Heads Gone (The 8MileBU Awards)

[Scotty Tunbridge]

Who are you? Sweet Pete?

Perkin Flump  brags about the computer games he's completed, and fake cycling holidays, if I've got the right chap.

Perkin flump = Victim of Racism through political beliefs MoominTroll

[Moomintroll]

5 hours ago, Scotty Tunbridge said:

 

 

Perkin flump = Victim of Racism through political beliefs MoominTroll

 

 

Aye don't bloody remind me, what a fucking 'mare I had that day.

[Jacksgranda]

13 hours ago, Sport socks and scampi said:

You have a poor reputation rate which suggests your postings have not been an enjoyable experience for the masses?    Do you think you can improve your goal difference?  

He is a Rangers supporter...

[Jacksgranda]

11 hours ago, ICTChris said:

 

It's highly likely to be untrue.  The story came about and was referred to on either the Covid or Twitter threads after an activist posted a thread on Twitter claiming that they had evidence that a number of Twitter accounts claiming to be NHS staff had been set up by people close to the Ministry of Health, or employed by them.  These accounts were supposedly set up to tweet support for the government during the Covid crisis.  As way of evidence the activist linked to an account he said was part of this network and said that he had evidence of dozens, possibly over 100 accounts set up for this purpose using the tool Hootsuite.  The account claimed to be from a nurse linked to a specific hospital trust and used a photograph of a real NHS nurse as it's profile picture.  Peter Jukes and Carole Cadawallar retweeted or publicised the thread, giving it tens of thousands of shares and likely millions of views.

However, when people started ot look into the story the picture became less clear.  The only account identified was the one claiming to be a nurse working for a specific NHS Trust.  That account was reported by the Trust as fake and suspended by Twitter.  The image used of the nurse was taken from the public website of a trade union (Unison I think but I'd have to check).  The content of the account was a little odd, it seemed to be a parody account of "woke culture".  If you are on Twitter you've probably seen some of these accounts, Titania McGrath is the best known account like this.  The account claimed to be a transitioning nurse fighting covid on behalf of the non-binary and trans community.  It posted about banning clapping because it could cause people to be triggered and it discriminated against the deaf.  The account seemed more like a crappy troll account than anything set up to back the government.  The Department of Health denied it, Twitter said there was no evidence of a network, Hootsuite denied it and said there is no way for anyone to see who has set up what account on their platform.

The only evidence that was put forward at the time, and the only evidence that has been made public at all, is the single account that was banned.  No other accounts have been identified by anyone as being part of a fake network of government supporting NHS employees.  The fact checking organisation Full Fact wrote an article about this (https://fullfact.org/online/evidence-network-fake-nhs-tweets/ ).  No-one has identified any of these accounts and there is no evidence of any further fake accounts, a network, a conspriacy, any sort of campaign.  In addition, Full Fact revelaed that previously the activist in question had issued false information about a leak of documents from UK - US trade negotiations, where he claimed that damning information was included in an appendix to the leaked documents that didn't exist.

When given the opportunity to reply, the activist who publicised the initial thread claimed that he had evidence of the accounts but that he didn't have them in a presentable form and that his team of 31 specialists were working on fully fact checking the documentation.  All the specialists are anonymous.  It's worth noting that many national newspapers probably have fewer staff than that working at the moment.  The Boston Globe Spotlight team who won the Pulitizer Prize and inspired the film had five journalists.  IN addition to this, if you have a list of Twitter accounts you think are bots then there isnothing to stop you publicising these claims.  The idea that the data needs to be significantly parsed or analysed or cleaned up doesn't really stand up.  You could easily publish this information in a way that protected you legally.  The original tweeter who posted about this is still tweeting furiously about all sorts and claims that his team of anonymous experts is still working on this.  Maybe he will publish a full expose and reveal that it's true and that his decision to publicise this without any evidence was a clever ploy to get attention.  

I am very interested in conspiracy theories and how they spread and I think that this story is a good example of how they do.  I saw loads of people refer to or retweet this story, it got huge traction.  But there is no evidence and if you look at it logically it's highly unlikely to be true.  A lot of the people who retweeted it will likely believe it no matter what and there will be no consequences for the guy who posted it.  What a strange world we live in now.  

I thought I saw a post showing a whole pile of twitter accounts with the exact same wording lambasting the press/BBC for anti government bias?

[welshbairn]

45 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

I thought I saw a post showing a whole pile of twitter accounts with the exact same wording lambasting the press/BBC for anti government bias?

[Jacksgranda]

10 hours ago, Sport socks and scampi said:

Pleasing to see @keithgy and the usual Falkirk Mafia checking my account without banning.     

