts by government to rein in social media companies in the coming months and years, especially as we see them responsible for spreading more disinformation, and they think of themselves as above regulation by any single state.
Local papers were actually killed off not by social media but by Craigslist and similar sites which destroyed their profit base that was local classified advertising. Around the same time Jobsites destroyed the equally profitable job advert market and Rightmove slow destroyed estate agent advertising.
That gave people less reasons to buy the local paper (hence reducing a second income source) which resulted in less reporting so even less reason to purchase the paper.
Social media still drives people to news sources - without links from other sites no one would visit them in the first place (as Google demonstrated back in 2014).
And there is a way of fixing it but that requires subscription services and a standardised pay to view page solution.0 -
Fantastic that it did though.ydoethur said:
That was the first election since 1865 where a governing party that had lost seats at a previous election made a net gain of them, and the first time ever a party that had been in government for nine years or more increased their majority.Philip_Thompson said:
If we're judging by actions then Corbyn ushered in an eighty seat majority for the Tories, nearly a decade after the Tories entered Downing Street.ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
Thanks Jezziah! 👍
It was a stunningly bad performance by Labour from every metric. It just should not have happened.
For us, not the left.1 -
Oh Facebook is bad for a lot of algorithmic reasons (echo chambers are great for additional views and hence additional revenue) but in this case they are both completely in the right and backing down destroys large parts of their business model.Sandpit said:
Yes, it's a bit like the freedom of speech argument. Standing up for freedom of speech means siding with that idiot in Scotland cheering on the death of a 100 year old veteran, or Tommy Robinson, or the worst of Corbyn's antisemitic friends.rcs1000 said:People struggle with nuance. Bad people, or bad organisations, aren't always in the wrong.
Facebook may be - in aggregate - bad for the world. But it doesn't mean they aren't right in this particular case.
The alternative is a long slippery slope into authoritarianism, where saying that women have children is a crime that costs you your job.
Facebook will continue their block as removing it destroys their advertising business model.0 -
For *you* PhilIip not *us* please. I never voted for Johnson.Philip_Thompson said:
Fantastic that it did though.ydoethur said:
That was the first election since 1865 where a governing party that had lost seats at a previous election made a net gain of them, and the first time ever a party that had been in government for nine years or more increased their majority.Philip_Thompson said:
If we're judging by actions then Corbyn ushered in an eighty seat majority for the Tories, nearly a decade after the Tories entered Downing Street.ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
Thanks Jezziah! 👍
It was a stunningly bad performance by Labour from every metric. It just should not have happened.
For us, not the left.
It was a very bad result for anyone who wants proper two party democracy. In fact, just about the worst imaginable.2 -
"Us" on the right.ydoethur said:
For *you* PhilIip not *us* please. I never voted for Johnson.Philip_Thompson said:
Fantastic that it did though.ydoethur said:
That was the first election since 1865 where a governing party that had lost seats at a previous election made a net gain of them, and the first time ever a party that had been in government for nine years or more increased their majority.Philip_Thompson said:
If we're judging by actions then Corbyn ushered in an eighty seat majority for the Tories, nearly a decade after the Tories entered Downing Street.ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
Thanks Jezziah! 👍
It was a stunningly bad performance by Labour from every metric. It just should not have happened.
For us, not the left.
It was a very bad result for anyone who wants proper two party democracy. In fact, just about the worst imaginable.
And in my eyes the country, but that's just my opinion.
And in my opinion for those who want proper two party democracy since it should have provided a wake up call to the left rather than them wanting a "one more heave" approach.0 -
It's bizarre because news sites should be wanting lots of links to their news articles. I don't even understand what the proposed charge is trying to achieve.Philip_Thompson said:For some reason when I read the article on my phone it didn't show who the author was. Now I know it's yours Richard, it was an excellent article and I agree with you completely.
This is a very dangerous idea. Simply linking to a site should never be charged. If it was a charge for copying and pasting that would be fair enough but that's not the case.
One thing that I notice about most news websites is that they understand the power of links and they minimise outbound links.
So, if you have a Guardian article about any ONS statistics you will very rarely, if ever, see a link to the statistical release on the ONS website. They know that they don't want to boost the ONS in the search rankings by linking to them.
This demonstrates how important inbound links are. Why would you want to charge for them?2 -
I agree it should. But it clearly hasn’t.Philip_Thompson said:
"Us" on the right.ydoethur said:
For *you* PhilIip not *us* please. I never voted for Johnson.Philip_Thompson said:
Fantastic that it did though.ydoethur said:
That was the first election since 1865 where a governing party that had lost seats at a previous election made a net gain of them, and the first time ever a party that had been in government for nine years or more increased their majority.Philip_Thompson said:
If we're judging by actions then Corbyn ushered in an eighty seat majority for the Tories, nearly a decade after the Tories entered Downing Street.ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
Thanks Jezziah! 👍
It was a stunningly bad performance by Labour from every metric. It just should not have happened.
