By HILARY GAVIN
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567727942481
IF YOU’D asked me whether I’d ever dream of going back online to face the gauntlet of social media as a journalist a few years ago – I’d have confidently told you: “Not on your Nelly.”
There’s no doubt that Facebook, and other social media sites, are cesspits of bad language and bad behaviour and anyone, like me, who flags up publishing laws gets it in the neck from users who freely admit they’ve “never liked journalists.”
Now, I’ve no idea why some Facebook users equate being a freelance reporter with having “loose morals” – but it appears that they do and they have no qualms in telling you so.
I also don’t have a clue why society nowadays views being “open and transparent” in business dealings as a vice rather than a virtue and, instead, choose to – quite frankly – hide behind GDPR laws by threatening to sue you.
Come on, folks, be serious! How can you as professional businessmen and businesswomen continue to browbeat the general public with data protection law suits when you freely post your profile pics and CVs online at LinkedIn?
And how many times have we – the long-suffering consumer – had our data breached by marketeers who sell and buy outdated mailing lists and constantly spy on our online activity?
You could say that I – like the British comedian Rowan Atkinson – am fed up to the back teeth with intrusive computer browser algorithms online along with supermarket loyalty cards for instore purchases that allow advertisers to target and manipulate our spending.
If you want to know how modern-day spin rules our lives, take a look at BBC iPlayer blogger Adam Curtis’s documentary The Century of the Self in which he examines how Sigmund Freud’s American nephew and PR guru Edward Bernays deployed his uncle’s life work on psychoanalysis to “control the masses” by exploiting their urge to go out and spend money.
Fascinating stuff! As you can see, I’ve embedded Part One of Adam Curtis’s four-episode documentary from YouTube above which I hope you find interesting, and I’m also featuring my recent Facebook posts below when I ask the question as to why our banks and building societies see nothing wrong with putting our bank accounts at risk by refusing to intervene when businesses behave badly?
Hilary Gavin
Journalist & Writer
T/A Business ‘n’ Commas
6 Southover Way
Hunston
CHICHESTER
West Sussex
PO20 1NY
Tel: 07940 444664
Email: grumpywoman@hilarygavin.blog
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