What Facebook knew about how it radicalized users

Facebook staffers created a Trump-loving, Fox News-watching fake identity. 

The account went wherever the algorithm told it to go. 

It went full-on QAnon in two days. 

Facebook told nobody about this. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-knew-radicalized-users-rcna3581

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Hooray, we're FINALLY out of lockdown!

Melbourne has officially emerged from the longest cumulative lockdown in the world - 262 days, or nearly nine months.

Last week, my brother asked if I was happy about lockdown finally ending and I couldn't even feel enthusiastic. It's been so exhausting that it was hard to envisage what no lockdown would look like, or believe that it is actually going to be the last one (this was our 6th).

This week, Victoria hit the vaccine target of 70% of the population fully vaccinated, and 90% with the first dose. This triggered the end of some restrictions. In all, Australia has seen less than 1500 deaths for the total pandemic, so the majority of Australians (despite what you might have seen in the news) have viewed these restrictions as well worthwhile.

Last night, I saw a plane fly over and that was so unusual people were stopping and looking up at it. I hadn't realised I hadn't seen a plane for ages until I saw that.

This morning, I went for an appointment and the cafes are allowed to open with people allowed to sit down, the local nail salon is full, and the local barber is totally full with a line out the door. And everyone is smiling.

At times it's felt like one of those apocalypse movies where only a few people had survived and they're wandering the streets as rubbish and twigs are blown around in the wind. Today, the sun is shining, summer is coming and things are looking up. Hope everyone is well.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/midnight-haircuts-pints-and-pasta-as-victoria-s-lockdown-lifts-20211019-p591ct.html

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A lot of stuff on LinkedIn is "low quality content"

In news that surprises nobody who has spent any time on LinkedIn:  

"A report from Edelman shows that the pandemic has triggered a ‘tsunami’ of b2b thought-leadership content, but ‘less than half’ of it is ‘valuable’."  

Read the full report here. 

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Rebranding my business...

Decided to apply everything I've learned in the last few years and undertake a rebranding exercise. Pretty happy with the results! 💚 

Please visit our website for more information or to get in touch.

And new business cards! I know business cards might be considered a bit "old school" in some quarters now, but a lot of my clients are "old school" too. Plus, I like them 😀

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Effective government communications

Regardless of which type of politics you subscribe to - kudos to the Vic Government social media team here for successfully communicating/engaging with a particular, presumably hard-to-reach demographic. Which is really the point of communications! Nice work 👏👏  

Another good use of social media to engage with a particular demographic, this time NSW CHO Dr Kerry Chant using Tik Tok.

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Clever...

Very clever of Telstra to employ local comedian/influencer Jimmy Rees to spread the word about today's announcement that "pay phones" will now be just "phones" on Facebook. 

When I saw this video it was 10 minutes old and already had 1.5k likes and 100 shares. 

More information (with far less reach) via ABC News here.

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Finally finished!

Sometime last century (not even kidding, it was before I met my husband), I fell in love with a pattern for a 3D tumbling blocks cot blanket and decided to make a doona/duvet cover from the pattern. Measured it all up to the right size, created templates, bought all the fabric, cut all the pieces out and started sewing. And then... stopped. Husband, children, work, study, travel etc = no time for sewing.

Last year during lockdown I found the bag and decided to finally finish it. I couldn't work out why I'd stopped last time, until I unrolled it and immediately remembered - I didn't like some of the colour combos I had for blue, indigo and violet, and I'd made a couple of mistakes, so I'd put it aside at the time to find better options and never did.

The next challenge was lockdown because all the shops here were closed. Luckily the internet was invented so I got online and found better colours, then unpicked the mistakes and redid them.

Finally finished! Half of it is older than my children! Better late than never! We can have the dining table back now 🤣🎉🌈😍

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The Entire Content Creation Process in 17 Steps and a Single Flowchart

Been getting back into a bit of writing lately and I found this really useful:

The Entire Content Creation Process in 17 Steps and a Single Flowchart

https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/content-creation-process/

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5 Website Mistakes That May Harm Your Small Business

My latest article on the WebSolutionZ blog: 

We've been in the digital business for over 15 years, and often get asked to critique existing websites as part of planning for an overhaul. 