For us, not the left.
It was a very bad result for anyone who wants proper two party democracy. In fact, just about the worst imaginable.
And in my eyes the country, but that's just my opinion.
And in my opinion for those who want proper two party democracy since it should have provided a wake up call to the left rather than them wanting a "one more heave" approach.0 -
Excellent piece. A useful reminder of the wider issues. Thanks @Richard_Tyndall
I take pedantic umbrage with Tim Berners-Lee being "credited" with inventing the Web. He did invent the Web.1 -
There's an irony in the Ozzie situation that the biggest beneficiary will be one R Murdoch, who controls 2/3 of the printed newspaper market in Oz.3
-
I don't think you read my post properly if you think the metric I was judging Starmer on was his time as prime minister?ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
I said the word Labour leader in there repeatedly, Corbyn was Labour leader wasn't he?
I don't actually understand the point of deliberately misunderstanding what I wrote, it seems very unlikely you missed the phrase Labour leader as I said Labour leader 4 times!!
Now you could argue that Starmer in the future will swing to the left if elected, you could equally argue that Starmer will swing to the right in future if elected, you can make the argument about anyone doing any number of things in the future. If I join the communist party in the future I will become a communist, but that doesn't make me one now.
Starmer is representing the right of the party, if there was an election now for Labour leader he would either be the choice of the right, or somebody else would, he wouldn't be the choice of the left of Labour. Pretty much because his actions since becoming leader have been to the right.
Starmer's reasoning for representing the right of the party don't really affect his place in the party. Blair was clearly from Labour's right, whatever motive you gave to his time in office wouldn't change his position within the party he'd still be Labour right.
And the trying to get Labour back into government bit is also suspect, looks more like the right of the party taking revenge now they have the leadership back.
0 -
The fact Keith won instead of Wrong Daily shows they've at least learned some lessons. Not enough perhaps but some. But even he's pretty left of centre.ydoethur said:
I agree it should. But it clearly hasn’t.Philip_Thompson said:
"Us" on the right.ydoethur said:
For *you* PhilIip not *us* please. I never voted for Johnson.Philip_Thompson said:
Fantastic that it did though.ydoethur said:
That was the first election since 1865 where a governing party that had lost seats at a previous election made a net gain of them, and the first time ever a party that had been in government for nine years or more increased their majority.Philip_Thompson said:
If we're judging by actions then Corbyn ushered in an eighty seat majority for the Tories, nearly a decade after the Tories entered Downing Street.ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
Thanks Jezziah! 👍
It was a stunningly bad performance by Labour from every metric. It just should not have happened.
For us, not the left.
It was a very bad result for anyone who wants proper two party democracy. In fact, just about the worst imaginable.
And in my eyes the country, but that's just my opinion.
And in my opinion for those who want proper two party democracy since it should have provided a wake up call to the left rather than them wanting a "one more heave" approach.
Possibly one more teachable moment in 2024 then it can sink in? Happy for them to get as many lessons as they need.0 -
My point was that the only thing the LotO can do is talk. They cannot do anything.TheJezziah said:
I don't think you read my post properly if you think the metric I was judging Starmer on was his time as prime minister?ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
I said the word Labour leader in there repeatedly, Corbyn was Labour leader wasn't he?
I don't actually understand the point of deliberately misunderstanding what I wrote, it seems very unlikely you missed the phrase Labour leader as I said Labour leader 4 times!!
Now you could argue that Starmer in the future will swing to the left if elected, you could equally argue that Starmer will swing to the right in future if elected, you can make the argument about anyone doing any number of things in the future. If I join the communist party in the future I will become a communist, but that doesn't make me one now.
Starmer is representing the right of the party, if there was an election now for Labour leader he would either be the choice of the right, or somebody else would, he wouldn't be the choice of the left of Labour. Pretty much because his actions since becoming leader have been to the right.
Starmer's reasoning for representing the right of the party don't really affect his place in the party. Blair was clearly from Labour's right, whatever motive you gave to his time in office wouldn't change his position within the party he'd still be Labour right.
And the trying to get Labour back into government bit is also suspect, looks more like the right of the party taking revenge now they have the leadership back.
So Corbyn did not do anything left wing. Other than lose two elections, which is fairly standard for the left wing in this country (cf 1983, 1987, 1959...)0 -
One interesting article I read about facebook not too long ago, stated that the company was worried about the decline in user-generated content.eek said:
Google provides the Go To index for the world - but it controls what it displays.Richard_Tyndall said:
Facebook, like Google relies entirely upon public opinion for its survival. I am not certain they will lose this battle but it seems likely to me that they will eventually surrender. And in that surrender lies the danger. Because it is in accepting the principle that we allow Governments to exercise unwarranted control over what we can see on the internet.eek said:Why do you think Facebook are going to lose the fight - they make their profit from charging companies for links to their products? They are never going to pay for links as it destroys their entire business model.
