social media | Steve Woods

Exclusive: Wiltshire man murdered on social media server

06/03/2026 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities, Social Media

One definition of the noun ambiguity in English is “a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways“.

Nearly 5 decades ago, when your ‘umble scribe started his first job as a staff translator for Imperial Tobacco and was being schooled in how to write in the company’s internal house style, one definite rule that was imposed was that of avoiding any and all ambiguity.

This is a practice that does not seem to be prevalent in titles in the current Reach plc newspaper stable, including Bristol ‘Live’, the conglomerate’s newspaper of (warped) record for the greater Bristol area.

And so it came to pass that in the process of trawling social media for something that qualifies as investigative ‘journalism’, the Post looked further afield than the BS postcode and ventured into the the wilds of Wiltshire for a story.

Yes, that’s right! If one just read the headline, the impression is given that the murder victim was killed on a server in the employ of Mark Zuckerberg. However, in the actual body of the report, the copy does state that no killing occurred on Facebook itself.

The mum of a murdered teen found out about the killing on Facebook before receiving a phone call asking if it was true.

How the headline and the copy body can portray two different versions what transpired seems to have by-passed its two named authors and the SWNS news agency credited as being responsible for writing the piece is beyond belief. In the old days, this would have been picked up and remedied by a sub-editor (before Reach made them all redundant. Ed.). All 3 parties involved were obviously not paying attention either in school English classes or media studies lectures when some of the finer points of good writing were being imparted.
A new acronym

05/03/2026 Steve WoodsAI, Language, Social Media, Tech

A new acronym came into view in your ‘umble scribe’s social media timeline last month: AI;DR, as shown below.

This is a modification of the already extant acronym TL;DR (too long; don’t read) to embrace the recent development of artificial intelligence and shows the dynamism that language has always had, adapting quickly to new ideas, concepts and items.

And long may it continue. 😀
Bezos title cheerleading for war

05/03/2026 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

The image below courtesy of the Washington Post (proprietor one Trump-supporting, union-bashing billionaire rejoicing in the name of Jeffrey Preston Bezos. Ed.) came into your ‘umble scribe’s social media timeline this morning.

There have always been those who profit from wars, from spivs operating on the black market (posts passim) to arms manufacturers.

Wars always entail casualties, one of the first being reputed to be the truth.

The Washington Post’s attitude illustrated in the opinion piece’s title reminds your correspondent of the quotation attributed to the then British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin during a tough spell in the 1930s:

What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.

No further comment is necessary, save perhaps one sentence from my political science lecturer, the late Elfed Roberts, in a lecture on war over five decades ago: “War is the destruction of the fittest“.
Bigotry blasted by Bedford BC

19/02/2026 Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media, Tech

The world’s 3 Semitic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, frequently have festivals or periods of observance that overlap, coincide or occur very close together,

One of those periods is happening right now towards the end of the second week of February. Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting and prayer, started yesterday, whilst Lent, the Christian period of repentance and fasting leading up to Easter, began today.

The starts of the two periods of religious observance were duly announced on its Facebook account by Bedford Borough Council, a procedure no doubt emulated by their Bedford’s counterparts around the land.

However, one bigoted respondent took the council to task for allegedly showing favouritism to Islam and claiming that the country is apparently first and foremost a Christian country, as shown by the following thread.

Imagine the ignominy of being corrected and taken down a peg or two so comprehensively by an English local authority since these are organisations not universally renowned for their competence, let alone deep knowledge of religious matters.

One final point. If Bedford Borough Council – or any other local authority – had had some authority over the decisions of the (first) Council of Nicaea, then perhaps the date of Easter would be founded on a basis that did not play havoc with council bin collection dates. 😀
Racist: it’s your fault you’re offended

13/02/2026 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

Ratcliffe the racist. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
After the revelations in the news this week, it’s a fair comment to say that ‘Sir’ Jim Ratcliffe has more money than brain cells. Indeed he has so much money that he is no longer resident in the Untied Kingdom and has moved to Monte Carlo, the historic sunny place for shady people, to spend time with substantially more of his money due to the micro-state’s generosity to the super rich in matters fiscal.

However, having a view of the Côte d’Azur has not prevented him from having some vile, bigoted views of what’s happening north of the English Channel.

In an interview earlier this week with Sky News, the ‘businessman‘ and minority shareholder in Manchester United remarked that the UK has been “colonised by immigrants“, as well as having a swipe at those unfortunate enough to be forced to claim Blighty’s less than generous state benefits.

