Reinventing Facebook

Google appear to be reinventing Facebook. Again. What'll be the lifespan on this one? I'm guessing not too long.

But it isn't just Google doing this. On an almost weekly basis I here someone saying "I've got a great idea for a business. It's like Facebook. But for xyz." They are intensely excited by their new idea, and can't wait to tell people about it. They are convinced that they are about to make their millions. The question that they can't answer, of course, is why the hell people won't just us Facebook to do xyz.

Facebook works because it is simple to use and broad in its applications. Attempting to reinvent it, or to narrow it to a specific area, will almost certainly fail since there is no reason why people should defect to the new site from Facebook. Facebook is the social networking version of the wheel, and therefore it is bloody difficult to reinvent it.

Twattering

In a u-turn quicker than a Nu Labour minister facing a bit of tabloid pressure (given my comments on Friday), I'm now experimenting with a Twatter feed. Rest assured, I remain heartedly unconvinced by its usefulness and whether I can really be bothered with it, but in the interests of at least being a bit open-minded I'm willing to give it a go.

I'm going to attempt to put each post from this blog on to Twatter. I did try doing the same with my Facebook group, but I grew bored of that remarkably quickly. Therefore, if anyone knows of a way to link this blog to Twatter so all posts here are automatically be published there without an iota of effort from your humble author, please let me know in the comments sections. Oh, and please tell me how as well.

Right, enough of these new(ish)-fangled methods of t'interweb communication. Back to "normal" blogging.

Bush On Facebook

They used to say that the death of Facebook would come when everyone's parents signed up to that often dubious social networking site. I actually think that Facebook has jumped the shark now George W. Bush is on it.

Bush's wall seems to be filled with lackwitted Republican troglodytes lamenting the fact that their boy is no longer in the White House - even though Bush was the most cretinous President since Warren Harding. But that's inevitable for a fan page, I suppose.

What bothers me, though, is the fact that (at the time of writing) Bush Junior has 81,83o people liking his page. Which is all well and good, but it does show the urgent need for Facebook to have a "Don't Like" button. Because I reckon that the number of people who don't like George W Bush would far outstrip those who like him...

Labservative

Another day, another Facebook group. But this time it is one I get behind wholeheartedly. See, it is supporting the party that has been in power for the past 65 years - Labservative. The summary is as follows:

We are Labservative and we stand for more of the same. We've been at Number 10 for 65 years and we're not going anywhere. We know we can rely on your vote - not that we need it.

You know what? They'll probably bloody well win the election and all.

And before any tedious Tories or lacklustre Labourites start belly-aching, it is a joke. A joke. The only reason why it is so funny is because, from some angles, it has more than a ring of truth to it. You can talk about "voting change" as much as you like - the problem is that the change on offer by the three two main parties simply isn't radical enough to deal with the problems facing the UK or to inspire many of the voters in this country.

Let's NOT have a Christian song as Easter No.1...

Regular readers will be aware of both my predilection for commenting on stupid Facebook groups and on my general antipathy towards religion. So when I came across a group called "Christian music topping the UK Charts!", a blogpost became inevitable.

Let's see what this group of shrill God-botherers want to achieve:

This is a trumpet call to unite all online Christians throughout the UK to make history. Put aside talk of bunnies, chocolates and egg-hunts this Easter and let's hear the message of Jesus Christ sweep the airwaves as we take Delirious to the No.1 spot!

You can, should you have more faith than brain cells, read more about the campaign here.

Now, I don't really care who is Easter No.1 - the chances are that it will be a shit song that I'll never hear that makes it to the top of the charts on Easter Sunday. And let's face it, being Easter No.1 lacks the prestige of being Christmas No.1. Furthermore, with this campaign being squarely aimed at the Christian God-botherers, there's a natural fanbase for this that makes the number of fans they have got so far something of an inevitability, and therefore not as impressive as the campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to Christmas No.1 last year. But even with all of these caveats built in, I can't help but be irritated by this craptacular campaign.

As an atheist, I don't really celebrate Easter. And I do understand that bunnies, chocolate and egg-hunts are not, strictly speaking, what Easter is about - at least from a Christian point of view. But I also think - and I think the Bible will back me up here - that Easter is also not about gaining a whole shitload of publicity for a blander than bland band simply because they choose to warble on religion the whole fucking time. Want to celebrate your Messiah? How about going some good for people as a whole, rather than championing a band who have been around for as long as Radiohead but with just a fraction of the success? Because I'm pretty sure that the example given by Christ at Easter deserves a little more gravitas than pushing a song by a band that makes Coldplay look fucking butch up the charts.

