“The Queen Who Stares At Boats” – an example of extra-judicial censorship?

 "The Men Who Stare At Goats", censorship, Facebook, ISPs, jokes, jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II, social media, unclassifiable, YouTube  No Responses »
Jun 072012
 

There’s a funny sketch going the rounds by that delightful American TV jester, Jon Stewart.  It’s called “The Queen Who Stares At Boats” – the reference is clear.  It’s about how CNN and others covered the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Royal Pageant on Sunday – and the stupidities that their journalists were required to mutter in public.

Yesterday, a Facebook friend of a friend of mine posted a link to it on Facebook, only for the link to go down.  I then saw a tweet flash past on Twitter, saying no UK servers were serving up the video in question any more.  My friend posted a link on her own Facebook stream to Gawker instead, a link which at the time of writing is still working – at least for me.  You can currently find it here.

From across the other side of the Atlantic, it pokes more fun at the media than the Queen herself.  If, as the tweet I mention above suggested, it has been removed from all UK servers, I do wonder whether this isn’t an example of extra-judicial social-media censorship.  As far as I know, there have been no reports of injunctions on such material – it has simply disappeared from where it originally was.

Even a search on YouTube as served up in the UK doesn’t reveal the slightest trace of this clever piece of humour.

Is this then yet another abuse of super-injunctions (more here) – or, perhaps, an example of government giving a quiet nod to acquiescent ISPs and other private companies which begin, as many have feared over the past couple of years might turn out to be the case, to do the bidding of such government without the need for legal intervention or indeed publicly transparent protection?

And if it is, what other information – maybe of a far more transcendental kind – is being silently kept from the voters?

What mechanisms are suddenly being used without due parliamentary debate – and, exactly, why?

Can newspapers now legally intercept your texts, phonecalls and voicemails?

 apps, Facebook, in a hole, newspapers, phone-hacking, Rupert Murdoch, smartphones, Sunday Times, texting, unclassifiable, YouTube  No Responses »
Feb 272012
 

With recent evidence mounting up that governments are using corporations to do their dirty work, it does make me wonder – and want to infer – whether this weekend’s big technology news is an indication of a far wider malaise.  The fact that Facebook feels able to happily admit that it’s been spying on smartphone users’ text messages in order to harvest data to allow it to launch its own messaging facility does make me think that perhaps governments are already doing this; and, behind the scenes, this is simply a given which makers and shakers have long been aware of.

A given they are now even comfortable with.

The worst of the story isn’t however just that.  The worst is contained in this paragraph:

It claimed that some apps even allow companies to intercept phone calls – while others, such as YouTube, are capable of remotely accessing and operating users’ smartphone cameras to take photographs or videos at any time.

Hardly a surprise, therefore, when a Sunday Times survey of smartphone-user behaviours throws up the fact that almost three-quarters of those questioned never or rarely check out the terms and conditions before installing a program.

So whilst these institutions continue to reap the benefit of intercepting your text messages and phonecalls and taking control of your photos and videos, they are actually doing it with your explicit permission.

Three observations which strike me here: first, isn’t it ironic that it is Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times which – in the week before important revelations are expected at the Leveson inquiry into phone-hacking and media abuse – manages to pull together a report on how these huge technology companies (his sworn enemies in those battles on intellectual property and Internet freedoms that are SOPA, PIPA and ACTA) are potentially abusing their own dominant market positions to trick innocent users into giving up considerable swathes of their privacy?

Which, of course, and despite the conflict of interest, doesn’t mean the report isn’t absolutely right to say what it does.

The second observation?  Just imagine it was a government which, say, launched a friendly Direct.gov.uk single-point-of-access app whose terms and conditions allowed it to gather the kind of data and have the kind of control over your phone which Facebook has chirrupingly acknowledged and Google’s YouTube has surreptitiously acquired.

Just imagine, then, the hullabaloo that would be raised.  The furore the newspapers would generate in their attacks on the ever-encroaching police state.