His racism drew criticism not only from just from the country’s political elite, but also from his club Manchester United’s own football fans.

Outside Old Trafford itself, the following billboard subvertisement has appeared according to your ‘umble scribe’s social media timeline, with a billboard outside Old TRafford being subvertised with the slogan: “Immigrants have done more for this city than billionaire tax dodgers ever will“.

One day later, Ratcliffe issued the by now standard non-apology, stating “sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern“, i.e. if you were offended by my choice of language, that’s entirely your own fault and not mine.

Commenting on Ratcliffe’s remarks, today’s Guardian editorial states: “Normalising inflammatory language which presents migrants as hostile invaders does not enhance the possibility of civilised discussion. It contributes to the rise of everyday racism and xenophobia on the UK’s streets.”
French raid X offices

03/02/2026 Steve WoodsAI, Politics, Social Media, Tech
The Paris Public Prosecutor’s office has today issued the press release in English below concerning a visit by its own officers and those of other agencies to the offices of the right-wing propaganda machine masquerading as a social media platform X.com, which was known as Twitter before its acquisition by far-right man-baby Elon Musk.
A search is being carried out today at the French premises of the X platform, as part of the investigation opened in January 2025 by the cybercrime section of the Paris prosecutor’s office, with the UNCyber unit of the gendarmerie and in the presence of Europol.

In parallel, summonses for voluntary interviews on April 20, 2026, in Paris, were sent to Mr. Elon Musk and Ms. Linda Yacarino, in their capacity as de facto and de jure managers of Platform X at the time of the events. Employees of Platform X are also summoned during the week of April 20-24, 2026, to be heard as witnesses. The voluntary interviews of the managers are intended to allow them to present their position on the events and, where applicable, the compliance measures envisaged.

The conduct of this investigation is, at this stage, part of a constructive approach, with the objective of ultimately ensuring Platform X’s compliance with French law, insofar as it operates within the national territory.

As a reminder, this investigation was opened following two reports received on January 12, 2025. On July 9, 2025, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office entrusted the investigation to the Directorate General of the National Gendarmerie (DGGN). The investigation was expanded following further reports denouncing Grok’s operations on the X platform, which led to the dissemination of Holocaust denial content and sexually explicit deepfakes.

The investigations concern the following criminal offenses:
- complicity in the possession of child pornography images of minors a © complicity in the organized distribution, offering, or making available of child pornography images of minors
- violation of the right to privacy (sexually explicit deepfakes)
- denial of crimes against humanity (Holocaust denial)
- fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system by an organized group
- falsification of the operation of an automated data processing system by an organized group
- Administration of an illegal online platform by an organized group.
Elon Musk issued a typically petulant response to the action, calling it a “political attack“. If there’s any attack, Mr Musk, it concerns your platform’s lax attitude to responsibility.

Furthermore, Musk was corrected in no uncertain terms by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs account on X, which replied as follows:

Your ‘umble scribe wonders if the French reference to “some island” is a less than subtle dig atMusk’s expression of interest in visiting paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s child abuse island.

In contrast to the muscular approach taken by the French, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has opened a formal inquiry into X and xAI over whether Elon Musk’s companies have complied with data protection law after the Grok AI tool was used to generate sexual deepfake images without consent.
Metrology – introducing the corgi

01/02/2026 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Social Media

The United States of America has long had a system of weights and measures that make the British Imperial system seem logical even if the latter does include such oddities as the furlong, chain and barleycorn even just in the length measurements alone.

And the US metrological landscape has just been augmented by one East Coast addition to the units of measurement.
Your ‘umble scribe much prefers the symmetry and simplicity of the metric system that he was first taught and used in science and mathematics classes six decades ago and which still has to adopted wholeheartedly by a British state allegedly unwilling to upset or confuse (really? Ed.) those of his generation, although he suspects this reluctance is also heavily coloured by a large measure of English/British exceptionalism.

In addition to the officially adopted systems of weights and measures, ordinary folk have always used their own informal and somewhat odd units. In the past this site has covered the introduction – usually by the mainstream media – of units as diverse as the Stockholm (housing stock/housing crisis) and the Leaning Tower of Pisa (height).

As mentioned above, these venerable units of measurement have now been joined by another – the corgi – which is currently being used in North Carolina to assess the depth of the local snowfall. 😀
A nightmare at the movies

30/01/2026 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media, Tech

A new ‘documentary’ film is currently being shown in cinemas across the United States. Entitled Melania, it documents the life of Melania Knauss Trump, the first lady of the United States, in the twenty days before the second presidential inauguration of her husband, the disgraced 45th and current disgraceful 47th President of the United States, adjudicated sexual predator, condemned business fraudster, convicted felon and compulsive liar, one Donald John Trump (who is on a personal quest to Make America Grate Again or something similar. Ed.).