Still, I'm hopeful that this campaign will ultimately come to nothing, as some many Facebook campaigns do. But if there is even a hint that this lot might succeed in their stupid fucking objective, then I might start my own Facebook group - a campaign to get an atheist song to the top of the charts. Probably "Dear God" by XTC. Because, if nothing else, it is a far better song than anything Delirious? have ever produced...

Facebook, Atheism and Santa

Allow me to introduce you to another Facebook group - Hey Facebook!... Atheist Groups are NOT Hate Groups! Stop Banning Them!

Personally, I was unaware that Facebook was banning atheist groups. I suppose it is possible; most organisations are very tentative and risk averse when it comes to dealing with religion, and if it came down to a straight choice between the God-botherers and God-deniers, then the latter will (more often that not) lose. However, to ban an atheist group because it is a hate group seems to be crass, particularly when you can join the BNP Facebook group. There is nothing hating about atheism; in fact, atheists tend to be more tolerant than the believers.

Yet I can't get too worked up about this. If Facebook wants to ban atheist groups, then let it crack on and do so. It is a private organisation and frankly it can do what it wants with its own website. As an atheist, I can't bring myself to be anything other than mildly peeved that religious groups get a higher profile on Facebook than atheist ones. Because, at the end of the day, this is Facebook - a social networking site with oodles of stupid groups. I honestly don't think that anyone is going to be swayed to atheism or to religion by Facebook. Besides, there is a certain poetic justice in God (Other Public Figure, apparently) sitting on a website that also boasts Santa Claus (classed as a politician, would you believe) as a user.

Still, the group is worth checking out if only for the pictures. This one is probably my favourite.

Urqhart for PM

For those of you who are, like me, struggling to work out who to vote for, allow me to point you in the direction of this Facebook group: Francis Urqhart for PM. Sure, he might be an amoral, psychopathic dead fictional character portrayed by a deceased actor, but I still reckon he'd be a better choice than Brown, Cameron or Clegg...

Facebook Groups

To all those on Facebook who are friends with the Nameless Libertarian and who send invites to join groups about UKIP and support UKIP candidates - I'm not interested. I'm really not. I'm not a member of UKIP, I don't support UKIP and I am never, ever going to vote for UKIP. So it really is pointless to send the invites to me*.

A similar message to our American cousins - I'm not a US citizen, so enlisting my help with the latest campaign to get some crackpot elected president or a bellicose Republican into Congress is going to be ignored. It is also worth stressing that the Republicans are not (especially in their current incarnation) a libertarian party - any more than the Tory party in this country is libertarian. So calling from support from a libertarian for the Republicans will, on almost every occasion, be completely pointless.

*Of course, people might be signing up to a cause and then inviting all of their friends. Although that doesn't change the fact that most of the pointless invites I get are from UKIP supporters rather than, say, Tories...

The Robin Hood Tax

There should be a website that details – and tears apart – the seemingly endless number of Facebook groups that are set up by people with a slender grip of reality. Another day brings another unthinking left-wing Facebook associate joining another idiotic group:

Robin Hood Tax is a tiny tax on bankers that would raise billions to tackle poverty and climate change, at home and abroad.

If governments took a tiny tax of 0.05% from international bankers’ transactions, it could generate hundreds of billions of pounds every year – that could stop cuts in crucial public services at home in UK, and help fight global poverty and climate change.

This is so irritating in so many ways that it really is a case of some many gripes, so little time. So I’ll focus instead on my biggest issue with this craptastic idea. It isn’t so much the damage this might do to an already struggling banking sector, nor the naïveté involved in the idea that the whole world could agree on one particular point of economic policy, when they cannot even agree on what the best basis of an economy should be. It isn’t even the ongoing stigmatisation of the banking world, despite the reality that others – such as governments and consumers – also played a crucial part in the down-turn we’re just coming out of.

No. What really fucks me off is this naïve assumption that government knows best. That if you give money to government you are automatically doing a good thing. That is, of course, total shite. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s take a look at what the British government spends its money on. War and (generally poor, not fit for purpose) weapons. More CCTV cameras, more invasions into the privacy of the people. And – best of all for these banking haters – buying large stakes in failing/failed banks. Yeah, let’s give the governments more money. Because they don’t waste it now, do they?

And this notion that the money will be used to stop crucial cuts in public spending at home in the UK – bollocks. If the government gets around to making cuts in public services, then than can do so by cutting out some of the waste within the public sector.

