Brits are scrolling away from X and aren't that interested in AI Usage of Elon Musk's X social media platform is declining in the UK, and adult Brits aren't particularly interested in generative AI tools. That's according to Ofcom's Online Nation report, an annual publication looking at what UK citizens do during their hours online and how much time they spend glued to gadgets. According …
Correct. A few days ago Elmo replied to what is obviously a propaganda bot if you look at its posting history and it made news here.
Stop paying attention to "the fucking news".
The economy is fucked. The climate is fucked. Most men in positions of power fuck too much. Democracy is fucked. Nobody "in charge" gives a fuck unless it affects their fucking wallet. And thousands upon thousands of people are dying for fucking stupid reasons that amount to somebody thinking "fuck you" and backing that up with fucking bombs.
And there's roughly fuck all we can do about it.
It's fucking depressing. Just fucking turn the fucking news off.
Icon, because even fucking nukes are in the fucking news now. Fuck my life...
> Chin up tiger! You've still got the El Reg commentariat, and if there's one thing guaranteed to turn that frown upside-down, it's... ah, no, actually. You're fucked.
Indeed! :-D
Maybe Heyrick would like to read my favourite fucking doomscroll probable fucking russian fucking propaganda site:
https://londonlovesbusiness.com/world-news/
Interesting thing about that "news" site is that its articles go back to just before brexit, June 24th sitting on page 3981 of 4304 pages of "business "news""..
I stopped taking it seriously a long time ago, but like the former TV channel RT, it does give a perspective on what Vlad Putin and his GRU wants us in the UK to think. Twatter and other "fucking news" outlets do too of course, but with more 'noise' so you can't tell what's propaganda and what isn't, whereas it's much easier to tell on LLB (and RT) because it pretty much all is
>it does give a perspective on what Vlad Putin and his GRU wants us in the UK to think
...objectively for a moment - how much time do you think Putin actually gives to consideration of what people in the UK think.
>its articles go back to just before brexit,
Brief moment of relevance for our idiocracy, but Brexit wasn't about the UK - simply a means to weaken the EU.
I wish the media and political classes would spend a lot less time perpetuating the myth of UK global relevance.
"...objectively for a moment - how much time do you think Putin actually gives to consideration of what people in the UK think."
On am individual basis, he doesn't give a toss but as a collective "whole" I suspect quite a lot because being able to shift public opinion is key to destabilising a country and isolating it, weakening it's influence and position in the world.
Also shifting public opinion of his war in Ukraine would be important to him because political will to support the victims of aggression is largely dependent on public opinion
It's easy to fall into this nihilism.
But nihilism is what allows such dark forces to win. They are only able to ascend to (and hold onto) power because large numbers of people have given up hope. By contrast, maintaining hope is what unites individuals into driven social groups that collectively have the power to change the world.
Don't give up hope. Get inspired, get active, get involved.
Another downvote, but still no explanation as to why the downvoter appears to have a problem with my post. As it seems that you maybe don't realise, it is a quote from 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Attwood and is made up from mock-Latin and is approximately translated as 'Don't let the bastards grind you down'.
I thought it made a suitable addition to Mike 125's comment and a reasonable response to heyrick's rather downbeat and depressed earlier post. Perhaps the downvoter doesn't agree, but it would be good to know why.
Perhaps I should have used the equally mock-Latin alternative? :- illegitimi non carborundum, which infers the same meaning.
Have another one for
1) being such a smart ass
2) and having such a thin skin... sorta like most Trumpians in the news.
I wish Elmo would do as his 'T' shirt says, 'Occupy Mars' with him and Trump on the first rocket. The world would be a far, far better place without them. Just sayin'...
"Another downvote, but still no explanation as to why"
I get the feeling that there's a certain sort of person that is easily triggered and when triggered starts whacking all of the downvotes. Sweary post? NO! Replied to sweary post? NO! Used a funny foreign language? NO! Trying to be a smart arse 'cos it's Latin? NO! Asking why the downvotes? NO! And so on. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! (oh mamma mia, mamma mia, mamma mia let me go...)
As long as there are more ups than downs, I wouldn't worry about it. You can't please everybody...
To be fair, once you've annoyed certain denizens of these boards, you'll always get downvoted, for even the most neutral and factual comment you can produce. If you deem to comment on any article which references Musk (or worse, Trump), in anything other than a positive and glowing light issuing effusive praise for those paragons of humanity, then expect to get down-voted in swathes. They don't seem to realise that posts here don't get promoted or demoted like they might on "X", depending on whether they align with Elmo's world-view. At least the down-votes mean those people might have read your post. Some of the words might seep in eventually.
It's exactly the aspect of human nature that they are exploiting. I believe it was Goebbels who said, "Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth" (obviously paraphrasing, because he would have said it in German for starters). This is exactly what those posters here are doing, and what is going on wholesale on Twitter, where the same opinions are repeatedly presented as fact, despite being demonstrably false. This is also why these people are absolutely losing their shit about people fleeing Twitter to Bluesky, where the same narrative is not algorithmically promoted.
Anyway, the counter to people repeating the same lies over and over again, is to repeat the truth back at them. They might not be affected, because the odds are they don't believe their own lies*, but the purpose of propaganda is not to convince yourself, it's to convince others, and it is for those people that we post eh rebuttals, and should continue to do so.