The law is stupid and the only thing of interest was Google's rapid change of viewpoint (from removing all links to paying) after Microsoft decided it was worth paying Murdoch to try and purchase some users for Bing.
Facebook provides the news of what your friends are doing - Facebook doesnt control what Facebook's users post.
I suspect Facebook can live without Australian news and will accept a lot of grieve because the other option is losing complete control over it's business model.
So there's less sharing of personal photos/news and more sharing of memes and news articles.
The former is more valuable to facebook than the latter.1 -
Small c conservative Liberal government does the bidding of Rupert Murdoch suppressing the free sharing of information - go back a decade and the left would have been screaming blue murder about this.MattW said:There's an irony in the Ozzie situation that the biggest beneficiary will be one R Murdoch, who controls 2/3 of the printed newspaper market in Oz.
Seems many hate Facebook more than Murdoch now. Two minute hate has moved on.2 -
Apologies. I had originally written it in the way you say but expected lots of people taking issue he didn't so used the 'credited' version instead.rottenborough said:Excellent piece. A useful reminder of the wider issues. Thanks @Richard_Tyndall
I take pedantic umbrage with Tim Berners-Lee being "credited" with inventing the Web. He did invent the Web.2 -
At some point people will have to address the question -
"If you want a 'nicer' internet, are you prepared to pay up front for it?"1 -
This was thrown together late last night so I was relying mostly in my own immediate knowledge (I spent a lot of time looking at this a couple of years ago) and, ironically, a quick google to check my facts.
Sadly further research this morning has shown that in fact the EU Parliament has passed the Copyright Directive including the 'link tax' and 'meme ban'. It will effectively come into force in the EU in June 2021.
https://www.itpro.co.uk/policy-legislation/32552/what-is-article-13-and-article-113 -
Well there's a good test of how independent the UK is, able to diverge from EU law.Richard_Tyndall said:This was thrown together late last night so I was relying mostly in my own immediate knowledge (I spent a lot of time looking at this a couple of years ago) and, ironically, a quick google to check my facts.
Sadly further research this morning has shown that in fact the EU Parliament has passed the Copyright Directive including the 'link tax' and 'meme ban'. It will effectively come into force in the EU in June 2021.
https://www.itpro.co.uk/policy-legislation/32552/what-is-article-13-and-article-112 -
How on earth do you access it for free? It costs me a freaking fortune every month.No_Offence_Alan said:At some point people will have to address the question -
"If you want a 'nicer' internet, are you prepared to pay up front for it?"1 -
Morning all
Up early for the ludicrous 2-hour delivery "window" so, rather than starting the proper job,......
Excellent piece @Richard_Tyndall and all too symptomatic of the attack not so much on democracy per se but what makes democracy effective and that's plurality.
There's two sides to this - first, creating a climate in which all opinions can be freely and fairly expressed. It's called Freedom of Speech and while this liberal authoritarian chafes at some of the pernicious nonsense he is forced to endure on this site, I wouldn't have it any other way. Democracy and the process thrives on serious lively debate between opposing viewpoints - it has done since Athens and does so still.
The other aspect is not the freedom of speech but the fairness of speech. It's all very well saying people have Freedom of Speech but the Internet doesn't just provide that. It allows for individual or sectional viewpoints to be expressed ad infinitum and usually ad nauseam. The echo chambers exist usually because opposing views are chased out by the volume of posts from those on the other side.
I often remind new posters on here their first post is usually their best and the quality of posts in inversely proportional to their frequency - by the time you are at your 40,000th post there aren't many surprises left.
The echo chambers also exist because many people feel comfortable only reading views that accord with their own. All the legislation in the world can't force the minority view on the majority if the majority doesn't want to see it or hear it.
That's the tough thing with plurality - so many only want to hear confirmation or affirmation. They don't want to be challenged or to argue.
This leads to compartmentalisation of opinion - we are seeing it in the news market where the BBC is under constant attack primarily by those who want only their version of the truth to be broadcast. Before, they had no option but give a man (or woman) enough money and they'll change the way you think so we're going to have GB News which I suspect won't always be friendly to Labour.
