The conveyor belt of outrage - I've stepped off

I've 'sort of ' disengaged from Twitter. It's become such a festering hell site of anti-nuance, I've decided to observe, rather than participate. I can't quite bring myself to delete my presence, and I do need the platform when I want to punt out a blog (like this) so I'm working through the process of blocking the most aggro people who seem to love loading on to the conveyor belt of outrage, and easing it out of my field of vision.

I just don't need it in my life, so I'm starting the detoxification of my world by withdrawing from the places where the discourse is so shouty and angsty. One of my favourite writers, Ian Leslie, put it well, so I'm going to quote his passage in full: "Public debates are becoming more algorithmic and binary. You must pick one side or another, and when you do, there is always a ready-made script waiting for you to run. When Tory ministers defended Dominic Cummings over his trip to Durham, it wasn’t just what they said that was depressing but how: in a series of near-identical, robotic tweets. More of us are behaving like politicians. Every row on social media is conducted with a set of arguments, slogans and memes that each side – and in binary arguments there can only be two sides – faithfully deploy."

I guess Twitter is where the debate happens, and it's not just about politics, but sport, especially football. Elsewhere, despite the data scraping and social manipulation, I find Facebook to be more carefully curatable. LinkedIn is mostly corporate boosterism, but at least it has some useful well argued content. And Instagram? Ah well, Instagram is my new vice. It may be harmful for young people trying to live up to an aspiration of image perfection, but for me it's the comforting balm of aesthetic comfort and joy. I love the stimulating drip of goodness than oozes onto my feed, mainly outdoor landscapes, but also photos of food, art, weirdness, shoes, jackets, jeans, retro photos and more music ideas for our programme. The universe it creates is one of walks I want to go on - the Camino, the Appalachian trail, the Wainwrights, the Munroes and the peaks of Snowdon - in boots and fleeces I want to wear. It gives me visual recall of cities and open spaces I’ve only got fading memories of, such the gorgeous South of Western Australian and the deep outback, oddities like Tallinn, Berlin, Marseille, rural Italy, Miami and many more. That's what I need in my life, something to look forward to. It's what we all need, frankly. 

Call it escapism, but I’ve done with reality and I’m done with Twitter.

My social media fast - Twitter is toxic, Facebook is sinister, but I'm not quitting

Being off social media during Lent has definitely given me time and space for the reflections I intended. I hope I've made much better connections with true friends, prioritised what is truly important and discarded what is trivial and makes me unhappy.

That it's not the be all and end all is obvious. But it's all made me realise its inherent benefits as well as the obvious downsides. Some to do with system design, others to do with human behaviour.

I'll start with Facebook first. A really good friend who works in law enforcement describes it as the devil. It seeps into lives and corrodes from within. When in the wrong hands it is a tool for great evil. It has also been deliberately designed as a mind control tool, as we found out recently with the Cambridge Analytica revelations. But that's also because it makes us lazy. We rely on it too much to tell us who to be friends with, whose posts to follow, what to like and comment on. If it doesn't happen on Facebook it hasn't happened. So it makes you disconnected from the daily lives and concerns of people you care about, but have view of their lives seen only through this very distorted lens.

On the upside, I quite like seeing my Mum's posts about cats. I actually think it's a perfect tool for organising close groups of connected people - like in my fitness classes. I also appreciate it as a conduit for family news and sharing stories from friends abroad, who it has been harder to stay in touch with over the last few weeks. I used to be strict about Facebook friending, then I stood in an election. I started taking all kinds, but I think I'm going to tidy up and make it about real friends, old friends, friends abroad and family. And no politics.

As if to prove the point, the first post I've just seen on Facebook is a delightful post by my brother-in-law Dave Tinkler in the Lancaster Past and Present group, of a newspaper clipping of his Dad (RIP) when he was on his National Service.

The platform I've missed the least as a sucker up of time and energy levels has been Twitter. I used to love Twitter for its serendipity. I'd smugly boast that Twitter amazed me with wisdom from people I don't know, while Facebook would appall me because of people I did. I now think pretty much the opposite. People have got a bit more used to Facebook, but have got massively self-important and shouty on Twitter. I say most people, I noticed a while ago how much the algorithims were shaping your timeline now that I follow so many people. It's meant to be helpful, a filtering, but it just keeps pushing more and more angry Corbynistas, Centrist Dads, antisemites and Mancunian boosterists. The politics of the loudmouth has ruined it. You are required to work hard at your followers and timeline, which seems like further demands on time I don't want to give up.