Remember what I said about governments getting corporations to do their dirty work?  In the light of this and other recent stories, it really wouldn’t surprise me if both had long ago been involved hand-in-glove …

And lastly?  Well.  It doesn’t half make me shiver to realise that whilst morally unacceptable – and possibly illegal – phone-hacking and voicemail interception was the flavour of the past decade at some British newspapers, our favourite smartphone newspaper apps may one day – if, indeed, this is not already the case – allow their proprietors to legally follow our movements; track our texts; listen in to our calls; and write stories on our activities.

These phones are bloody self-financing, for goodness sake – with all the data we are giving up for nothing.  These companies talk about how difficult it is for them to make money on the web – and then they submit us all to the indignity of things like the above.

Perhaps there’s a lesson in that.  Perhaps this is the awful consequence of forcing unwieldy corporations to monetise their content in any which way but via direct payments.  Or, alternatively, a result of the aforementioned companies being entirely unable to move with the times.

A point worth debating further?  Maybe for another post.

Maybe, indeed.

The truth of the matter is, and the way it’s now going, we shouldn’t just be getting the content and devices for free …

We shouldn’t just have an inalienable right to be able to chatter, click and browse for zilch …

We should actually be remunerated for reading and using this stuff.  Because long-term, and I mean this seriously, we’re not going to be paying for the rest of lives but – rather (the difference is subtle but profound) – with the rest of our lives.

And that’s a thought that really doesn’t bear thinking about.

Now does it?

Today is when we truly remember Labour’s "scaremongering" party election broadcast …

 a con, New Labour, Orwell, PEB, Tories, YouTube  No Responses »
Feb 012012
 

The owner of the YouTube channel I’ve embedded the video below from describes it as the “most scaremongering of all of New Labour’s election broadcasts”.

The election broadcast used a kind of Orwellian group of grey-suited state apparatchiks to frighten voters into voting for Labour.  It talked about how the Tories would cut child tax credits and other benefits just weeks after getting into power.  This clearly didn’t happen.  And perhaps it never would have done.  Even if they had won the election fair and square.


http://youtu.be/IiRhdzorfQA

But after the government decided tonight to ensure support was cut for cancer patients, can we honestly say with our hands on our hearts that the thesis outlined in the video was so very out of the trolley?

Labour got the timeframe wrong.  It got the details wrong.  But it didn’t get Tory instincts wrong.

Now did it?
____________________

Update to this post: today, the morning of the 2nd February, the Herald Scotland website has published this damning assessment of how the political class is either looking to recreate Dickensian Britain (the Tories), is right but relatively ineffectual (Labour) or is ending up being downright two-faced (the Lib Dems).  As it so cogently summarises:

The true face of the Welfare Reform Bill is wheelchair users losing mobility benefits, terminally ill cancer patients being assessed for work and accident victims who have always worked being driven back on to basic means-tested benefits after a year. Thousands genuinely unable to work will be forced into unsuitable jobs or dire poverty. (In yesterday’s debate one Tory backwoodsman seriously described being sick or disabled as “a lifestyle choice”, to the righteous fury of Scots wheelchair-using MP Anne Begg.) These changes are being forced through without any evidence base to suggest that they will work at a time of lengthening dole queues with the long-term unemployed stuck at the back, furthest away from meaningful employment.

Well worth your time in its comprehensive description, criticism and deconstruction of the wider Tory strategy.

On old boys’ networks (and Twitter as the virtual 1 percent)

 a con, Facebook, in a hole, old boys' networks, oligarchy, Twitter, YouTube  No Responses »
Jan 122012
 

A fascinating retweet and comment from Anthony Painter just now:

RT @SamuelCoates: UK social media hit share in 2011: Facebook 51%,YouTube 25%, Twitter 3% http://t.co/EQcHtME4 < Always worth remembering…

And indeed it is worth remembering.  Coincidentally, the percentage relating to Twitter’s apparent reach is uncomfortably close to the 1 percent which the famous 99 percent so despise.  So if Twitter does have an influence disproportionate to its number of active users, we are perhaps – then – reproducing in a virtual context the oligarchical structures that allegedly rule our real world.