Money talks, minds follow you might say.3 -
Happy Friday to you too. try "internet content" instead.ydoethur said:
How on earth do you access it for free? It costs me a freaking fortune every month.No_Offence_Alan said:At some point people will have to address the question -
"If you want a 'nicer' internet, are you prepared to pay up front for it?"1 -
That is the cost of getting into the museum. Pretty soon you are going to have to pay to look at each exhibit individually as well. And if you don't pay enough they will shuffle you off into the room displaying nothing but early 20th century telegraph poles and playing Reggie Wilson music.ydoethur said:
How on earth do you access it for free? It costs me a freaking fortune every month.No_Offence_Alan said:At some point people will have to address the question -
"If you want a 'nicer' internet, are you prepared to pay up front for it?"0 -
Thanks. Some feel Robert Cailliau (who also worked at CERN when Web was invented) should get more credit and indeed the ACM gave him a joint award with Tim in late 90s. He was the earliest supporter apart from Tim's manager and did co-author a funding bid and so on.Richard_Tyndall said:
Apologies. I had originally written it in the way you say but expected lots of people taking issue he didn't so used the 'credited' version instead.rottenborough said:Excellent piece. A useful reminder of the wider issues. Thanks @Richard_Tyndall
I take pedantic umbrage with Tim Berners-Lee being "credited" with inventing the Web. He did invent the Web.
The W3 org has this to say though:
"Some commentators suggest that Robert co-invented the WWW. To set this straight, he did not invent it. It wasn't his idea."1 -
Well, he will thankfully be dead soon and his fossilised media empire will go soon after him so Facebook, etc. are by far the greater danger.Philip_Thompson said:
Small c conservative Liberal government does the bidding of Rupert Murdoch suppressing the free sharing of information - go back a decade and the left would have been screaming blue murder about this.MattW said:There's an irony in the Ozzie situation that the biggest beneficiary will be one R Murdoch, who controls 2/3 of the printed newspaper market in Oz.
Seems many hate Facebook more than Murdoch now. Two minute hate has moved on.0 -
Damn! I was hoping for a big saving there...No_Offence_Alan said:
Happy Friday to you too. try "internet content" instead.ydoethur said:
How on earth do you access it for free? It costs me a freaking fortune every month.No_Offence_Alan said:At some point people will have to address the question -
"If you want a 'nicer' internet, are you prepared to pay up front for it?"0 -
Mr. Tyndall, cheers for that link tax comment.
One hopes (but does not necessarily expect) the UK to avoid this sort of lunacy.1 -
While I completely agree with the salient point in the header (that ultimately this is very bad for all of us, because of the shift in power away from the individual and towards government/corporates with the ability to prosecute this policy on the web; c.f. YouTube copyright takedowns), I would say that people hate Facebook and Murdoch roughly equally, but the Murdoch hate has gone on long enough for it to be roughly akin to hating the government and seen as something we can't "do" anything about. Facebook, on the other hand, is new enough to be put back in its place.Philip_Thompson said:
Small c conservative Liberal government does the bidding of Rupert Murdoch suppressing the free sharing of information - go back a decade and the left would have been screaming blue murder about this.MattW said:There's an irony in the Ozzie situation that the biggest beneficiary will be one R Murdoch, who controls 2/3 of the printed newspaper market in Oz.
Seems many hate Facebook more than Murdoch now. Two minute hate has moved on.
This is, obviously, deluded. But it doesn't stop people thinking like that.1 -
Incidentally, to put a link in, grim news from Myanmar overnight:
Myanmar coup: Woman shot during anti-coup protests dies
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56122369
A nasty situation is set to get much nastier.
Have a good morning.1 -
Were it not for 1 R Murdoch and his complete inability to understand that links drive traffic to his sites - this experiment wouldn't be occurring in the first place.MattW said:There's an irony in the Ozzie situation that the biggest beneficiary will be one R Murdoch, who controls 2/3 of the printed newspaper market in Oz.
Equally to blame is Microsoft who decided to pay Murdoch money in an attempt (as I stated earlier) to buy some customers for it's Bing search engine.0 -
Isn't the issue here just the mahoosive scale of the internet? Small payment multiplied by eye-wateringly vast number of links is a number so big, it breaks the ability of the Facebook business model to fund that number through advertising/data sales by invading privacy or behaving badly?rcs1000 said:
Eh?Mysticrose said:A bizarre thread attempting to defend the indefensible. Facebook is a disgusting organisation which, and this is the most bizarre aspect of RT's one-sided thread, constantly data mines to invade and intrude into personal privacy. One of its most egregious examples is in its new data privacy invasion rules on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.
Let's be clear about this. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has everything to do with profit. The more Facebook can invade your privacy, the more it can manipulate what you see, when you see it, and what you can be coerced into buying. Facebook and Google are duopolies controlling around 65% of your access to the news and where a monopoly exists you can be certain that there your freedom and right to access any news you like ... ends.
As I say, a bizarre article. Richard has pinned his ultra-libertarian ideals to the wrong mast.
This case is very simple.
There is a law in Australia which says that if you link to a news story, then you have to make a small payment.
This means Facebook has two choices: (1) make the payment, (2) don't allow links to Australian news articles. They have chosen option (2).