According to The Guardian, Amazon MGM Studios bought the rights to the film for $40m – which reportedly included a considerable sum to the subject of the film (no surprise there! The whole tRump family are high gains grifters. Ed.) – and is spending $35m on a global marketing push. This spend has so far been mostly in the US, with TV spots, billboards and a takeover of Las Vegas’s immersive events venue The Sphere.

However, the film is not proving popular either with the public or the critics. As regards the latter, this might just be due to the mainstream press not being invited by Amazon the the premiere at the Kennedy Center.

The exclusion of the Fourth Estate may also explain the dire reviews the film has been receiving, such as the one below ascribed to Variety, although Yahoo News suggests this could be a misattribution.

What is more, it’s not just film critics that have been drawing attention to the film’s awfulness. Members of the public reviewing it on IMDb have given it an average score of 1.3 out of ten.

However, this criticism is quite mild compared with the defaced bus stop poster portrayed below, which prompts ypour ‘umble scribe to ask when exactly will the so-called Epstein Files be released in full?

Update 31/01/2026: Another tranche of the Epstein Files was released yesterday, with at least one wag on social media suggesting the files’ release was intended to distract from from the Melania documentary.

Update 03/02/2026: The film continues to get panned, as revealed by this social media post referring to a recent review in The Grauniad.
EU Commission investigates Grok and X under DSA

26/01/2026 Steve WoodsAI, Politics, Security, Social Media, Tech
The European Commission has today announced a new formal investigation against X (the ~~conduit of hate~~ alleged social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Ed.) under the Digital Services Act (DSA). In parallel, the Commission extended its current investigation launched in December 2023 into X’s compliance with its recommender systems risk management obligations.

The new investigation will examine whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks associated with the deployment of Grok’s functionalities into X in the EU, including risks related to the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including child sexual abuse material.

These risks seem to have materialised, exposing EU citizens to serious harm. Consequently, the Commission will further investigate whether X complies with its DSA obligations to:
- Diligently assess and mitigate systemic risks, including of the dissemination of illegal content, negative effects in relation to gender-based violence and serious negative consequences to physical and mental well-being stemming from deployments of Grok’s functionalities on its platform;
- Conduct and transmit to the Commission an ad-hoc risk assessment report for Grok’s functionalities in the X service with a critical impact on X’s risk profile prior to their deployment.
Furthermore, the Commission has extended its continuing formal proceedings initiated against X in December 2023 to determine if X has properly assessed and mitigated all systemic risks (as defined in the DSA) associated with its recommender systems, including the impact of its recently announced switch to a Grok-based recommender system.

If proven, these failures would constitute infringements of Articles 34(1) and (2), 35(1) and 42(2) of the DSA. The Commission will now carry out an in-depth investigation as a matter of priority. The opening of formal proceedings does not prejudge its outcome.

In the run-up to this investigation, the Commission has closely collaborated with Coimisiún na Meán, the Irish Digital Services Coordinator. In addition, Coimisiún na Meán will be associated with this investigation pursuant to Article 66(3) as the national Digital Services Coordinator in the EU country where X is based.

The opening of formal proceedings empowers the Commission to take further enforcement steps, such as adopting a non-compliance decision. The Commission is also empowered to accept any commitment made by X to remedy the matters subject to the proceeding.
Reform candidate emulates tRump

25/01/2026 Steve WoodsAI, Language, Politics, Social Media

On Terry Pratchett’s fictional Discworld, Ankh Morpork local newspaper publisher William de Worde remarks: “Lies could run round the world before the truth could get its boots on” in the novel The Truth.

That turn of speed definitely applies today to internet memes, whether AI-generated slop or otherwise.

It hasn’t taken long for the Farage fascist fan club otherwise known as Reform UK (Ltd.) to pick up on some of the latest garbage emanating from the White House (posts passim) and adapt it for their own Z-list candidate for mayor, Laila Cunningham, another Conservative Party defector who, amongst other things, want to dictate what women choose to wear.

AI from the hard of thinking. Since when have there mountains on the banks of the Thames? And why are the two figures shown leaving no tracks in the snow?

Whatever the direction Farage’s Reform is planning on taking the country, those mythical sunlit uplands of politics (© Winston Churchill, July 1940) do not seem to be involved.

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