*It's usually obvious when people have started to drink their own kool-aid in this regard, because their behaviour tends to become increasingly erratic. Case in point: Elon Musk tweeting the word "Yes" repeatedly in the middle of the night. Perhaps we should have a sweepstake on which of Musk, Trump, or several others, such as Giuliani, has a massive heart attack first? Musk, from the side-effects of his (alleged) heavy ketamine habit, Trump, from his diet of foodlike substances, and so on and so forth...
You think companies such as First Essex gives a monkey about their "duty to inform the public"?
They can't even be arsed to run a barely acceptable bus service - what they currently run is shite and most of the information they give on Twatter is stuff like the vacous, content free "due to operational issues".
More like they don't care. Their attitude is like "We've put the information out there. Not our fault if you choose not to access it.". Never mind if "choosing to access" now requires an account on a toxic cesspool that many people would rather stay well clear of.
A few months back I was waiting at Leeds bus station for a Megabus which failed to appear. The coach station information screen was blank. The Megabus website "bus tracker" said it had no information about that particular journey. When I finally got home by train, I complained about the lack of information and was shirtily told that information about delays was always posted on their social media. But clearly not in the places to which all their customers have access.
Any company who uses that excuse will NOT have any of my business in the future.
More and more people are giving up social media and in particular Twatter so then insisting on using what is a rabid cesspit of racism these days is not a company/organisation that I will do business with.
It is almost as if some beancounter did a few 1+1=4000 sums and decided that if their only medium for complaints was a platform that is actively hostile to users, they could fire most of the complaints team and save money....
"Woke" would appear to be whatever the fuck you want to rail against today, doesn't it sweetie?
Being forced to acknowledge the existence of refugees fleeing for their lives? Woke.
Not being horrifically sexist or homophobic? Woke.
Recognising the existence of transexual people, and not belittling and victimising them? Woke!
Not denying the entire corpus of scientific research into climate? WOKE!
Young people wanting to be paid (proportionately) as much as baby-boomers were in the 1960s and 1970s, so that they can afford basics like food and housing? Wokey wokey woke woke woke...
Do you know what? I think I quite like this "woke" thing. I wonder what the antonym for "woke" is? Perhaps "cunt"?
It is surprising how wrong you can actually be. I would be re-thinking my sources of information if I were you. Stop reading 5th hand accounts of project 2025 :)
Consensus does not make fact. If 2 people in a group of 3 say the sky is green it doesn't make it so. And the views of the 3rd person do not become invalid as they are in the minority. As we've already gone through the biases inherent in peer review we don't need to go through that again. The ones doing the belittling are the ones who cry 'science denier' at anything that goes against the hive mind. What was amusing is that during covid the people most vociferously backing the completely deboonked false science were those who rabidly align themselves with the climate consensus.
Refugees are not the same as economic migrants. Re-focus your ire on the people smugglers. For less than the cost of the smuggling you can get into a lot of countries legally.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8d5334vmyo
As for your other points.... 50% of the population don't really appreciate being degraded to the point where you can't use the scientific term to describe them for fear of offending a tiny but oh so vocal group. Decades of work on overcoming gender stereotypes along with decades of work on fundamental rights has been erased in the name of woke. Lived experience of millions of humans is being deleted and healthcare is being put at risk for fear of uttering certain words.
Nothing says tolerance like a man beating up an old woman for daring to voice her opinion.
I was going to read your response in full, but I got to the point where you mentioned project 2025, which I don't think I have ever mentioned, once, in this forum, and realised that you're arguing against a shibboleth in your own head.
I don't think I'll bother with the rest of your culture-war talking points. Free speech includes the right to ignore such nonsense.
Surely "wokeism", if it ever were a real word (and my spell-checker agrees with me in thinking it isn't), would, like other "isms" such as racism and sexism, refer to discrimination against "wokes", whatever they are. Since you seem to be an expert on this subject, perhaps you could enlighten us, as you seem to be "against the wokes" yourself, so surely, you have a type in your original post when you say "as opposed to"?
Or, perhaps, you are just a childish pillock, who thinks it's great to discriminate against others? In which case, I'm sure you're quite happy in the cultural desert that Twitter has become.
> They still haven't noticed that it is, these days, rather hostile to those who don't have an account?
On this side of the pond, it's usually Faecesbook
I got shocked pikachu at a restaurant where their menu QR code[1] went to a FB page I couldn't see because I don't have an account.
On the other hand, the restaurant only lasted 3 months, so I don't think I was missing anything.
Similarly on Google Maps, a FB link for the business is at least an instant indication of their lack of competence.
[1] Don't get me started
I would have walked out of the restaurant as soon as I saw that you had to use some shite app or QR code to get you food. Fair enough if it was pointed out at time of booking, that is by huge full web page or being verbally told of it at booking, not some tiny text somewhere on the website. Then I would have found a more sensible place to eat.
Places like these, run, no doubt, by some wanky hipsters so fucking dumb that they can't see just how stupid it is to make your customers install some crap on their phone just to pay for their meal deserve to go under.
They still haven't noticed that it is, these days, rather hostile to those who don't have an account?"
Yes, when I was reading the article, it crossed my mind that of the couple million no longer interacting with Xitter, what is the reason? How was Ofcoms question worded? I used to occasional read Twitter (no account) when articles linked to it, but now I don't bother because so often, as a non-subscriber I either can't read it at all or can only see a small part of it. Facebook seems to have done the same. Links to Reddit on the other hand, are fully accessible read-only, which may account for some of the uptick. A search result leading to Reddit might still be useful compared to Xitter/Facebook and people, especially non-subscribers, have taken note.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