However, Twitter is a decent platform for being part of an emerging trending news event. It's also a powerful tool for driving traffic to a website and for sharing content. I've done the odd blog on a Sunday through Lent and the page views are right down. Being able to tag people, target the marketing and share stories from events I've been involved in has always been really useful. Not utilising it would be a folly. But again, it requires time and effort to make it focused and useful.

I've just had a look at what's been going on, and I've rightly missed a few chances to punt my own events and debates and support colleagues who were speaking. I've not replied to comments about blogs, either about football or political things, but also local Marple matters. I've dropped about 12 followers.

Finally, I had one person, just one, ask me at an event why I'd been so quiet on LinkedIn lately. I've just looked and I've had 92 requests to do the linking in thing. Six from people I work with at Manchester Met, a smattering of old contacts in business, and hardly any with a personal message. It really showed up the paucity of relevance of LinkedIn. It also reminded how much more important it is to actually go out and meet people.

What have we been reduced to? Gaza, Ukraine and Twitter banter

I watch the news every day. My faith, my values, what I cherish above all else, is the sanctity of human life above all political squabbles. 

It distresses to see humanity stripped from much discourse about Gaza. "They" did this, so "we" can do this. 

What particularly upsets me is tit for tat 'yebbut' posturing telling me what I am not allowed to condemn, or pity, or mourn. Like some guy Hillel Neuer in a quote recently listing every current atrocity and challenging anyone to somehow associate any shred of condemnation of Gaza with them all, thus laying down the charge that to fail to do so is actually "anti-Israel". Then some pillock on a demo has a banner likening Israel to Hitler, which a stream of other twits claim is enough to render the entire march as wrong. Or those who think not enough Israelis have died to justify military action. It's all messed up.

It's all been reduced to banter on Twitter. Suarez, Gaza, the Golf, Ukraine, Michael Gove. Instant opinions and powerless passive aggressive nonsense.

It's wrong to kill on such a scale. Wrong to lob rockets indiscriminately, wrong to kidnap school girls in Nigeria, to blow airliners out of the sky above Ukraine. This should never become a zero sum battle of moral equivalence, that the scoring of points on social media is the ultimate forum - the goal, the triumph. Of course it isn't, but it feels like it's getting that way.

Where in our twisted humanity did we lose the capacity to be able to call something for what it is without the Pavlovian response of "yebbut what about what they did?"

What have I been up to this week

Don't take my word for it, but our Business of Media Summit was brilliant this week.

Will Bentley, here, has produced an excellent summary. So has Nigel Hughes, here. And then there's the Twitter stream, here.

Marple tip closing for a while - who knows?

If local councils have one function left then it is the job of collecting the rubbish. In recent months our local authority, Stockport, through Greater Manchester Waste, has moved to collecting material for recycling and encouraging us to use blue, brown and green bins. The net effect has meant we no longer take all our waste newspaper, card, plastic, bottles and garden waste to Rose Hill tip.

I found out through the Marple massive we've formed on Twitter - notably Lord Roberts of Marple - that Rose Hill tip is to close for a period for an upgrade. In turn he directed us to the Marple community website, for the news here.

Search on Google for a bit more information and you get this, here, news that there will be no disruption to the facility as a result of the works which start at the end of March.

Though the official information is here:

Regarding the HWRC at Rose Hill in Marple the date of closure is 10th May 2010 and is due to re-open 10th Jan 2011 but Bredbury HWRC’s opening date, 1st May 2010, as alternative facility to use instead of Rose Hill.

I'm told that residents of the immediate area were given leaflets and there was even an exhibition at the Dale Primary School. And yet a large proportion of the local population are none the wiser. I don't recall seeing anything in the council rag, and there are no posters or signs up at the tip itself.

Confusing, isn't it? I don't want to go on about this particular local issue overmuch. My point is a wider one. A disfunction in communication, democracy and local media is playing out here. Where was a local newspaper campaign? Well forget that right away. The Stockport Express has simply become irrelevant to our lives. How then are major civic changes like this to be communicated? Where else can a body whch takes the thick end of £200 a month from us inform us in return about the most basic of services? There are moves to develop hyperlocal media, but no-one has worked out a business model to make it work. There are the beginnings in this story of how information may be spread in the future. I think it's an opportunity, but who will make the move?