If we ( the forum community collective)  have learned anything from the lockdown it's an appreciation of the  simple things in life.    Suchlike the act of conversing with other forum members and sharing opinions in an anodyne and respectful way.  

People might say It's an anti-Falkirk thing but I was in Falkirk playing the escape rooms thing in early Feb, and I had a mostly excellent day, until I received a parking ticket for parking the Ceed in a disabled bay on Manor St.     Then some scran at Gambero Rosso and back on the M9 via the west bound sliproad,   stupidly ran low on fuel so overcharged at the Stirling Moto and north into Perthshire.    I've posted about this before but it's £2.79 for a box of travel sweets in there, and nearly £1.50 per litre for decent e10.   So avoid if possible.    Stock up at the Sainsbury's at the old Raploch, but bring your own gloves as the ones there are bloody awful.  

#staysafe  #staysafeinperthshire   


 

[ICTChris]

I thought I saw a post showing a whole pile of twitter accounts with the exact same wording lambasting the press/BBC for anti government bias?

I haven’t seen that but it’d be interesting to check. There are pretty good tools for verifying if accounts are acting in this way or are artificially generated.

Another possibility is that it’s people deliberately doing it. During the election a pro Brexit Facebook group went onto all the Conservative Facebook posts and deliberately posted like bots, even including some half written code in their posts, in order to troll people. One of the people that fell for it was the activist who posted about the fake NHS Twitter network, who continues to claim that as evidence for his story, even though the people involved have confirmed that they are real.

[Jacksgranda]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

 

I haven’t seen that but it’d be interesting to check. There are pretty good tools for verifying if accounts are acting in this way or are artificially generated.

Another possibility is that it’s people deliberately doing it. During the election a pro Brexit Facebook group went onto all the Conservative Facebook posts and deliberately posted like bots, even including some half written code in their posts, in order to troll people. One of the people that fell for it was the activist who posted about the fake NHS Twitter network, who continues to claim that as evidence for his story, even though the people involved have confirmed that they are real.

 

I think it was on the Covid-19 thread.

[bennett]

15 hours ago, Sport socks and scampi said:

You have a poor reputation rate which suggests your postings have not been an enjoyable experience for the masses?    Do you think you can improve your goal difference?  

And have it in the green, I think not. 

 

[NotThePars]

21 hours ago, Marshmallo said:

Complete and utter tossers mate.

 

[Marshmallo]

2 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

 

Last Christmas, I gave you a red

But the very next day, you lost your head.

This year to save you from tears

I'll give you a green dot instead. 

 

GBNF

[Jambomo]

16 hours ago, Dele said:

I'm sure Richey changed his name and kept posting. 

 

What about @Jambomo?

 

You called?

I’ve been posting, just a lot less than usual since I am supposed to be working and my new job is so busy I actually have to do work now.

[Bairnardo]

2 minutes ago, ali_91 said:

@Bairnardo not making the most of the mute button by the looks of it. 
 

It would improve your forum experience if you didn’t unhide every post from someone you’ve got blocked. Speaking from experience brother. 

Hauners? 

[Marshmallo]

20 minutes ago, Sport socks and scampi said:

Rep me up before you go go 
don't leave me hanging on like a yo yo 

Rep me up before you go go 

give me some green dots tonight.  

One of the best posts ever was when you said something along the lines of "There's nothing better than waking up in the morning, checking my favourite website and seeing I've been awarded 5 green boys overnight. Those are the days I sing in the shower." Some boy.

[Dons_1988]

This thread is always quite the eye opener.

[Marshmallo]

4 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

This thread is always quite the eye opener.

What a worthwhile post.

[Granny Danger]

6 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

I thought I saw a post showing a whole pile of twitter accounts with the exact same wording lambasting the press/BBC for anti government bias?

Yip.

[Dons_1988]

3 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

What a worthwhile post.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm only really familiar with you from what I've seen on this thread so you'll forgive me for not losing any sleep over it.

[NotThePars]

 

1 hour ago, Sport socks and scampi said:

Rep me up before you go go 
don't leave me hanging on like a yo yo 

Rep me up before you go go 

give me some green dots tonight.  

*To the tune of Everything She Wants*

 

and now you tell me that you're red dotting me, baby!

I'll red dot your posts if you want me to

[Stellaboz]

3 minutes ago, ali_91 said:

*to the tune of Celebrate Good Times (by my man Kool and the gang)*
 

Celebrate Green Dots, come on!

 

It’s a work in progress. Thoughts? 

 

 

Absolute fucking white dug shite