Twisted Twitter terrorises thoughtful tongues

Does Twitter's European master Tony Wang care about his users? He has decided that Twitter will allow those who tweet against a superinjunction over a well publicised marital affair to go it alone.

Now the fact that it is claimed footballer Ryan Giggs has had a 7 month affair with a reality TV starlette is really not my concern. My concern lies with the future of expression and our supposed Human Rights.

Whenever Libya, Egypt, Iran or any other country has recently had political turmoil one of the first things to be removed from these societies was the internet, in particular Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. This toppling of hegemonies was praised throughout the 'developed' West and apparent democracy rules were once there was fascism. Everyone high-fived the internet and went back to their garbling about whatever was trending that day. Our topping the ever expanding ivory tower of freedoms taken for granted as easily as our having a pulse is.

Pressing matters such as "International Draw Mohammed Day" becoming the frontier over which our freedoms and responsibilities struggle to find a moral balance seemed to be back on the cards and the constant battle for artistic goods slapping the economy of quality and accessibility under the Jolly Roger mapped the vast oceans of possibilities for consumers' futures. We were back on track for being humanity again; the red shirts of Thailand had Wikileaks printed in white upon the front of them, Doctor Who's show runner was taking spoilers into account whilst filming, The IMF's president was being politically assassinated and the rapture came and went. Ah, those were the days!

Now it seems something as feeble and as radically irrelevant as whether or not non journalists (well, at least not paid for their efforts) can (re):tweet, tort, ply or spond to something as gutteral* as a man-who-plays-with-a-ball-holding-hands-with-a-girl-who-thinks-she's-pretty-whilst-having-a-different-girl-he-buys-sweets-for-waiting-for-him-at-home can topple this fine internets?

It is time to hold a finger to the courts and tell them that their shenanigans are not warranted or wanted. Rumours, whispers, hogwash and gossip are part of what makes our society what it is - warts and all. And be it a billionaire bank tycoon who marauded both mortgage holders and tax payers running of scot-free or a man cheating on his wife we will not be gagged, bound or beaten. If people are willing to take their money from fame then they must accept that with that success comes scrutiny. Childish, pedantic, contrived and moronic scrutiny which no better serves humanity than a slap on the wrist but a scrutiny which also serves as the basis for our having laws in the first place. Community values are what makes farmers fine and puppy drowners wrong. If we all got to do what we wanted then there would be no need for courts and certainly no internet for which they seem to be so bothersome about.

As we waltz blindly forward we cannot on one hand balance the scales of truth and fairness and yet poke fun of those who don't understand our refined and perverted culture whilst with the other carry a sword fit for beheading those who make it available and defending those who don't have it.

Should a man be able to cheat on his wife? Sadly, yes he should. Should that man be able to stop anyone from talking about it? Gladly no.

*New word, meaning 'of the gutter'

From Pattaya with Dove

Now that I have officially arrived and settled in Pattaya, Thailand for the time being I shall be taking a much more abstract view on the musings of Western ideas on technology. Not because they are any less worthy over here - more to do with not seeing them in my everyday life or hearing about them from friends and associates who watch every man media. There is still a fluttering of social networking sites amongst the tech savvy youth of Thailand - but it is more geared towards predominately Asian sites such as High.Five rather than Myspace or Bebo. I'm sure that will change over time but for the moment there is a clear divide.

I am writing stories for a local paper here with the hopes of being published and informing English speakers of stories I consider notable. I'll probably put a few of them up here too - just as an extra back-up to my laptop.

Well that's the idling of the day done - back onto work.

YouTube, Thunderf00t and censorship

I enjoy YouTube. I enjoy whittling away an hour or two with a huge variety of content. I watched 'One Froggy Day' last Thursday followed up with some Thai language tutorials and finished off with the ubiquitous 'funny' animal videos. I think YouTube is a great platform for people to express their views, to entertain, to create - a platform it seems though that has it's fair share of problems.

I was recommended, by YouTube, a month or two ago to look at a response video. It looked entertaining as there was a young man dressed up as The Joker from Batman fiction. I watched it and had a rare time and felt compelled to look at further related videos. Before I knew it I was watching two sides of an argument regarding the belief in the biblical god unraveling before me - and it seemed to have been a long drawn out argument by the time I got to it.