Facebook and YouTube, meanwhile, give voice and expression to the ordinary souls out there.  Even as their influence is rather more diffuse.

Perhaps in its concentrated nature, Twitter is showing us exactly how old boys’ networks grow up.  We could argue Twitter users are generally quite assiduous – with the successful tweets and timelines gaining niches, specialisations and followings quite quickly.  Its obsessive characteristic – therefore – as a themed social network leads to a greater facility to lever what would, at first sight, appear to be a more limited zone of operation.  If Facebook and YouTube form the 75 percent iceberg – invisible to most of us in their spread and amplitude of content – Twitter is at the very tip of that iceberg; clearly visible for miles around as it glints in the sunlight of reflection, reference and massive link love.

Facebook and YouTube as – primarily – echo chambers then?

And Twitter as a starting-point for much longer journeys?

Influence and reach where it matters, in fact.

Perhaps old boys’ networks are another of these natural instincts and impulses human beings find it impossible to shrug off, however sophisticated their civilisations seem to make them.  A pity and a sadness – but a possible inevitability too.

The words and pictures we use do matter (II) (or how the Giffords shooting is not a "both sides" thing)

 Gabrielle Giffords, in a hole, Jeffrey Feldman, Keith Olbermann, politics, unclassifiable, YouTube  No Responses »
Jan 092011
 

I’ve already posted on the Giffords shootings here – and at the same time took the opportunity to point out that right-wing British sites such as Tory Bear have recently promoted crosshair graphics in their attempts to “target” opposition MPs.  As I mentioned in this post, such “eliminationist rhetoric” can only contribute to a rising tide of figurative violence which may eventually lead to what happened yesterday in the United States.

I was wrong about one thing however.  I attributed the violence, in the broad brushstrokes that those looking on from without are prone to use, to a general set of American behaviours and attitudes.  This was inaccurate.  As Jeffrey Feldman points out this evening, this is not a “both sides” issue:

Political violence in USA clearly NOT “both sides” problem (timeline since 2008): http://bit.ly/hqatxb (HT @kgkasper)

The timeline in question can be found here and is pretty damning in its detail.  As its introduction contextualises:

On June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court embraced the National Rifle Association’s contention that the Second Amendment provides individuals with the right to take violent action against our government should it become “tyrannical.” The following timeline catalogues incidents of insurrectionist violence (or the promotion of such violence) that have occurred since that decision was issued [...].

Read it and prepare to be shocked.

But America is much bigger than the atrocities it regularly throws up.  There is something infirm about the way it is developing – but, then, on the other hand, you might say the same about a country like Britain which produces a Coalition government of the kind we now have.

Western civilisation is in crisis for many reasons.  The symptoms range from obesity and rising levels of mental ill health to a disproportionate concentration of wealth in the hands of very few citizens – citizens who choose to justify their excesses by arguing that a wider societal advancement will only take place through the incentivisation to achieve more that such imbalances supposedly invoke.  Today it is announced that the Royal Bank of Scotland’s chief executive is expected to take home millions of pounds in bonuses, a man who is said to have admitted that even his parents think he is probably paid too much.  As always, the underlying argument and subtext will run thus: those who already earn the most need the incentive of even higher earnings to encourage them to work that little bit harder whilst those who already earn the least need the incentive of even lower earnings if they are to be coerced into doing the same.

On a wider scale and landscape, such rhetoric, such injustices, can only create the conditions which lead to madnesses such as the one America suffered yesterday.  But as the timeline I link to above shows us, this is simply one of very many precursors.  Yesterday was particularly unpleasant but not, in the least, particularly unusual.

