Five things worth sharing from the last week or so, brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Vic.
1. Zuck gets (word that rhymes with ducked)
It’s not been a good week for the big boss man at Facebook.
Not only did a whistleblower shed light on some pretty dodgy practices going on at the company, on Monday, there were major outages across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, resulting in internet goblin Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth dropping by a reported $7 billion. Excuse me a moment while I grab my tiny violin.
Non-Facebook owned social media companies had a right old laugh about it, with Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok all seeing huge influxes of traffic as people desperately looked for somewhere else to share pictures of their dinner and have arguments with complete strangers.
Here are some funnies I saw people doing on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1445078208190291973
(haha that is a good one).
Fixed it. Sorry. You won’t believe what worked. #facebookdown
— chris o'dowd (@BigBoyler) October 4, 2021
(he turned it off and on again hee hee).
2. Google bans showing ads for fatty, sugary foods to kiddiwinks
Google Merchant Center posted a new policy that prevents advertisers from promoting High Fat Sugar Salt (HFSS) Food and Beverage (F&B) ads to minors in the UK and EU.
I was a bit baffled as to how Google was going to identify those under the age of 18, so I asked its support team, who confirmed:
“Under Google policy, if a particular ad can only be shown to those 18 or over, then in some cases, certification is required, however, in some cases simply demographic profiling is enough.”
3. What happens on the internet every minute
Ever wondered how much data is generated every minute on the internet? No, me neither, because things like this make brain go ouchie.
Fortunately, the lovely data boffins over at Domo have worked it out for us. And the numbers are mind-boggling.
I was hoping to do a year on year comparison, citing the same data from 2020 to see how things have changed, but the previous infographic focuses on mostly different metrics (sad face).
4. Twitter checks you are up for having a barney
Let’s be honest, Twitter is a complete cesspit most of the time. On a daily basis, I see some absolutely shocking posts that make me genuinely baffled as to how people can get through the day harbouring so much hate without combusting. And I wonder how Twitter is so useless at allowing a lot of it to go on unchecked.
If you do fancy having an argument with a complete stranger, you should be able to kick something off within a few seconds of browsing through what’s trending and literally posting any opinion about it.
However, if you only want to get into a minor barney rather than wading into a full-blown ‘heated or intense’ exchange, Twitter is testing a feature that gives you a heads up that adding your voice to the mix may result in a pile on from other users.
Ever want to know the vibe of a conversation before you join in? We’re testing prompts on Android and iOS that give you a heads up if the convo you’re about to enter could get heated or intense.
This is a work in progress as we learn how to better support healthy conversation. pic.twitter.com/x6Nsn3HPu1
— Support (@Support) October 6, 2021
Along with this prompt, Twitter states: “Let’s look out for each other”.
I’m sure that’ll make people think twice before saying awful shit to each other on the internet. Lol.
5. I am weird and I no longer need to hide it
A discussion about being yourself sparked some interesting conversations on LinkedIn this week.
Elizabeth Leiba shared a photo of herself with visible piercings and tattoos, explaining how the pandemic has helped her show her true self to the professional world. And I am so on board with this.
Like her, I would make sure tattoos were covered for meetings, pile on the slap, and even brush my hair before visiting clients. But while working from home, during Zoom meetings they’ve seen the ‘real’ me. I don’t wear makeup. I don’t dress in smart clothes. They’ve seen my spare room (and my underpants drying on the airer in the background), so the thin veil of ‘looking professional’ I was hiding under completely disappeared.
I quickly learned that they didn’t care about any of that – they valued my professionalism – which wasn’t at all based on my appearance. I have to say, this was pretty liberating, and something I think is very important. I’m not saying I’d turn up to a face to face meeting in my dirty jogging bottoms with my tattooed bonce on show, but equally, I’d probably not bother cramming my feet into uncomfortable smart shoes anymore.
What do you think? Do appearances matter, or should we be more open to letting people express themselves?