Marple Leaf reviews 2009

Here are this blog's highlights of 2009 based on the ten most common categories.

Blackburn Rovers - well, I'm on a bit of a downer about this at the moment, but the win over Burnley was a very special day.

Marple - I was moved beyond words at how Marple turned out for Remembrance Day.

Book review in a lift - I still haven't got over quite how brilliant The Road by Cormac McCarthy is. As with many fine things in life it was recommended by my best pal John Dixon.

Friends - we've really enjoyed time with our friends this year, from trips to Center Parcs, Amsterdam, Cornwall, at home and on football tour.

Wine - Stopping drinking for a few months was quite a cleansing experience. That said, a very hearty Unicorn from Robinson's went down well on Tuesday.

Politics - what a dreadful mess. Definite low point was the North West electing that goon. Tory conference in Manchester was good sport, liked Philip Blond and Philip Hammond. Cameron was vapid.

Commuting - It has been a very pleasant year on the Rose Hill thunderbolt, unless the worst guard on the railway is working.

Jokes - I had a go at stand-up, of a manner, but I still think the best joke I've heard this year is this - the best Irish joke ever.

Music -I've really struggled with new music this year. Nothing really stands out. But live wise, Elbow with the Hallé was an amazing experience.

Blogging - this was the year when I got into Twitter, but never at the expense of this blog. I will resolve in the new year to cross post, link and blog a great deal more.

Spiral of righteous loathing

When a celebrity dies it's never long before the sick jokes start. The mainstream media however usually respect the dignity of the departed and elevate them to a peculiar level of sainthood. Once the funeral is done, then the nastiness starts. With Stephen Gately the jokes were immediate, but The Daily Mail's Jan Moir piled in with a piece of hasty spiteful conjecture. This afternoon she has been hounded into an apology, advertisers have withdrawn from the site and the internet mob has had its blood up, encouraged greatly by Charlie Brooker of the Guardian. The last time I looked on Twitter people (including Brooker and Derren Brown, to be fair) were appealing for calm after her home address was published. There's an irony there, for sure.

It's a social media phenomena this. Normally you would just not bother to read the Daily Mail if you didn't like it. Now the Twitterati is quickly mobilised. In the US this is as likely to be a conservative backlash. But the kind of people who arse around on the internet all day are more likely to be socially liberal, Guardian readers and more than capable of waving the pitchfork.

Real life, just around the corner

I've been using Twitter with gay abandon. I subscribe to the view that you've got to immerse yourselves in this kind of thing if you're in any kind of business that views communication as important.

Phil Jones has blogged on this quite a lot - this is his best summary yet - here.

Then there's this from Pav at the Oldham Chron. "It all sounds just a bit seedy if you ask me." Oh dear.

I also bow to the much greater judgement of Matthew (aged 7) and Elliot (aged 4) about their social network - Club Penguin. Why do you go on it boys?- "because of the Puffles and because of the fun". Good enough for me, chaps. You carry on.

There's a view that some people keep separate identities for work and the rest. I think it's a sensitive and important area to consider, but I draw the line at being anonymous. I only have the daft name Marple Leaf on Twitter because my real name and various versions of it were taken. Michael is the fourth most common name of English speaking men of my age, Taylor is the third.

I liken it to going to a business networking event. I gave up drinking at these things a while ago, for example, so have developed methods of moderating my behaviour. I do put my serious head on, but I always end up breaking the ice and talking like a human being. There are also so many areas where real life and work life collide. Yesterday, for example, I had lunch with the chairman of Mountfield Rovers Junior Football Club in his capacity as someone important around Manchester. Sure, it was important for our respective businesses, but we get on as human beings because we have a common link around our other roles as fathers and "football people".

Similarly, my Twitter followers and people I follow represent all areas of my life. They include serious people I know through business, national politics, community events, family members and through work. They also reflect other quirky things that make me happy like pies, trainers and winding up Alastair Campbell.

I can't separate all of that. But I can edit it. I am who I am. I don't blurt out everything about my life, but all that I'm happy to tell someone I meet at the Tripe Dressers Ball is all there in social networks. And just as I don't write about work on here that much, so too you won't find articles about trainers in Insider. That said, I'm doing a site visit to Umbro soon...