And I am (bizarrely) amused when I read commentators say things such as “From watching his YouTube videos, it’s clear to me that the killer was obviously mentally disturbed”.  So why do you need to watch the YouTube videos to know that he was disturbed?  Are you telling me that there might be some justification or argument somewhere which could prove the sanity of an individual who had carried out such an awful and horrific crime?  Is it at all possible that there might be a society out there which could support the sense and sensibility of such an act depending on the content of some document or other?

The very fact that so many of us now require a series of YouTube videos to rubber stamp our opinion of an alleged killer – and confirm us in our bland and easily acquired opinions – just shows how dangerously into the territory of violent discourse our societies have unhappily crept.

This is murder we are talking about here.  The taking of another’s life.  Entirely wrong and without justification surely.

Let’s try and get back to that simple truth before we proceed to try and right other wrongs.
____________________

Update to this post: Keith Olbermann, speaking on MSNBC today, draws important markers in the sand. 

Julian Assange’s lawyer on America’s attempt "to get its mitts on Assange"

 AlJazeeraEnglish, in a hole, Julian Assange, Mark Stephens, on a high, Sir David Frost, WikiLeaks, YouTube  No Responses »
Dec 132010
 

Sir David Frost interviews Julian Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens on the background to the current rape allegations and the real intentions of the American authorities, as well as the curiously transnational nature of WikiLeaks. All published via AlJazeeraEnglish’s YouTube channel.

The Amazon paradox

 Amazon, Google, in a hole, WikiLeaks, YouTube  No Responses »
Dec 122010
 

Amazon is clearly getting its knickers in a twist.  On the one hand, its recommendation algorithms are so good they are now telling us truths that shareholder reports and depositions to important senators would more than likely refuse to countenance.

That is to say, we have arrived at a situation where mathematics is now more honest than humanity.

No surprise there, I guess.  Ever since Mr Spock graced our TV screens in the 1960s, we’ve been waiting for this moment to occur.

Today, though, I’ve seen it all.  Via a company called getDigital, Amazon first supplied this product at the beginning of November 2010 – a product which, at the time of writing, is still available on its website.  The product page also currently includes two revealing photos.  You can find below a screenshot of the page which I captured a few minutes ago (click on the image for a larger version).

So what is Amazon doing here and why have I spent so much time over the past few days analysing what they do?  Partly because I love them as the frequent customer that I have been here in Britain.  Partly because I love them for the service they provided us with when we lived in Spain and I could’ve felt so disconnected from a culture I didn’t want to leave behind.

And partly because I wish they would just damn well recognise that just because they are a corporation with shareholders doesn’t mean they can’t take it upon themselves to act as real publishers and editors have struggled and managed to do so down through the ages.

That is to say, mix in with the philistine need to make money and generate financial solvency a dash of real intellectual integrity and sociocultural sincerity.  Take this example published on CNN a few days ago:

This is not the first time Lieberman has demanded that an American internet company take down controversial material. Last time, the outcome was different.

In 2008, Lieberman wrote to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, demanding immediate removal of “content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations from YouTube.” While YouTube did remove a few videos that violated community guidelines against violence and hate speech, it refused to remove most of them.

Google’s lawyers determined that the material Lieberman wanted removed, while upsetting to many Americans, was clearly protected under the First Amendment. “While we respect and understand [Lieberman's] views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view,” Schmidt wrote in his response.

Furthermore:

He continued: “We believe YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate, we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds.”

Please don’t misunderstand me. In highlighting this, I’m not passing judgement on anyone for the moment. Rather, I’m more interested in why Google’s YouTube should find it easier to come to a conclusion far more in line with traditional publishing mores than Amazon has clearly cared (or been able) to.

It would appear that diversity of interests may play a significant part in this curious equation.  YouTube is a distributor of other people’s intellectual content – nothing more, nothing less.  Its DNA is essentially one of homemade freedoms talking to each other.