Whilst many people may enjoy debating the existence of a deity or not I don't, but was impressed by the atheist argument as it was structured, informed, paced and usually well produced. However I noticed a lot of comments from other viewers stating that the voting system within YouTube was skewed and unjust and upon further investigation found this to at least note worthy.

Fast forward to this weekend and it appears hell, or at least as close as an agnostic would care to call it, has broke loose. One of the bastions of free thought on the side of atheism had been suspended. It didn't take long to see that this was for a video asking for members of the YouTube community to take action and contact YouTube regarding this skewed voting system. It appeared that votebots were the cause of videos being deemed poor quality and the finger of blame lay at some creationists.

Now I'm not sure who is to blame for the tinkering of the voting system, but I am against unfair voting. One person = One vote is what democracy is based upon. Having viewed the video that got the member suspended I thought that YouTube had overreacted to the member and grossly undermanaged the voting problem. Have a look at the following videos to see what you think of the situation.


Thunderf00t, the suspended member, calls those upset with YouTube's handling of the current votebot situation to peaceful action.



Thunderf00t's response to being suspended twelve hours after the first video had gone up.



An automated system tutorial to cheat the voting system as found by YouTube member Sockpuppetfromhell.



More automated programs on how to cheat the voting system.



It seems that there is a rife problem with the voting system in YouTube, and free speech - which YouTube claim to try and embrace - needs an equal and unbias voting system in order to categorise, polarise or otherwise work.

I think it is unfair of YouTube to have me- your average Joe Blogger- become embroiled in a dramatic and thought provoking debate and then have half of that debate cut off because of flaws within their own system. They brought this to my attention with related videos, they appear to be ignoring the botting problem and they have removed a member of their community for pointing this problem out to them - which doesn't appear to be an easy thing to do from watching Thunderf00t's video.

Wrapping up, it now looks as if thousands of YouTube members are reuploading the banned video and giving it more power than it would have had in one member's channel alone. Are we seeing a change in public perception to being censored or is it another example of people rallying together in a new form of community? With the recent Facebook terms of service trouble I hope that people are now finding that the power lies with them and that our actions as a whole will determine the world we choose to live in.

That time of the lunar cycle again

So time to post another thing up here. OurClass is starting to come along nicely although it's tied into a Microsoft Live account - be nice to see how this whole social medium plays out.

I'm rooting for Open Ended systems which allow for the spreading of knowledge and chooses participant reliability over authoritarian dogma - but I'm fairly certain there is a need for research and development which can only come from closed and paid for sources.

Either way, walking the happy medium between the 2 generates a much more balanced and liberal world for all. Open Source and free debate on all issues can only shake the foundations of a society based on class and discrimination - which in itself probably won't finish it but will certainly upend it enough for a better deal of social justice for all and hopefully within my lifetime so I can see some of it.

Speaking of witnessing huge social change, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama became the President of the United States of America yesterday. Not bad work for a man with his youth and skin tone - hopefully this will draw those who sympathise with the powers that oppress to a better understanding that we all share the world.

Well judging by my posting calendar it'll be December 21st 2012 before I make my next post - let's hope the Mayans were only kidding eh!?!

Finally getting around to using this

So after a short period of 2 years I have rekindled my blog - seems like alot of spam has shown up after my previous post here.

There seems to have been a malfunction as well, but I'm sure that's the beta thing going on.

So lets have a wee gander around this and see if an online diary/rant station can be of any use to the world.

I expect this blog to be filled with information I find relevant to my occupation. That is I hope to accumulate pertinent information in the field of IT traing and learning.

I recently started a new job at Langside College training adults for Basic IT. Using skills and techniques that I developed at GPDC I intend to farm a collection of resources and have the displayed here for general public use.

If you have any ideas you would like to share please feel free to add comments here.

I'm still new at blogging and might take a time to reply, but I promise I will be on it as soon as I am aware how it all works.

-Scott

First Blog

1st blog of the season!