Boris and Cambridge Analytica

Nah, that's just Boris being Boris don't cha know. The normal rules of honesty do not apply.

Yep - a new dawn of optimism indeed. Politics has always been a dirty game but now it's absolutely filthy with these arrogant, rich boys laughing at the rules and the rest of us mere plebs.

Pardon me if I am speaking out of turn but does just about every flaming thread have to be about Boris?
Could you not just go and scythe a few hectares of nettles to let off steam?
There are a few other grans who are bordering on Boris-obsessive too - so much to ignore. Hardly worth logging on

??Thank you Mawbroonsback!!

Indeed !

I was just thinking the same thing Maw! There must be about 6 threads already on Boris.

jura2 perhaps you could have added this comment to one of those?

It’s getting difficult posting on Boris now as all the threads are criss crossing anyway and threads do go off on a tangent anyway.

No more threads on him. Please!

Boris has obviously got some Grans “hot under the collar”..........perhaps they protest too much????? ????

He could have said ‘I was there but I don’t know if I was involved ‘ , it worked for the leader of the opposition.

And yet you all take the time to post...!

Just ignore them if you don't like them? There's plenty more on a range of different subjects to choose from. There's a great one going at the moment on the very important topic of dogs in John Lewis, for example

Well, some of us think that having a despicable, lying, cheating, self entitled, narcissist as our PM worth a few threads. If you don't, read the others.

Not protesting too much - just "Boris to right of us Boris to left of us :and the usual suspects "volleyed and thundered"
GN should not be like the Valley of Death.

No SirChenjin (love the name BTW it still makes me smile - very witty) we aren’t on here to add to the OP debate. We’re just politely asking for more amalgamation to other threads regarding Boris!

There are 50 active threads at the moment - as far as I can see 4 are about Boris. Given the very divisive nature and questionnable abilities of the person who has been voted in as PM to lead us through one of the most turbulent periods in recent UK history I don't think 4 equals the Valley of Death. The situation as it stands at Westminster might do, but not 4 posts on GN.

Thanks Urm

Putting down the Boris bashing stick for a moment to indulge myself a bit and digress completely, can I ask you - do you read it as search engine or searching gin? It's meant to be the former but other posters have said they thought it's the latter and actually, I think I prefer that one! Esp given the week I've had at work and the school holidays...

Oh god - the latter, right from the start! Which is why I loved it.

Oh dear.
??

What if someone said to you the apps you use daily including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp are all "crime scenes"? Those are the words the makers of a new Netflix documentary called The Great Hack use to describe social media.

The film is about one of the biggest scandals in recent times, when information from millions of Facebook profiles was handed over to a company called Cambridge Analytica.

The firm used information on what people liked, who they interacted with or what they posted about to tailor adverts to their social media feed for political campaigns. Those included Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and the Leave.EU campaign.

"Data has now become the world's most valuable asset, more than oil," Jehane Noujaim, one of the directors of The Great Hack, tells Radio 1 Newsbeat. "There is a fight going on for your personal data, which is now being weaponised in order to manipulate you into voting the way those people who have bought your data want you to."

Jehane says we are "living in the Matrix" and says she and her co-director Karim Amer want the film to help us all understand how our information is being used and to get everyone talking about it.

The filmmakers followed three people who played significant roles in the scandal. One of them is Brittany Kaiser, who worked for Cambridge Analytica and then exposed what was happening at the company. Brittany Kaiser worked for Cambridge Analytica and took part in the Netflix documentary. "She began her career as an idealistic intern in the Barack Obama campaign, seeing the ascent of these technologies and tools being used," explains Karim.

He says Brittany and her colleagues "invented how social media would be used in politics. Then we see the same person working at Cambridge Analytica, at the centre of Brexit, at the centre of the Trump campaign." Through her and the other contributors, they were able to unpack how we have got to a place where technology is having such a huge impact on our lives.

"These things began as spaces to share our likes, music preferences, selfies," says Karim. "So the question is, if Facebook is a crime scene, how do we get justice?"

He believes the idea that crimes are only committed in the physical world is now completely redundant. Karim says we should think of our personal data as "a virtual voodoo doll" that is "reflective of your emotional pulse. Every moment of the day and every different day it is adjusting to who you are and what the algorithm thinks you want. The reason why that voodoo doll is effective is because you are constantly giving your digital footprints away."

Facebook was this week fined a record $5bn (£4bn) over the Cambridge Analytica scandal

Despite their comments about social media, neither Jehane or Karim think we should quit it completely. "It's about consent," says Karim, who thinks people "really don't understand" what data they are giving up. "We are being tricked," he says. These apps are being designed to survey you constantly - your every movement - and sell your location and your details to the highest bidder."

The Great Hack is on Netflix UK and Ireland now.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-49085306

So glad I’ve never used any Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp varian
My voting preferences are mine alone, not influenced by outside bots nor being harvested to further misuse.
?
I suppose that why in my digital virginity I was always cross to be told the referendum was illegal.

I had no part in that!

I think I need to think of it as 'searching gin' from now on - which is now making me very thirsty for that pink gin in the fridge

Sorry - back to Boris!

MawBroonsback I was referring to all the “anti Boris” threads/posts and like you say the “usual suspects”.

Far too many for a man who has been PM for 48 hours.........he has definitely got people “rattled”!

Oh Varian I have a lot of respect for your intellect and frequently agree with your posts -no irony intended- but I retain a healthy (I hope) scepticism about how my Internet usage (GN mostly!) Could go influence either Trump's presidential. campaign, the referendum or the last GE .
I cannot get worked up about whether or not Boris visited them let alone bother to start a thread.
I do worry about the GN collectovve hysteria on some issues --not sure what it represents but the Witches of Salem is at the back.of my mind.

Maw- there is a very good reason why Boris is at the forefront now. Just ignore if you don't want to take part. As fr Boris being on the 'left of us' well, I just had to laugh, oh lol!

And you are doing exactly what he did- deflect and not answer. And this is exactly why his reply, in the House of Commons, as Prime Minister - was so indicative of the man, and the rôle he and Cummings, and probably others, played in the Leave Campaign and Cambridge Analytica.

1000s of people today received un-solicited e-mails- from Boris- asking for support. No not just Tory members either. And Cummings is right behind it. It is of serious concern when a PM was involved in very dodgy campaigning and intends to do the same, with the same methods- even when they have been found out and Fraud proven.

Granny - He's hardly the new kid on the block though, is he. I think by now most of us have decided whether we enjoy his approach to politics or think he's a buffoon and one of the last people to be leading the UK at a time like this. His time as PM is irrelevant.

"Collective hysteria" apologies for my idiosyncratic phone

Witches of Salem and collective hysteria now- you are outpassing yourself today.