back to article British bureaucrats are world's most social-media-tastic

Cheer up, Britain. Your government may not be able to control either its borders or its rivers, and it may have sent its farmers back to using pen and paper and telephone hotlines. But there's one way it still leads the world, according to the Head of the British Civil Service. The Whitehall supremo says the UK is the best in …

  1. tiggity Silver badge

    Sir Jizza - less social media more responding to FOI requests please

    And by responding,I mean actually giving the data asked for, not lying through your teeth to give a reason why it cannot be given

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sir Jizza - less social media more responding to FOI requests please

      You'll be expecting him to be competent next, and that's a harsh challenge for any civil servant. But to be fair to the bloke, he's well down the pecking order of the government gravy train:

      https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/62343/high-earners-pay_0.csv/preview

      What a bunch of over-paid, talent-free tossers on that document.

  2. TeeCee Gold badge
    WTF?

    Well that's just great!

    ....a community of Twitter followers that equates to roughly 4% of the domestic population.

    Which, as a way of keeping in touch with the population[1] is of about the same use as a packet of spongecloths is in addressing the York flooding. It would be quite interesting to know if any of those followers are not party activists or journalists......

    [1] i.e. All of it.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Well that's just great!

      Maybe the followers are all just bots and lower level worker bees? Not hard to set up a herd of bots to inflate numbers.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    About right

    All talk, no action.

  4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Twitteratti praise Twitteratti. What a surprise.

  5. Robert Helpmann??
    Childcatcher

    It's all advertising

    Take the phrase "never met a revenue stream it didn't like" and apply it to advertising. Social media is essentially free advertising with excellent metrics to go with. No wonder governments like it as it helps them sell their wares. From the data given, though, I think I will be moving to... let's see... Hungary.

    I should mention that I loathe most social media and avoid it accordingly, but I wondered about the use of "hashtag #12DaysofCSMas" in the article. Isn't that a bit redundant?

  6. Mage Silver badge
    Devil

    Best at Twitter & Facebook?

    A couple of commercial parasites of zero value to the public.

    They should be ashamed to wasting time on such thing. It's equivalent to deciding to communicate with the public only by the letters page of the Daily Mail and The Sun newspapers.

    1. Zog_but_not_the_first
      Devil

      Re: Best at Twitter & Facebook?

      Keeps things neat and tidy. After all they are where Gov policy is set.

    2. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Best at Twitter & Facebook?

      It's equivalent to deciding to communicate with the public only by the letters page of the Daily Mail and The Sun newspapers.

      And the Guardian. Equally trashy and biased, just at a different polarity.

  7. Amorous Cowherder
    Facepalm

    Heywood sounds like the very definition of a government tech obsessed "cyber twat" who's goes to bed each night crying into his Mark Zuckerberg pillow case and Steve Jobs duvet cover, 'cos he wasn't part of the Silicon Valley elite 30 years ago, yet still struggles to sync his music collection from his iPad with iTunes!

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      The Mind Boggles .......

      Very imaginative, Amorous Cowherder, but surely a tad harsh? And whatever are we to imagine of a "cyber twat"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The Mind Boggles .......

        Frankly amfm, I imagine you.

        1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

          Re: The Mind Boggles ....... @Anonymous Coward

          Frankly amfm, I imagine you. Anonymous Coward

          Methinks that thought in deed, indeed be a worthy twit of a tweet for a twat, AC. Bravo, Sir/Madam.

          However, the truth of the matter being exercised in the thread here on El Reg Andrew Orlowski is the virtual intelligence of the head of the UK Civil Service is being publicly tested for fitness in future Greater IntelAIgent Games purpose.

          A deathly hush and non reply telling one and all all that be needed to move on to greener fields. Such be the new way of working things nowadays. Time and tides/space and cyber movements wait for nothing and no one really.

  8. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Is IT what you XSSXXXXpected? Or considerably more able and enabled than ever previously imagined

    Graham C ‏@Godisagoddess [1601071715] …..does tweet,

    @HeadUKCivServ @OECDgov ..... http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/01/07/apple_cook_pay_15/#c_2739385 ........ AI Security for Nations Treatise

  9. Trainee grumpy old ****
    Trollface

    Never a more apt acronym?

    "gag"

    (see OECD shortened url)

  10. Chris G
    Pint

    Harsh and scathing

    Just what Heywood needs, Well done Andrew, have a beer!

    From being Bliar's former PPS to being head of the (Un)Civil Service in this government proves one thing at least; he can certainly keep a grip on the gravy train.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Camilla Smythe

    Erdoğan?

    It beats the Twitter account of the prime minister of Turkey into fourth place. Take that, Turks!

    Last I checked he spends all of his time banning 'social media'.

  13. sgp

    I kept reading sir Humphrey Appleby for some inexplicable reason.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      WTF?

      Can't see the connection myself. One's a publicity-obsessed, self-aggrandising little prick and the other's Sir Humphrey Appleby.

  14. Captain DaFt

    So what being said is...

    That British bureaucrats spending all their time on Facebook and Twitter at work is a good thing?

    Funny, how long ago was it that they were crying that employees doing the same at businesses was costing the country billions?

    It seems that cognitive dissonance is running rampant through the Government.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: So what being said is...

      "That British bureaucrats spending all their time on Facebook and Twitter at work is a good thing?"

      Well, it does gives them less time for screwing things up, so yes.

  15. Not That Andrew

    I'd really hate to be the poor sod charged with running the DWP and Jobcenter's twitters

  16. koolholio
    Mushroom

    maybe his co-workers could complain about horse manure! NOW! That's beuracracy

  17. Cuddles

    Fourth?

    "It beats the Twitter account of the prime minister of Turkey into fourth place."

    And yet the graph directly underneath this statement clearly shows Turkey in third place.

  18. cycas

    "Digital" is a euphemism; it's a job-creation scheme for life's natural twiddlers, timewasters and bureaucrats that can be used to justify almost anything.

    I NEED THIS ON A TSHIRT. AND A MUG.

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