On his Salisbury Review blog, Dalrymple has fun with this quote from former BBC director general George Entwistle:
I made inquiries as to find out why what had happened on Twitter had happened because it seemed to me that the events surrounding the film in terms of what happened on Twitter were an important part in understanding how this thing had achieved a scale and created a noise around potential identification that was clearly surprising.
(H/t Teddy M.)
twitter and, say, youtube comments. People may pretend not to understand what is going on there – I mean the viciousness, slandering, puerility, bickering, blabbering and, of course, the opportunity to vent rage at politicians, bureaucrats and especially celebrities etc
It’s all really no surprise to me. I think for most people to advance a regular career path they have to be in denial about what lies just beneath the surface of what most people are saying – complicity…
That’s an interesting thing about the internet, supposedly, for instance, Google could and perhaps do have a pretty good idea of who watches pornography, how often, and maybe even how that correlates with their financial status, whether they have a criminal record and how that compares with people who don’t watch pornography online.
Mr Entwistle shouldn’t be surprised by what’s going on in twitter land.