Frankly, the ways a digital presence can actually make life more difficult for a business, rather than improve it, are many and varied! 

Here are 5 things we see most commonly: 

https://www.websolutionz.com.au/blog/5-website-mistakes-that-may-harm-your-small-business

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Durolane day

Yesterday afternoon I had my annual Durolane injection. 

A few years ago, I learned I have a 2cm section of cartilage inside my left patella missing after years of netball, so when I bend my knee it's a rather painful bone-on-bone experience.

Durolane is like a poly filler for joints. I found out yesterday there are new brands out now too and it's getting cheaper to do, which I'll look into for next year because my insurance company has randomly decided to stop covering it.

It's not the most comfortable thing to get done even with a local anaesthetic (think big needle behind kneecap 😱), but for a year of no pain it's worth it.

This morning it's not noticeably puffy, and only a bit red from the heat pack. But it hurts like #$*@&%!, can barely put weight on. Expecting to come good again tomorrow. 👍

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Joomla Community Magazine interview

Recently I was interviewed by the Joomla Community Magazine for the February 2021 issue.

https://magazine.joomla.org/all-issues/february-2021/meet-a-joomler-nicky-veitch

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My take on the #facebooknewsban on #FacebookAustralia today

1. Facebook are big bullies and horrible data miners and everyone agrees they shouldn't do that, but most people know they do it and keep giving them data anyway. And governments everywhere let them.
   
   
2. Last night a media bargaining code was passed in the AU parliament and EVERY party voted for it, thus demonstrating that they're all idiots and it's political but not just restricted to one party.
   
   
3. The legislation is faulty because if you are in government and you've previously pushed "let the market decide", then you shouldn't also decide to legislate against something the market has decided, ie. that Google and Facebook are where people choose to spend their money on ads, and not in media classifieds like they used to pre-internet.
   
   
4. The Australian media and Murdoch are complicit in all this. They have been championing the media code all over social media because they had $ in their eyes. Yes, a healthy media is important to democracy, and yes, they are broke, but that's because the world has changed with the internet and they haven't yet found the magic bullet to make money.
   
   
5. Google and Facebook aren't actually stealing anything. They are sharing links. This is the underlying foundation of the whole internet as designed decades ago. Tim Berners-Lee, who created the WWW, has already criticised the media code for potentially breaking the internet.
   
   
6. Facebook have today taken a sledgehammer approach to Australia. It is traumatic to many and I get that. But if I was them, my thinking would be - small country, less than 1% of the global population, trying to throw their weight around. Let's slam a giant block on EVERYTHING today and create as much outrage as possible. When they start to see sense, let's negotiate. Classic negotiation tactic, if you're into that kind of thing.
   
   
7. If the government had decided to use the bloody tax system we already have in place as it was intended, and if the social media companies didn't actively practice government-approved tax avoidance, the financial situation could have been handled by the tax system, maybe set up a new class for them or something, and then something set up to fund media. But nooo....

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Companies on Social Media: 6 Types of User Interactions with Business

Interesting, via Nielsen Norman Group:

Summary: Users rely on social media to find out about new products or companies, conduct research, engage with content, make purchases, and seek customer support.

As part of our social-media research, we identified 6 types of interactions that users have with companies on social media. Our findings are based on data from 23 participants: a diary study with 14 participants and a usability study followed by cognitive mapping with 9 participants.  We identified the following core interactions, which are listed in an approximate order, even though they don’t always happen in this sequence:

1. Discover: Can I find something interesting?
2. Research: What is this? How does it work for me? How could I use it?
3. Engage: Am I interested in the content the company posts on social media?
4. Purchase: How can I buy it?
5. Support: Can you help me solve a problem?
6. Promote: How can I share my experience with others?

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/companies-social-media/

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