This is *completely* different from your point about whether they invade privacy or behave badly.2 -
I signed up for Starlink at my place in France this week - 100€/month! I guess that Martian colony is going be expensive.ydoethur said:
How on earth do you access it for free? It costs me a freaking fortune every month.No_Offence_Alan said:At some point people will have to address the question -
"If you want a 'nicer' internet, are you prepared to pay up front for it?"3 -
Facebook IS correct in this instance, but they need taking down a peg or two tbh. If something else perhaps emerges in Australia in it's stead that'll be no bad thing; that might spread. Nothing lasts forever, see Myspace as a recent example.0
-
An interesting topic choice - although I'm afraid I still don't really understand what the Australian govt has done.
Emotive language around "govt wants to control X" and "media to spread their gossip" is a bit of a warning flag for me that the author is not considering both sides of the issue.
1 -
Starlink is a massive game-changer, if it works even half as well as trailed. Bringing high-speed internet to rural communities across the world.Dura_Ace said:
I signed up for Starlink at my place in France this week - 100€/month! I guess that Martian colony is going be expensive.ydoethur said:
How on earth do you access it for free? It costs me a freaking fortune every month.No_Offence_Alan said:At some point people will have to address the question -
"If you want a 'nicer' internet, are you prepared to pay up front for it?"1 -
Rightmove got their timing right there 100%. There was a previous joint ownership attempt (back in the 1997/8) but that was too early (as neither the audience or the background was there) and there have been later joint ownership attempts (onthemarket) that have failed because Rightmove is the unescapable go to site.Sandpit said:
The move of advertising to online was indeed a massive factor in the decline of both local newspaper sales and economics. The two biggest players in that market, by far - Google and Facebook.eek said:
But in all those cases they are looking at the wrong thing:-Sandpit said:A good piece, well argued from Mr Tyndall.
This is not the right solution, but it indicative of the increasing tensions between governments, traditional media and social media.
Governments see social media as unaccountable behemoths, spending disinformation and polarisation among society while not paying taxes.
Traditional media has been slowly dying for a while, with huge numbers of redundancies especially at local publications and in smaller countries. They also have the ear of governments.
Social media have been laughing all the way to the bank for years, without a thought as to their negative externalities of their business to society. Australians see Facebook as a massive oil tanker polluting their coastline.
We will be seeing a lot more attempts by government to rein in social media companies in the coming months and years, especially as we see them responsible for spreading more disinformation, and they think of themselves as above regulation by any single state.
Local papers were actually killed off not by social media but by Craigslist and similar sites which destroyed their profit base that was local classified advertising. Around the same time Jobsites destroyed the equally profitable job advert market and Rightmove slow destroyed estate agent advertising.
That gave people less reasons to buy the local paper (hence reducing a second income source) which resulted in less reporting so even less reason to purchase the paper.
Social media still drives people to news sources - without links from other sites no one would visit them in the first place (as Google demonstrated back in 2014).
And there is a way of fixing it but that requires subscription services and a standardised pay to view page solution.
Rightmove is one of the most annoying website business models - basically the estate agents got together to protect their oligopoly, and did it early enough to entrench themselves online. There's a huge market for disruption there, cutting out that expensive middleman with a basic advertising and conveyancing service.
As for the expensive middleman approach - Purplebricks and various others all offer far cheaper solutions but that is a market which is very much all or nothing (scale to 1000+ properties quickly or die). And most attempts have died.
One thing that I've found surprising is that high street estate agents still exist as you would expect them to have tried to move to cheaper locations binning that shopfront. It turns out that the shopfront is needed to convince sellers to list with you...3 -
Do you have a link to the article.LostPassword said:
One interesting article I read about facebook not too long ago, stated that the company was worried about the decline in user-generated content.eek said:
Google provides the Go To index for the world - but it controls what it displays.Richard_Tyndall said:
Facebook, like Google relies entirely upon public opinion for its survival. I am not certain they will lose this battle but it seems likely to me that they will eventually surrender. And in that surrender lies the danger. Because it is in accepting the principle that we allow Governments to exercise unwarranted control over what we can see on the internet.eek said:Why do you think Facebook are going to lose the fight - they make their profit from charging companies for links to their products? They are never going to pay for links as it destroys their entire business model.
The law is stupid and the only thing of interest was Google's rapid change of viewpoint (from removing all links to paying) after Microsoft decided it was worth paying Murdoch to try and purchase some users for Bing.
Facebook provides the news of what your friends are doing - Facebook doesnt control what Facebook's users post.
I suspect Facebook can live without Australian news and will accept a lot of grieve because the other option is losing complete control over it's business model.
So there's less sharing of personal photos/news and more sharing of memes and news articles.
The former is more valuable to facebook than the latter.
The last conversation I had regarding Facebook is that their biggest problem is still far too much content (posts) from friends compared to the time people spend on the site reading posts.
but then with the people I follow it's either 100% posts or 100% memes and little in between.0 -
What the Australians have done is going to hurt the Australian press not help it. For a big way of getting people to access paywall sites is to titillate them with a social media message and then users find they can only see the first part of the story and to read more they have to be registered paying users5
-
As is quite common I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but not all of it.stodge said:Morning all
Up early for the ludicrous 2-hour delivery "window" so, rather than starting the proper job,......
