I note, with something between scorn and disinterest, that users are whining about an outage on Facebook:
“Users of Facebook services criticised the company on Twitter, with some likening the unavailability of Instagram to a “Horror movie” and “a millennial’s worst nightmare”. Others said the inability to access Facebook itself could leave elderly people isolated”.
Really folks, get a life. There are books to read – even ebooks work just fine without Facebook – walks to take, instruments to play and bread to bake. Rather than posting your tedious photos on social media, email them to your nearest and dearest, incidentally reigniting the art of personal communication, rather than putting them somewhere that is in no way private.
Even less interesting, it seems that there may be financial consequences for the ‘thousands of businesses’ that advertise on Facebook and Instagram. I have news for you, thousands of businesses: every time I see an advert on a social media site I make a mental note to boycott the product. If you want me, and anyone else with at least half a brain, to consider your company as somewhere I might wish to splurt money, then please advertise in proper media that pays proper journalists to do a proper job. And yes, proper media is something that people have to pay to get, not some drivel reposted from a conspiracy website by a sweaty onanist living in a bedsit in Hartlepool.