Take responsibility for your actions Facebook — you’re putting the con into Silicon Valley
A WORD of advice. Never trust a hippy. Especially never trust a hippy if he’s suddenly started wearing a suit. And certainly never trust a hippy if he’s wearing a suit and running a multi-billion dollar company.
And really, really never trust a hippy who runs a multi-billion dollar company but insists to you: “It’s not about the bread, maaaannn. It’s about making the world a better place.”
When a hippy says something like that, count your spoons then call the police.
Facebook is in big trouble. A hugely successful company, started by Mark Zuckerberg back in 2004, and now worth $70billion (£50billion). Zuckerberg’s got short hair but he’s still a hippy.
His business was about empowering the people of the world to speak to one another, he told us. Not about making money, at all. He didn’t care about that. Isn’t that lovely? Yeah, right.
We now know that Facebook flogs every personal detail of yours it possibly can — to whoever wants it. A vast database of your likes and dislikes, so that advertisers can plague you with offers.
With me, it’s very often: Do you want to have sex with a hot woman in Basingstoke? I don’t know why it’s always Basingstoke. I don’t live anywhere near the place.
But we knew Facebook does that. So do all the other sites you use on your computer. No alarms and no surprises there, then.
Which is why I’m not too bothered about Facebook’s latest problem, which saw billions wiped off its share price.
Apparently, Facebook sold its details about us to an allegedly very unscrupulous British company. A company lefties are accusing of interfering in the US elections to make sure Donald Trump won.
I don’t really care about that. Liberals are determined to tell us that the US election was fixed. The Russians, or Facebook. One or the other. They can’t bear to believe that Trump was elected because a majority of people preferred him to that stone-faced idiot, Hillary Clinton. But that’s why Trump won.
No. What bothers me is Facebook evading responsibility for EVERYTHING it does.
It’s not us, Zuckerberg shrieks, it’s nothing to do with us. Oh yes, it is. And it’s about time Facebook was regulated in the same way as every other publisher is regulated. Because a publisher is what it is.
So, when Facebook — or YouTube — publishes hate speech, or details of how to make a bomb to kill infidels, or cheerfully disseminates downright lies — it should be culpable. And yet it insists: It’s not us! It’s the people!
That’s not good enough any more, billionaire hippy boy. Start taking a bit of responsibility, Zuckerberg.
Responsibility about who you sell our details to and what is published under your own brand names on your own site.
Understand that with the billions of pounds comes a certain responsibility to act the same way newspapers act. You are responsible for the stuff on your sites, so act accordingly.
And then — hey, who knows — maybe the world might be a better place.
Dec can stand to go solo
AM I missing something with Ant and Dec?
Because I really don’t get it. The big debate right now is whether or not Dec should go solo. This is because Ant’s been a bit doolally, crashing his car and stuff.
But what I don’t get is what they actually DO.
They’re not comedians, they’re not terribly funny (except at driving). They don’t sing, or dance, or juggle, or do magic tricks. They don’t say interesting things.
They just stand there in suits, grinning from ear to ear, introducing stuff. Like a pair of Geordie glove-puppets.
There are many, many mysteries in this world, such as why is Joe Hart in the England squad, and if dolphins are so f***ing clever why do they keep getting caught in tuna nets?
But the enormous success of this duo beats ’em all.
Yeah, go solo, Dec. Just stand in a suit, grinning, by yourself. I’m sure it’ll work out.
HAIRY SITUATION?
HEY, ladies – it’s time to change your grooming procedures.
The posh women’s magazine Vogue has told readers to stop waxing their lady gardens.
Having a clopper like Jonjo Shelvey’s head, right, is no longer fashionable. The bush is back!
Not just a landing strip, either. But a full-on Amazonian rainforest complete with vines, waterfalls and probably those lethal bird-eating spiders they have out there.
And a couple of monkeys chattering to themselves.
I’m not sure why or when it was that women started ripping their pubes out.
I suppose someone must have told them it was a good idea, and off they all went.
Macron est un idiot
I SUPPOSE there must be someone in the world more deluded than Emmanuel Macron.
But I can’t think of who right now.
The President of France has launched a campaign to make French the “language of the world”.
Ha! Already some African countries, such as Gabon, are scrapping French and replacing it with . . . English, of course.
And even French universities don’t teach science subjects in their national language. They teach it in . . . English, of course.
You’d be better off learning Welsh – get through to about as many people (and MUCH nicer people, too).
It’s time we stopped our schoolkids learning French. Almost nobody speaks it, except for the French – and why would anyone want to talk to them?
Teach them languages widely used around the world – Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin.
MARTINA'S MOANING... AGAIN
MARTINA NAVRATILOVA has been complaining, again.
The former tennis ace reckons she is paid ten times less than John McEnroe for her commentaries at Wimbledon.
Hate to break this to you, Tina, but that’s because he’s roughly ten times more interesting than you are. And he’s on TV a more. New balls, please.
Britney's welcome reboot
CHRIST, what’s Britney Spears been on? Last time we saw her she looked like a cross between Waynetta Slob and John Prescott.
And now look at her.
Is that photoshopped or is it the real Britney? Either way, welcome back, love.
And if you can refrain from singing while I’m in the vicinity, I’ll like you even more.
PLASTIC NOT SO FANTASTIC
WE’RE all going to drown in a sea of plastic within the next couple of decades, experts reckon.
It’s true that the amount of non-degradable junk we chuck away is a scandal. And it’s choking our oceans.
So how about we all stop drinking bottled water? That would help, wouldn’t it?
If you’d told me 30 years ago that we’d all be swigging mineral water at two quid a pop, I’d have thought you mad.
But then the health experts started insisting that we needed to “rehydrate” all the time. No, we don’t.
And even if we did, tap water would do the job just as well. Bottled mineral water has got to be one of the biggest scams of the last 50 years.
MOST READ IN OPINION
Sumat 'n' nothing
A COUPLE of teenagers in Sumatra, Indonesia, found themselves alone in a room together. Oooh, big trouble.
They have been charged by the local morality police for “promiscuity”. And also they were forced to sit and have the contents of a sewer poured over them.
So there they sat, covered in s**t, while the crowd screamed: “What you did is against Islam! This should serve as a lesson for you!”
As the old Marks and Spencer ad had it: “This isn’t just savagery. This is Islamic savagery.”