Excellent piece @Richard_Tyndall and all too symptomatic of the attack not so much on democracy per se but what makes democracy effective and that's plurality.
There's two sides to this - first, creating a climate in which all opinions can be freely and fairly expressed. It's called Freedom of Speech and while this liberal authoritarian chafes at some of the pernicious nonsense he is forced to endure on this site, I wouldn't have it any other way. Democracy and the process thrives on serious lively debate between opposing viewpoints - it has done since Athens and does so still.
The other aspect is not the freedom of speech but the fairness of speech. It's all very well saying people have Freedom of Speech but the Internet doesn't just provide that. It allows for individual or sectional viewpoints to be expressed ad infinitum and usually ad nauseam. The echo chambers exist usually because opposing views are chased out by the volume of posts from those on the other side.
I often remind new posters on here their first post is usually their best and the quality of posts in inversely proportional to their frequency - by the time you are at your 40,000th post there aren't many surprises left.
The echo chambers also exist because many people feel comfortable only reading views that accord with their own. All the legislation in the world can't force the minority view on the majority if the majority doesn't want to see it or hear it.
That's the tough thing with plurality - so many only want to hear confirmation or affirmation. They don't want to be challenged or to argue.
This leads to compartmentalisation of opinion - we are seeing it in the news market where the BBC is under constant attack primarily by those who want only their version of the truth to be broadcast. Before, they had no option but give a man (or woman) enough money and they'll change the way you think so we're going to have GB News which I suspect won't always be friendly to Labour.
Money talks, minds follow you might say.
But "won't always be friendly to Labour"? Did you phrase that right?
No news source should always be friendly to a party, if it is it's not a news site but a partisan hack source (eg The Canary when Corbyn was PM).
On TV at the moment there's definitely left leaning "news" (Channel 4) already. Even without getting into an argument about the BBC.0 -
Starmer isn't from the "right of the party". "right" and "left" have lost all currency in today's Labour Party.TheJezziah said:
I don't think you read my post properly if you think the metric I was judging Starmer on was his time as prime minister?ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:
Well, Starmer still has a couple of years at least until a likely election date and hopefully he can make some progress. Another big Tory win could easily see the wounded Labour membership draw the wrong conclusions - again - and bring back the loony Left in a 2015-style fit of pique. Most likely we then turn into a Japanese-style one-party democracy; or the Tories make such a hash of things further down the line (or simply fall victim to traditional voter fatigue with long-serving administrations) that the loonies actually get to run the country. Neither prospect is particularly appealing.RochdalePioneers said:Meanwhile, the Twitter response to Keith Cardboard's relaunch speech was predictable. The hard left can't accept that people have rejected them twice, so any failure of "the right" gets them excited for prospects of a return to true socialism.
Having listened to the speech live I still can't tell you what he said as he didn't say much and what he did say was so bland and tedious as to make you zone out. Reading some of the reportage he was pro-business partnerships and anti-poverty - all good things but missing the so what factor.
Politics is sales, and sadly for Labour they have no idea what punters actually want, hence being Here to Here and agreeing with the government about the pressing need to cut funding for school breakfast clubs. Starmer is Milliband - nice but crap, someone who means well, probably genuinely wants to do good, but is so "other" that people won't listen or care what he says.
I would argue Labour should try again with a new leader but like the Tories I struggle to see who they replace their crap leader with.
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
I said the word Labour leader in there repeatedly, Corbyn was Labour leader wasn't he?
I don't actually understand the point of deliberately misunderstanding what I wrote, it seems very unlikely you missed the phrase Labour leader as I said Labour leader 4 times!!
Now you could argue that Starmer in the future will swing to the left if elected, you could equally argue that Starmer will swing to the right in future if elected, you can make the argument about anyone doing any number of things in the future. If I join the communist party in the future I will become a communist, but that doesn't make me one now.
Starmer is representing the right of the party, if there was an election now for Labour leader he would either be the choice of the right, or somebody else would, he wouldn't be the choice of the left of Labour. Pretty much because his actions since becoming leader have been to the right.
Starmer's reasoning for representing the right of the party don't really affect his place in the party. Blair was clearly from Labour's right, whatever motive you gave to his time in office wouldn't change his position within the party he'd still be Labour right.
And the trying to get Labour back into government bit is also suspect, looks more like the right of the party taking revenge now they have the leadership back.
There's only one divide: electable andbat-shit crazyunelectable.
There were plenty of early signs that Ed Miliband was unelectable.
There was a wilful mass misreading that Corbyn was electable. He was never going to craft a coalition of voters to give him power. He was the unelectable candidate. Hence the sense-check of the 80 seat Tory majority in 2019.