The Robin Hood Tax is perfect propaganda for the government. It subtly yet effectively reinforces the idea that the government is a benign entity that will do more and more good the more money we all give to it. Unfortunately, the government is not benign. It is both wasteful and, on occasion, extremely malignant. Licensing the government to take more money from the private sector is like giving a gambling addict 200 quid and pushing him into Ladbrokes. It is stupid, it is dumb and it is irresponsible.

The Robin Hood Tax – stealing from the rich to give to the incompetent. Unfortunately, the ineptitude of the government ensures any money they take from banks will not reach the poor.

Prison and Facebook

Few would be able to argue that this isn’t a good thing:

Thirty Facebook pages have been taken down because prisoners were using them to taunt their victims, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has said.

It is good that these pages have been taken down, and would be even better if, y'know, it never happened again. Perhaps this could be a good example of government working in conjunction with business. Certainly, Jack Straw wants Facebook to do their fair share:

He said: "I'm sure Facebook is a massive organisation and there's lots of money floating around. If you have to spend a bit more on monitoring, then you have just got to do it."

Now, I’m sure that Facebook does have some spare money and could spend it on monitoring. It was my understanding that Facebook already had policies to prevent, or at least deal with, abuse on their website, but if this sort of abuse is occurring, than further work to stop it can only be a good thing.

Yet I can’t help but feel that the government could be doing more themselves. Possibly they could do more than Facebook. On the grounds we are dealing with those who are detained at her Majesty’s pleasure:

"We are getting much tougher about people smuggling telephones into prison and using them.

"I'm afraid we're dealing with crooks. Devious, manipulative people who actually have no respect for their own bodies so they push these mobile telephones into their body orifices."

I mean, seriously, what the fuck? Yes, these people might well be devious and manipulative. After all, they are in prison. And this really shouldn’t be a revelation to Jack Straw, for Christ’s sake. But think about it for just one moment. These people are in prison. Yes, they might shove a mobile phone where the sun don’t shine, but they are in a secure prison 24-7 surrounded by guards! Surely the logical thing to do would be to search these people effectively? To guard them, to stop them from doing shitty things whilst serving their time in prison, would seem to be one of the key reasons for imprisoning them.

Yes, maybe Facebook could police its site better. But surely to fuck it isn’t too much to ask the government to police its own prisons a little better first?

A new Facebook layout has prompted screams of impotent outrage: people are bemoaning the inconvenience of a mildly amended website, groups springing up to demand a change back to the last controversial layout that, for all the world, looks very similar to what we have now.

It is probably one of the reasons why the world is headed to hell in handcart – people don’t notice the reprehensible state we’re in because they are too busy banging on about how it now takes two clicks rather than just one to logout of Facebook.

So let’s get some frickin’ perspective here, people. The extremely limited changes to Facebook are the very definition of a minor irritant – if you’ve even noticed them thus far. If the changes bother you, then just remember in a week’s time you’ll have forgotten what Facebook used to look like, so you may as well get over the changes now. If you really can’t stand the new Facebook, then don’t fucking use it. It’s a free service that no-one is obliged to use – getting worked up about minor changes to the design is utterly futile.

Bankers, let Facebook tell you what to do with your bonuses!

Ooo, looky - another stupid fucking Facebook group. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bankers Bonuses to Haiti. Here's their stated aim:

We believe that the undeserving bankers who are being or have been awarded obscene bonuses a mere18 months after precipitating the worst financial crisis for decades, resulting in countless people losing their jobs and homes (not the bankers though!), should pay all or a percentage of their ill gotten gains to the Haiti Earthquake Relief effort.

Let's break that angry, crass blurb down a bit. First of all, "undeserving bankers"? Who says they are undeserving? The people who pay the bonuses certainly don't think they are undeserving. Otherwise they wouldn't get the bonuses. Because, err, that's how bonuses work. And did every banker precipitate the financial crisis? Or just some of them? And here's a crazy idea - perhaps other people have some sort of complicity in the crisis. Like politicians, and those morons who took out 125% mortgages on their home. And obscene - what, pray, constitutes an obscene bonus? 1%? 10% 100% 200%? And is it obscene even if the company who employs the banker believes that person is worth that money?

Moving on - do we really believe that no banker has lost their job and/or their house because of the financial crisis? Because a lot of people working for Lehman Brothers did lose their jobs. And, for all we know, their homes. And "ill-gotten gains"? Again, you need to understand that companies don't pay bonuses if they don't believe the person is worth it. Hell, sometimes they don't pay bonuses even if they do think the person is worth it. There is nothing "ill-gotten" about someone accepting a bonus offered to them by their employers.

Don't get me wrong, I think that people should give money to Haiti. If they want to. Which is the point of charity. Bankers should give their bonuses, or part of their bonuses, to charity, if they want to. However, if they don't, then they should keep their money and spend it on whatever they want. Even if it is coke and cheap hookers.

