After doing a Twitter poll last year, in which a great majority said I should overcome my hesitation about verification and apply, I did so when the facility reopened. There's no explanation given, which reinforces my concerns about the process.
.@verified Could you please explain why you have refused my request for verification? Thank you.
I believe the Twitter rules for blue ticks are wrong: anyone with a verified identity should be eligible. The purpose should be to separate real people from bots. But whatever we think of the criteria it uses, it should apply them consistently and transparently.
Instead, the system is opaque and the decisions it makes are unexplained and unaccountable. That's no way to run a social media platform.
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The government is showering rich people's holiday homes with subsidies and tax breaks, fuelling homelessness and community death.
It's a total outrage. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Some of the facts and figures will make you rage and gnash your teeth. Massive subsidies for wealthy people, at the direct expense of the poor.
So why isn't this all over the papers?
Could it have something to do with the fact that a high proportion of editors and senior journalists have second homes?
The Home Office treats travellers who do us no harm with extreme cruelty and viciousness, yet leaves the door wide open to Covid-19.
My column asks WTAF is going on at our borders. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
"A week into lockdown, there were 895 people in detention and none in quarantine."
I just can't get over how perverse and self-destructive this country is becoming.
Reading some comments below the line, I'm reminded that it's often the most sheltered people who say the cruellest things. People who can't imagine what refugees might be fleeing from. A failure of moral imagination often seems to be associated with comfort and security.
My column this week is about how crime is thriving under this government of "law and order", as a result of catastrophic institutional collapse.
If you are ripped off by a conman, don't expect justice. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
It's the same across the board: the bodies supposed to protect us from crime have been cut to the bone by 11 years of austerity and simply can't function any more.
It's party time for conmen, rip-off employers and landlords, river polluters, waste dumpers and profiteers.
It's got so bad that I can't help beginning to wonder - could this be a cynical strategy?
You talk big on crime, but let it proliferate, driving frightened, insecure people into your arms.
Crime and insecurity favour rightwing demagogues.
When I ask myself what trajectory this country is on, the most likely answer seems to be Orbán’s Hungary. How much in this thread sounds familiar? 1. The ruling class, wallowing in corruption, enjoys total impunity. Meanwhile, peaceful protest and other freedoms are criminalised.
2. No political scandal is a sacking offence. 3. A complicit media so distorts the reporting of government action that it becomes almost impossible to distinguish truth from lies. 4. Apparently endless rule is sustained by voter suppression and gerrymandering.
5. Politics proceeds by means of the grand gesture. Billions are spent on major infrastructure, while basic services are allowed to wither and die. 6. Public agencies are repurposed to direct money into the hands of chums.
A few weeks ago, I tried to contact a Trading Standards Office on behalf of an elderly person who had been ripped off by a conman. No, you can’t do it any more: you have to go through the Citizens Advice Bureau(!). So I filed my complaint with them. Here’s what happened.
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It was as clear a case as there could be. I had discovered enough about the conman to put the fear of God into him, and he confessed to how he operates, and told me who his partners are. He works with an agency that specialises in preying on elderly, confused people.
He instantly repaid the money. But my interest was in ensuring that he can't do it again. Otherwise, he will continue to prey on other elderly people, who don’t happen to know an investigative journalist.