Browncasting: Why can't Downing Street do digital? Gordon Brown’s recent YouTube appearances may be embarrassing for what they say about his body language – but do they also expose a deeper inability on the part of this Government to come to terms with new media? Since March 2006, the Prime Minister has been working hard to rebut David Cameron's accusation that he was "an …
""We need to adhere to the Civil Service code: that no content on the website can be party-political...."
What *is* the Civil Service code, and how does it apply in this case. If the CS allowed the Labour party to big itself up or do diss the Tories on a government site they would surely be a breach of "the code", but by posting a video on YouTube they have merely made it available there and it doesn't seem obvious that the CS is - or should be - responsible with what people say about it there. In fact, they should not only allow comments they shouldn't moderate them at all - that's the only fair, unbiased, etc. position to take.
(Comments such as "what a smooth performer this PM is!" would obviously suggest wikifiddling and be disregarded as such)
BTW - given the UK gov's technical naivete here's a question for the next PMQ: "Does the Prime Minister believe in Big Endian or Little Endian government?", he trolled nervously, hoping to stir up a storm in an egg cup.
This government has problems with new AND old media, possibly due to not having anything constructive to say in either.
Then again, Her Majesty's opposition aren't doing much better.
Maybe if they dropped all the posturing and actually did some real work people might be prepared to give them the time of day. There'll be a lot of airborne flu-carriers around before that happens, though.
is to make a speech that goes as global as the Conservative MEP who said he was "a devalued prime minister of a devalued government" in the vain hope of getting some sort of support.
Well I've got some news for you clown. You're a twat and I'm counting down the days until your pathetic attempt at a democractic government are voted out by one of the widest margins ever seen.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/
In that URL, I wonder who chooses the little phrase that selects the petition. In this one it's 'please-go'. I assume it's because 'resign' is already used up. I notice that the 'resign' petition folder was used in 2006 (515 votes to get Blair to resign).
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Resign/
So it seems to me that Brown is 100 times more popular than Blair.
And checking other variations,
"/Resignation/" folder is another 'Blair to resign' with 53 votes.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/resignTony/
Blair to resign with 456 votes
Also 'ResignBrown' was rejected as overlapping, with
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/gordan-brown/
(47 votes for Gordon to go).
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Resign-Now-Brown/
Another one asking Brown to go.
And the saddest one of all
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NOT-resign/
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to NOT-resign"..... 4 votes.
"Anyway, I don't see why they can't allow YouTube to moderate the comments. Surely they do that already?"
You Tube do not moderate comments in the same way that they do not moderate content. Only if You Tube are advised that a video or a comment are in breach of the law will they act, in order to protect themselves. The position of You Tube is that they provide a 'public noticeboard' and have no editorial control over it - hence they cannot be blamed for anything that appears on it. This is sensible from the point of view of their own protection from legal action.
A few moments spent reading You Tube comments will convince you that there is no moderation. Most comment threads degenerate into obscene, racist, sexist, nationalist, puerile bilge; that is why they are such fun to read (but you feel depressed after you've done it).
Or does anyone else think Broon has a brilliant career ahead as the Joker in any future Batman flicks? His grinning and gurning made me deeply, acutely unsettled. Does he not realise what a grotesque he looks? Anyone else doing that would be arrested for a disturbance of the peace.
The following phrases from my childhood spring to mind:
"A face that would stop a clock"
"A face that would frighten the French"
"A face like a Halloween cake"
"A face like a Halloween cake that caught fire and was put out with a shovel"
"A face like a joiner's nail-bag"
I thank you.
I went in to BBC Radio Ulster at 7.30 yesterday morning to answer questions about this.
If they got social networking, they would set up channels in which citizens could post videos telling them what to do about MPs expenses, rather than just using it as another advertising channel from them to us.
It is the us to them bit that I will be running from January, when we will be getting thousands of young people to tell politicians what they should do with the Internet (www.huwy.eu).
I confess to feeling (very) vaguely sorry for Brown with regard to the Youtube stuff. Brown isn't really the problem, per se, it's the yappy little 12 year olds charged with 'getting the message across' that seem to think forcing the guy to grin inanely at apparently random intervals is the way to "connect" and get down wiv da kidz innit.
Brown presumably relies on other to do their jobs properly to spec, and in this he really is failed badly. Did no one in that room review the footage and think "nah, just doesn't work- plan b". Plan b perhaps being to let Gordon Brown be himself - after all, Brown is a rather miserable 50 odd year old in a suit with a somewhat droning voice, there's not much you can do about that, so why not just let him do his thing? After all, he ended up as PM by doing it, so it can't be all bad, and it certainly looks far, far better than the psycho twitching they intended to pass as 'friendly'.
They pulled this crap before, just before Brown took over from Blair. They shipped him off to Africa for a few photo-ops at orphanages and coached him in the same idiot grinning routine. Did anyone really buy that either?
Blears is wrong; it's not failing to get their message across that's the problem, it's obsessing with the message in the first place, the same for 'reaching' teenagers. Govern well and people will respect you, remember, and vote for you. NuLab have done sweet FA worth recalling in 10 years, but try to persuade us they did really good with cheap, talentless stunts like this. In fact, that's all Nu Labour are.
I don't care whether the guy in charge is 40, 50 or 60 as long as he does a good job. Sadly, with Brown, we'll probably never know as the obession with managing every public statement and appearance to create the 'right' impression obscures who he really is and any small achievements he may actually have.
Blears says that the public don't believe what they're told by the government. After 12 years of stunts ike this, is it any wonder?
I'm not surprised comments are blocked on the 10 downing street videos.
The demographic who use Youtube, or rather comment on Youtube, appear to have heads filled with jelly. The most praise one would seem to get is LOLZ^^. Other than that it seems to be along the lines of "U faggot" replied with "WHO U CALLIN FAGGOT, DIK CHEEZ?".
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