Keep Calm and Twitter on

So, the Muskmeister has proposed a general amnesty for suspended Twitter accounts, provided they haven’t ‘broken the law’. But what law? US law, international law, nebulous ‘non-crime hate incident’ law, or delicate-soul Twitter law? The rules have never been particularly clear; while one is banned for using a formerly perfectly everyday phrase which might just be contrived to contain a germ of antipathy, another gets to freely  dispense literary sewage without sanction.

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Twitter algorithms employ anagram solvers in their quest for offence, instantly banning any mention of g-i-n-g-e-r, or slicing up proper nouns like Scunthorpe to discover the hidden outrage gems inside. So, if you are a white, western male you have to suck it up while persons of hue call for your painful eradication from the planet, yet you could be suspended for asking why such speech is allowed.

But let us look ahead to the glorious reinstatement of my account. Which account though? I’ve had so many that I’ve lost track. Will I get back my parody Len McCluskey account, or the one I set up for the cat? Is it possible I could regain the thousands of followers I had steadily amassed under my original handle, or will I have to be content with my last one, which relied for validation on a mobile phone number not my own? Can I even remember who I said I was supposed to be?

I can’t even really remember why I joined Twitter in the first place, having heard it was all about people tweeting their breakfasts, but having hopped aboard I found it much to my taste. I never grasped Facebook, especially when, about ten years ago, they changed the format and I lost interest altogether. LinkedIn I found just creepy, as people who vaguely knew me would look me up and contact me. Why, goddammit, why?! When a work colleague sought me out I deleted my account. I don’t know why, but I’d rather be an anonymous internet nonentity than have to deal with the ignominy of being ‘out’.

As for other platforms, I have never been tempted by the Instagrams, Snapchats and Telegrams and I am utterly indifferent to TikTok. Unless you are seeking unearned fame and dubious fortune, or else you are a business reaching out to as wide a customer base as possible, I can’t see the reward for plastering your every thought and minute-by-minute photographs of your day across the canvas of the worldwide weird web.

Of course, if I am back, so too will be all those accounts who blocked me – knocking on for a thousand – as well as many who will by now have become deceased. Will I remember those whose banter I cherished, back in the day, or will I look on in bewilderment as folk I don’t recognise try to greet me as a long lost friend? And will all of our accounts be returned with original settings intact, or will I see again those who I blocked or muted in turn?

Will it even happen at all? Or will we all be banned again within days? If we have learned anything from Elon Musk’s very special and very public managerial techniques it is that even the daftest, doziest and most out-of-touch of us have the ability to become the richest man on the planet. It seems to have little to do with genius, much to do with luck and everything to do with getting away with it. See you on Twitter?

Fringe Benefits

 It's the Edinburgh Fringe again, and every year it gets worse. From the knockabout proving ground for wannabe comics and offbeat entertainers it has become an international festival of  'the correct values'. While we rail against 'wokery' these clever people (for many are very intelligent indeed) work hard at finding ways to rail against the establishment. And whereas the establishment, in Peter Cook's day, meant the Lords and landowners, the judiciary and Parliament, today the establishment they revile so much is you and me.

Expect a plethora of QWERTY-style 'edgy' identity-based shows, supported by a number of gutless worthies disproportional to their actual representation in society. Omid Djali has a new show there, I expect him to be brilliant, as always. But when he launched in Edinburgh 29 years ago he had an audience of three and was something of a flop. Some years later his superb 'Iranian Comedian' character subtly challenged perceptions of race as his heavily accented first half gave way to his born and bred Londoner reality.

Like all the success stories he worked at his craft and he understood what an audience wants. Many of the newbies, however, will be lauded for saying vagina out loud and slagging off the Tories. Yes, I know, slagging off the Tories has always been fair game, but now 'The Tories' is code for anybody who wants to keep Britain British, to raise their kids in the indigenous culture, to control our borders, police our streets and prevent children from being gang-raped by Pakistanis.

I'm currently suspended from Twitter for first asking whether people would support a short sentence and immediate deportation thereafter, or a very long sentence, paying for their incarceration by hard labour. In a parallel discussion I replied to a no-doubt, right-on Tweeter, asserting that the majority of 'grooming gangs' were white. My reply is below; you decide which bit offended the Gods of Algor.