Because, again, that is the point of charity. It is voluntary. Charity is not enforced by yet another tedious fucking Facebook group. So, bankers, do whatever you want with your bonuses. They're for you, after all.

Dissing Cameron to Big Up the Brown

There's a new Facebook Group in town - going by the name of "I bet I can find a million people who DON'T want David Cameron as our PM". Which is fine, and the sort of thing I can buy into. I don't really want Cameron as PM, anymore than I want Gordon Brown to become Prime Minister. But then I started to read the rhetoric about why Cameron shouldn't be Prime Minister. And it mentions the supposed failure of the Major/Thatcher years, it talks about inheritance tax and Cameron's supposed wealth, it even name drops Pinochet. Which makes me a little suspicious, since whilst this group claims to be for people from all political backgrounds, it reads just like the tedious shite we hear endlessly churned out by the Labour party. So I decided to take a look at who had created the page.

It's Phil McNally who's created this page. His Facebook page shows that he is a fan of... wait for it... Gordon Brown. He posts links on the page Cardiff Labour Students. And here, on LabourList, we can see a comment he left after the Derek Draper fiasco. Particularly telling are these words:

I'm having nothing more to do with labourlist until Derek Draper resigns as editor of it. If we lose the next election, it's because of people like you.

If "we lose the next election..." Could there be a clearer indicator of a Labour supporter? So... this group for people of all political backgrounds has been created by someone who is most definitely a Labour supporter, and most probably an active one. He's clearly not neutral, and I have some completely understandable doubts that his Facebook page is neutral either. This isn't about a neutral attack on Cameron, this looks for all the world like a Labour supporter attempting to attack the Leader of the Opposition in order to big up our atrocious incumbent Prime Minister. That is reason enough not to join this particular group...

Royal Mail Wasters: Facebook 'em!

I was going to go on Facebook and create a group called "Royal Mail Are A Useless Bunch of Fucking Lazy Wankstains." Then I was hit by my usual indolence, and by a realisation that some other people have already created such groups. Albeit with slightly more temperate language in their group names.

Here are a couple of them for you to join. Oh, and spread the word and let me know of any other Facebook groups dedicated to the loathing of a postal service that doesn't like to deliver the mail. One of the groups I've linked to is called "Royal Mail Are..." - I'd complete that sentence by saying "Royal Mail Are In Desperate Need Of Immediate Privatisation." If I was feeling polite.

The Appalling Strangeness on Facebook

Owing to a mix of mild boredom and colossal vanity, I've set up a Facebook page for The Appalling Strangeness. That's right, you can become my fan.

You lucky people. 

When you've stopped laughing in pity and disgust, you can take a look here. There is also a crudely edited button in the sidebar. Feel free to sign up - although I'm not really sure why anyone would. Then again, I never thought anyone would read this blog.

Still, rest assured, I'll find a way to spin the results of this little vanity escapade in a negative way. If I don't get any fans, then I'll assume my writing is rubbish. In the event that I get more fans than I have friends on Facebook in real life, then I'll take a vow to get out more. Whatever happens, this is a lose-lose scenario for me. 

Anyway, enough on this. As a wise man once said - Allons-y!

My friend Adam Smith

Adam Smith has added me as a friend of Facebook.

Which is no mean feat when you consider he died in 1790.

Still, despite being a long dead economist, Smith isn't quite the most unlikely friend on Facebook. In fact, it is completely fitting Facebook that a dead man would still be making friends.

You've gotta love the internet.

Morons and Facebook

There are privacy issues around this one, and an ethical debate to be had about whether or not bosses should be spying on employees via Facebook. However, I will say this: if your boss on Facebook, then try to be a bit careful, eh? Rather than a total fucking moron:

Kyle Doyle, 21, is currently facing an internal investigation after he called in sick for work then updated his Facebook status bar to read: 'Kyle Doyle is not going to work ... I'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!'.

Unfortunately for Doyle his boss was also a friend on Facebook and saw the incriminating status report.

Yep, there's not real benefit to being a twat. And particularly then rubbing salt in the wound, as this young fella did when his boss rumbled him:

The manager then revealed that he had seen the Facebook message and said the day off would not be granted. "HAHAHA LMAO epic fail. No worries man," was Doyles response.

It is unfortunate that this man's manager used Facebook to spy on him. It is also unfortunate that Doyle decided to behave in the same way as a 15 year old school kid who has just discovered both Facebook and cider. There does need to be a wider debate about how bosses should use things like Facebook; until that is put to bed, let's try not to total fuckwits, eh?