There are plenty of early signs that SKS is unelectable. Yesterday's "bigger than Ben Hur" policy dud being another such sign.
2 -
Surely the key question for Labour members isn't where politically is Starmer, but where politically are the millions of votes they need to recover? Most voters consider themselves in the centre ground - and that includes most Labour / Tory supporters who abhor the extremes at either end of the political spectrum.
I can understand the howls of anguish from Labour's left that "not enough was done by the Blair government" because its clearly true. However, the reality check has to be that you can't win an election by promising to go much further as the votes aren't there. Unless you are elected into office you can't actually do anything, regardless f how righteous you may believe your cause to be.
Whether Starmer is left or right is a distraction from the real question of "is he any good". I'm not sure the Labour Party is leadable at the moment, anyone would struggle in the job. Keith though seems to be missing any real political antennae, and that ultimately is why he will fail.4 -
Good post, and a common problem. Like creating new rules and laws rather than making existing ones work.noneoftheabove said:
Excellent article and I think this is a part of a wider problem of governments using legislation with a desire to show something is being done rather than a coherent plan showing why their country will be better off after the additional legislation. Too little thought, too much media pressure, too many laws, too quickly passed, not enough dissent and review from tightly managed political parties combining for bad government.Richard_Tyndall said:
You are conflating arguments. The question of privacy invasion and paying tax on profits is entirely separate from this. Those arguments only apply to the big companies like Facebook who have the weight and reach to get try and get away with it. This argument applies to everyone. It can and will entirely change the way the internet works.Mysticrose said:A bizarre thread attempting to defend the indefensible. Facebook is a disgusting organisation which, and this is the most bizarre aspect of RT's one-sided thread, constantly data mines to invade and intrude into personal privacy. One of its most egregious examples is in its new data privacy invasion rules on WhatsApp, which Facebook owns.
Let's be clear about this. It has nothing to do with freedom. It has everything to do with profit. The more Facebook can invade your privacy, the more it can manipulate what you see, when you see it, and what you can be coerced into buying. Facebook and Google are duopolies controlling around 65% of your access to the news and where a monopoly exists you can be certain that there your freedom and right to access any news you like ... ends.
As I say, a bizarre article. Richard has pinned his ultra-libertarian ideals to the wrong mast.
Also, why Chernogolovka? I'm Vladivostok.2 -
The cruel jibe about the great Reggie notwithstanding, it's hard to argue.Richard_Tyndall said:
That is the cost of getting into the museum. Pretty soon you are going to have to pay to look at each exhibit individually as well. And if you don't pay enough they will shuffle you off into the room displaying nothing but early 20th century telegraph poles and playing Reggie Wilson music.ydoethur said:
How on earth do you access it for free? It costs me a freaking fortune every month.No_Offence_Alan said:At some point people will have to address the question -
"If you want a 'nicer' internet, are you prepared to pay up front for it?"
Capitalism meets Democracy - news is a commodity just like baked beans. Those who "own" it wat to charge those who don't own it. If you don't want to pay for it, you don't hear it.
I'm a capitalist but I'm profoundly uncomfortable with that.0 -
I think he understands it perfectly well.eek said:
Were it not for 1 R Murdoch and his complete inability to understand that links drive traffic to his sites - this experiment wouldn't be occurring in the first place.MattW said:There's an irony in the Ozzie situation that the biggest beneficiary will be one R Murdoch, who controls 2/3 of the printed newspaper market in Oz.
Equally to blame is Microsoft who decided to pay Murdoch money in an attempt (as I stated earlier) to buy some customers for it's Bing search engine.
I think he's strong enough to try and have his cake and eat it. He wants the links and he wants the moolah.
Hence the anger at Facebook's decision to not supply either.0 -
But you started this exchange telling me Starmer was left wing, now all of a sudden it is unknowable because a LOTO cannot do anything...ydoethur said:
My point was that the only thing the LotO can do is talk. They cannot do anything.TheJezziah said:
I don't think you read my post properly if you think the metric I was judging Starmer on was his time as prime minister?ydoethur said:
Just to point out the obvious, Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.TheJezziah said:
I think I have said this before but for me actions > words.ydoethur said:
Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact. He may be to the right of Corbyn, which is hardly surprising given even Lenin was slightly to the right of him on many issues, but he’s to the left of Kinnock. Foot would be a fair comparison.TheJezziah said:
TBH if the party does worse than Corbyn 2017 before Corbyn and does worse than Corbyn 2017 after Corbyn then surely the argument that even though they are all evil people and don't at all deserve representation and it is better to lose with millions of votes less....Black_Rook said:RochdalePioneers said:
That the Labour party marching over to the right is actually the less electorally sound position starts to have to be accepted even if you would prefer a different reality.
