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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 1h

Yes, I read that - very good and sobering but necessary stuff x

Reposted by Scandifriend

Paul Singh @paulsingh.bsky.social · 2h

We ought to change the status of the social media companies to ‘publishers’ rather than platforms so making them legally responsible for what is uploaded on to their networks.

And we need to start making online safety classes mandatory for all school children.

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 16h

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 16h

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 1h

Yes and yes. It's gone very unpleasant and Wild West

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Reposted by Scandifriend

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 2h

I bang on about this a lot: I think the combination of a global pandemic, underregulated internet/SM, collapse/corruption of trustworthy media, plus now unregulated genAI, is a wildly toxic environment for radicalisation & mental health. We see the results of that in our politics & lives every day

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 16h

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 16h

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

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Reposted by Scandifriend

James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 16h

Everyone knows at least one person (normally, but not exclusively, a guy) whose gone properly mental due to net rabbit holes.

We see public figures regularly go mad and destroy themselves.

And we have, at a policy level, just decided to put our fingers in our ears and go nahnahnah

Alastair Meeks @alastairmeeks.bsky.social · 16h

Last night I heard of another friend of a friend who has been lost to a rabbit hole of online propaganda. We need to start treating this as a serious public health concern.

32 83 380

Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 2h

The even faster version of that where they prepare the house for Neil's parents coming to tea and Vyvyan throws all those things through the window is the one where I could cry with laughter forever

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 2h

Thanks x

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 2h

The one at the end of The Young Ones is a brilliant and apposite piece of short mad music in its own right - like fusing very hallucinogenic 100mph punk and ska with Yakkety Sax. Have always wondered where it came from

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 2h

Happy centenary of the birth of my all-time hero and favourite percussionist, who *Scandifriend falls down trapdoor conveniently placed behind him and is never seen again*

Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 13h

Brown's serious and invested idealism here looks very palpable in a world of grifters and opportunists. As a PM he was neither one thing nor the other - defined by the early election that didn't happen and 2008. As a man with a moral mission he is unceasing. Labour could and should take note.

Nathan🌹 @nathanwylabour.bsky.social · 1d

A moving and intelligent call to action here from Gordon Brown. And yet another reminder of why he is my political hero.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Don’t fall for the authoritarian hype – Reform and the hard right can be stopped in their tracks | Gordon Brown

From the US to Europe and Asia, grievances are being exploited to gain power. But moderate voices are still in tune with the majority, says former prime minister Gordon Brown

www.theguardian.com

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 13h

Made the Christmas cake today. Apologies if you only follow me for highbrow earnest insightful stuff (none of which I can manage), the truth is that a lot of my life is about being a 51-year-old domestic fiend and it's all a bit Enid Blyton or Milly-Molly-Mandy sometimes

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 17h

I agree, but any self-respecting govt could turn around at any moment and go 'Well actually there is another way.' I suspect Labour are going to find this out the hard way.

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 17h

The local council here in Wigan has been outstanding with their support for the juniors' chess club at the community centre. They do care and I'm really grateful to them

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 17h

Major looks like Cicero or Abraham Lincoln compared to Badenoch and Jenrick. We all had good fun slagging him off at the time and now one gets a sense of perspective

Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 18h

I would like to blame someone other than the zealous right of the party who are too extreme a response to the zealous left years, but I might be scurrying around a long time. Swallowed up Osbornomics and therefore legitimised his business of bad government

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 18h

Clearly they're frightened of people who don't like taxes. Well Clarke in 1993-7 had no shame - not because he was frightened about electability but because he didn't want a basket case economy. He laid the groundwork for continued stability under Blair (which is what govts are meant to do!)

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 18h

Yes, you know that and I know that but looks like another instalment in the great British game of warning, eye-rolling, shrugging and saying 'I told you so' when reality kicks in. In an odd way (some) Reform councillors are facing up to this at a local level better than the Westminster govt 😬

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 18h

This seems fine to me: it's not north of anywhere I would consider the North; Grimsby and North Lincolnshire in general is more problematic to define (isn't it?)

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 18h

That seems a bit daft favourably comparing us to France. Because if the bond markets crater we're all in the shit - no-one will get out of it by point-scoring at that point. And we have consciously chosen to isolate ourselves from Europe in the last nine years too, which has its own inherent risks

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 18h

Yes - the underlying economic malaise that hasn't really gone away irrespective of whether AI is a lucrative thing or not

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 19h

But 4) the big difference between her and the likes of Badenoch must be intellectual rigour and seriousness. It's no surprise I wouldn't have voted for either of them, but Thatcher was PM for eleven and a half years for a reason

Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 19h

It seems impossible not to say something about Thatcher on the eve of the centenary of her birth, so some random observations: 1) She got lucky with the North Sea oil jackpot 2) there was a *very big* economic U-turn in 1984-5 3) her disciples have ended up failing to points appreciate 1) and 2)

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 19h

It seems impossible not to say something about Thatcher on the eve of the centenary of her birth, so some random observations: 1) She got lucky with the North Sea oil jackpot 2) there was a *very big* economic U-turn in 1984-5 3) her disciples have ended up failing to points appreciate 1) and 2)

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 19h

It was extraordinary being in Wrocław in June. The whole feel of the country having vigorously *gone somewhere* in the 36 years since the Iron Curtain fell was palpable. The trams in the city felt like a metaphor for this - clean, modern, punctual, plentiful, relentlessly on the go

Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 21h

🇵🇱 My @thetimes column: Poland’s economic miracle

12 out of 17 Polish regions are now richer than West Wales. It has faster internet, cheaper electricity and more high speed rail than Britain

When it comes to regional development it’s the UK, not Poland, that needs to catch up

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Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 20h

Two other biggies on those lists would be 'Empire' in 1945 and 'Brexited' in 2025, and how the latter is in part an attempt to retrieve the exceptionalism of the former only with isolationism this time

Scandifriend @scandifriend.bsky.social · 20h

Or the Monty Python Tory Housewives Clean-Up Campaign rebooted for the 21st century

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