As it happens, I agree to an extent with the judicial arrangements in those parts of the world from which I have no desire to import immigrants. Not quite, perhaps, an eye for an eye, but definitely deterrent sentences, especially those which may prevent re-offending. It is no secret that a very large proportion of the population would support the death penalty for terrorists, traitors and the hideously violent. In contrast castration for proven violent rapists (not those maliciously charged by unreliable victims) seems almost mild; a tap on the. er, wrist.

But here, of course, is where we hit the buffers. Who decides? And what is in 'the public interest'? While the audiences at Edinburgh will lap up the poorly constructed, dog-whistle jokes', the Crown Prosecution Service will go for the low-hanging fruit of angry young men reacting to their sisters' being harassed. And Twitter will allow all the leftist hatred to go unpunished while its algorithms will target 'hate words',no matter the context. 

I know Twitter has always been censorious but I swear it has become ridiculous, with suspensions handed out on the flimsiest of pretexts. And having been suspended once, an account is now labelled as offending against Twitter's values, further suspensions becoming an inevitability unless you restrict yourself to rainbow flags and gender diverse unicorns. Anybody who has read Kafka will be familiar with the impossible situation of one's defence becoming evidence for the prosecution. See that last line in the image above? 

Things that go bump in the night.

HMVs troubles were hardly startling news. From its heyday when The Gramophone Company took on the name His Master’s Voice from the painting of Nipper, the first canine music critic, the music business has changed and HMV, like all the others, has had to adapt to survive. From cylinders to discs, to LPs and 45s, compact discs, the explosion of digital indie studios and now the Internet, free downloads and all the other pressures on a traditional business model.

It’s one thing to continually develop your product range – not everybody is content with fish and chips so most chippies also sell inedible burgers (with or without horse meat) and life-threatening kebabs as well, or lose out to competitors who do. But the day they make downloadable chips is the day that every fast food outlet will have to invest in something slicker than stuffing annoying leaflets through letterboxes. It’s digital, maaan! 

But HMV’s passing is not a tragedy, it’s a simple fact of High Street life. Big names don’t necessarily last forever. Woolworths, Allders, Comet… the list goes on and will continue to go on. And more importantly it has virtually nothing to do with whatever government is in power. It’s not as if they relied on defence contracts or provided social services. It’s not personal, it’s just business. 

Twitter, of course was lit up by the steady outpourings of grief and mourning for lost gift vouchers and unwanted presents. But as always Twitter is hardly the place to go for in-depth market analysis. It’s more a place where people go to complain that real life isn’t like it ought to be. It’s the Guvmint’s fault. It’s the fault of another company who played a better game. Maybe Twitterverse malcontents would prefer the world to be like this: 

Have an idea that you’d like to run your own business but, because of a lack of imagination, choose to ‘invent’ something that already exists and has a thriving, but near-saturated market. Your entrepreneurial spin? Set up shop in a deprived area where rents are cheap but nobody can afford to buy the stock. Appeal to some local EU-financed small business ‘initiative’ for funding, citing that evil capitalist forces are refusing to lend for idealistic reasons. Be awarded an annual, renewable investment grant but instead of using it for development – too tedious - simply live off it instead. 

Become a tireless campaigner for more investment for local business and saying “Boo” to the corporate bullies. Close your shop and take a job at the People’s Collective as a People’s Champion, fighting the corner of failing business everywhere and lobby for yet more EU funding for shattered dreams. Tell yourself every day that the purpose of business is not to make a profit but to provide services for real people, local people “your people”. 

‘Work’ your way to the top of the wriggling maggot pile of corrupt officialdom, all the while using your credentials as a former successful business owner, until you retire to the sunlit uplands of Euro Mountain, utterly convinced for the rest of your days that you were a force for good and laughing, as the last Sony Centre closes down. 

(PS: That’s Socialism my friend. You may already be doing it without even knowing.)

STOP PRESS: Blockbusters, the video rental store, has gone into receivership today. Same problem really; if you can get streaming video over the internet where's the market for disc and tape?