I don't plan to be here debating all day so firstly don't worry about reading lots of posts from me everyone can chime in and tell me I'm wrong because everyone only voted Labour then because of Brexit (and then all forgot to tell pollsters that is why they voted Labour https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener)
I realise that for a lot of people here that conveniently the right leader of the Labour party is one they prefer politically (guilty here also) but if the facts (with recent elections being the best facts we have in this regard) point to a left wing Labour doing better electorally than a right wing Labour then surely it would be crazy for Labour not to go for a left wing leader if Starmer fails.
I mean are Labour there to try and win votes or to please the commentariat and right wing people on PB?
The question is, can he make that into a widely appealing policy offering? So far, he seems to have struggled.
Starmer has said lots of left wing stuff in the past, abolishing the monarchy for example a long time ago but his actions since becoming Labour leader have all been towards the right of the party. I mean Tony Blair was some kind of far left when he was younger as well but the better guide to how he would govern was his time as Labour leader (and then to the right of that)
You can make a good argument for Starmer being somewhere in the middle of the party before his election as Labour leader, it is why many Corbyn supporters voted for him and some even more than just voted for him. If Starmer were to fight for reelection as Labour leader (he should be okay, checks only needed with left wing leaders) it seem very likely that he would either be the candidate for right wing members of the Labour party (unless trumped by another from the Labour right) rather than the candidate for the left.
Prior to becoming Labour leader he mostly had just words, now he has actions and for me someone's actions are a much better window to their true beliefs than their words.
I don't have a problem with lawyers* (if anything I guess this is a compliment to their skill) but especially in such a profession almost anybody competent should be able to weave together something word wise that is completely removed from their beliefs but convincing.
*lawyers/solicitors or whatever else you law nerds call yourselves!
@rcs1000 Heidi was the one for me!
What Starmer is trying to do is get Labour back to government so they can at least do some left wing things, even if they can’t do the lot.
He has calculated the way to do that is to tack towards the centre on some things to peel off soft Tory voters.
Can he do it? So far, so underwhelming. But at least he is trying.
I said the word Labour leader in there repeatedly, Corbyn was Labour leader wasn't he?
I don't actually understand the point of deliberately misunderstanding what I wrote, it seems very unlikely you missed the phrase Labour leader as I said Labour leader 4 times!!
Right s
Now you could argue that Starmer in the future will swing to the left if elected, you could equally argue that Starmer will swing to the right in future if elected, you can make the argument about anyone doing any number of things in the future. If I join the communist party in the future I will become a communist, but that doesn't make me one now.
Starmer is representing the right of the party, if there was an election now for Labour leader he would either be the choice of the right, or somebody else would, he wouldn't be the choice of the left of Labour. Pretty much because his actions since becoming leader have been to the right.
Starmer's reasoning for representing the right of the party don't really affect his place in the party. Blair was clearly from Labour's right, whatever motive you gave to his time in office wouldn't change his position within the party he'd still be Labour right.
And the trying to get Labour back into government bit is also suspect, looks more like the right of the party taking revenge now they have the leadership back.
So Corbyn did not do anything left wing. Other than lose two elections, which is fairly standard for the left wing in this country (cf 1983, 1987, 1959...)
Is there some logical consistency in here or are we going to circle back around at some point because I can't find any logical point in here whatsoever.
So you started by disagreeing we me and saying Starmer is actually a left Labour leader.
I countered by pointing out all his actions since becoming Labour leader show him to be on the right of the party and if he was voted Labour leader today it would be votes from the Labour right with the Labour left voting somebody else.
You then claimed my metric actually showed Corbyn was really right wing because he didn't become prime minister.
I then pointed out that my metric was on their time as Labour leader as I had mentioned Labour leader in my post multiple times.
Now you have said LOTO can not to anything so Corbyn did not do anything left wing.
So why did you say 'Starmer *is* a left wing Labour leader. Very left wing, in fact.' but now say 'My point was that the only thing the LotO can do is talk. They cannot do anything.
So Corbyn did not do anything left wing. '
Either we can ascribe a political position to LOTO who hasn't been prime minister or not.
You seem to want to have your cake and eat it here by both describing Starmer as left wing when his highest political office is LOTO but claim Corbyn cannot be described as left wing when his highest political office is LOTO.
In fact using your metric from this quote (you claim its mine but it never appeared in any of my posts)
'Corbyn *said* lots of left wing stuff, but he didn’t *do* anything left wing in government for the very simple reason he never got there. So judged by your metric he is in fact quite right wing.'
Going by the metric you use above Starmer is actually quite right wing.
But what the hell is your point really, you argued with me that Starmer was actually on the left of the party and when I pointed out his actions since becoming leader and his support base make him part of the right of Labour you claimed Corbyn was actually right wing.... I mean If your point is Corbyn is bad and Starmer is good knock yourself out but just say that rather than making up some rubbish...
0