Only now will it begin to monetise itself into a rather more complicated set of dynamics, as Google TV takes off.  YouTube will then almost certainly end up needing to sanitise its rougher edges in order that major suppliers such as the film production conglomerates don’t find themselves being obliged – by their own confused and confusing interests – to shy away from the platform.

But, for the moment, that moment has not arrived.  And we can still count on YouTube as a virtual distributor of definite distinction.

Amazon, meanwhile, is happy to sell us T-shirts which tell us how we can access WikiLeaks and all those carefully drip-fed diplomatic cables – even as it refuses to host the site itself.

Curious stuff, running a large company as diverse as they obviously are.

For that’s what happens when you don’t focus on one area of business.  Diversity of business activity may be good for the financial balance sheet – but it would appear to make you highly vulnerable on an intellectual and moral plane.

And that – essentially – is the Amazon paradox: an admirable financial solvency on the one hand, a disgraceful moral bankruptcy on the other.

How the Coalition government intends to put the NHS in private hands

 a con, Coalition capitalism, Coalition cuts, NHS cuts, privatisation, richard.blogger, YouTube  No Responses »
Nov 062010
 

The video below, from richard.blogger, is a lovely piece of slideshow-type YouTube.  Just as effective as Captain Ska’s “Liar Liar” (see my previous post and the comments at the end), it tells an awful story of wily surreptitiousness on the part of this Coalition government.  Please watch it to the end and understand its sorry thesis, as it builds a wall of unassailable logic with a brick-by-brick effectiveness.

The public clearly does not want this – yet the government is trying to get away with the full privatisation of the NHS in all but name.

This government, if any government, deserves to be both mercilessly and wisely tracked twenty-four hours a day.  Let’s hope more people like richard.blogger decide to take up the challenge and fight on the side of an intelligent and unremitting truth.

That Coca-Cola jingle which has driven me to distraction (and other Saturday afternoon blues)

 Coca-Cola, Google, in a hole, jingle, monetisation, public domain, YouTube  No Responses »
Mar 062010
 

Google might be good for finding things that serve to distract you from the job in hand – but when you’re looking exactly for something which you are absolutely positive exists, sometimes it’s really not up to the task you ask of it.  This lyric, for example:

Coca-Cola
When the midday sun is over
Coke adds life
And everybody wants a bit of life.

Now I challenge you to find this short snippet of a jingle that has distracted me all afternoon. Don’t know why. Don’t even see that – as an adult of 47 and with so many awful things going on the world – I should allow myself the luxury of such foolishnesses.

But hey ho. There we go.

After much searching on both Google and YouTube, I finally came up with this advert which shows Jack Nicklaus playing golf to my favourite lyrics.

But as one of the commenters points out, the ad we really love was more upbeat and definitely didn’t feature the golfer in question.

Curious how some parts of what we are and feel can get so easily buried by these gigantic corporations. Someone, somewhere, obviously feels that those of us who remember this piece of advertising art don’t deserve an access any other century would have more than happily permitted.

Just more of the same, I’m afraid. Our memories only have value for these organisations whilst they can be monetised.

And yet if I still buy Coke, in part it’s due to that jingle and ad I mention above. An ad I can only remember these days even as I am surely unable to properly track it down. An ad that reminds me of a far more hopeful youth – and most definitely not the bland consumer-orientated histrionics they seem to currently propose to engage our attention with.

Points and specious freebies? Guitar-hero riffs? No sir. Not for me, anyhow. Identification with a musicality and an optimism that spoke volumes. That was (and is) rather more my line, I can tell you.

And so we come back to a lack of a true public domain. If YouTube has done anything useful, it is to create a de facto public domain for the dominant arts of the 20th century, precisely where and when their progenitors – the music, TV and cinema industries – have simply refused to play ball.

I fear that YouTube’s glory days are coming to an end.

Monetisation knocks at all our doors.

Ready yourself to become just another soulless consumer.

The beginning which is nigh was – in reality – never more an end than now.