Interesting Links for 14-05-2018

[andrewducker]

Finland Is the Happiest Country in the World, and Finns Aren't Happy about It

(tags: happiness finland )

Brexit: Falkland Islands government sounds alarm on leaving single market

(tags: falklands Europe uk )

Comicsgate Is Gamergate's Next Horrible Evolution

(tags: comics misogyny racism )

GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

(tags: advertising privacy law europe )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

One of the peculiar things about Brexit is that pits British nationalism against several of the touchstones of British nationalism; Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands and to a lesser extant Northern Ireland.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Not much in the way of consideration of consequences there.

[danieldwilliam]

My take-away is slightly different.

I don't think British nationalists (in England) care much about the actual Gibraltar or the actual Falkland Islands or the actual Northern Ireland. I think that what is important to them is that Britain is better than other countries and Gibraltar and the Falklands are just examples of the fact that Britain is better.

[andrewducker]

True. They care much more about "We won" than "These British subjects get to continue living the life they want to".

I do wonder what Gibraltar will do.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not sure they have a lot of good options.

One would normally expect that European states in the 21st Century would be civilised to each other but I'm not hopeful about the good behaviour of this current Spanish government and, in particular, their approach to the status of Gibraltar.

I can see a situation where post-Brexit the Spanish put in place a blockade as part of a campaign to have the people of Gibraltar vote to join Spain and I'm not sure that the UK has a good response to that. Or even that they just pick on Gibraltar in the run up to their next general election (due July 2020).

[andrewducker]

I do wonder if the people of Gibraltar would want to join Spain if they suddenly had a border to deal with.

(Or if Spain might offer them a compromise of some kind)

[danieldwilliam]

I've no idea.

I think many Gibraltans work in Spain or are economically dependent on the free movement of goods, services and people in and out of Spain - so it would make a lot of sense for Gibraltar to be in the same market as Spain. If that meant joining Spain - I can see the attraction of that in a world where Britain has left the EU on bad terms and isn't willing or able to do much to help.

On the other hand, having seen how the Spanish government has treated Catalonia I wouldn't be over joyed to be joining Spain and I think the people of Gibraltar consider themselves to be British. Whilst that's not a huge driver of decision making for me it is for other people.

[danieldwilliam]

I'll be interested to see what happens to the media and journalism landscape after GDPR messes up current business models.

[andrewducker]

I did see an interesting defence of the advertising model for newspapers - which is that it allows poor people to read the news, effectively subsidised by the rich.

However - advertising doesn't have to mean the level of surveillance that currently goes on.

And I'd like to have non-advertising-based options.

[skington]

Isn't part of the problem with newspaper revenue that most of their ad revenue is going to Google and Facebook, though? So if advertising comes back in-house, that can only be a good thing?

Also, it appears that newspapers are now getting significant revenue from readers, rather than advertisers - I think the NYT is now over 50%, and the Guardian's on course to break even.

[danieldwilliam]

I totally see the advantages of an advertising funding service where the advertising revenue acts as a subsidy against the production price. And it's probably true that newspapers have been consciously selling eyeballs to advertisers since they were first established and that they've used bias and bubbles and self-erected filters and driven rage over reflection in order to increase viewing figures. The Anti-Gallican newspaper which was published during the Napoleonic Wars was probably not a model of balanced reporting and nuanced political consideration.

But the level of surveilance is excessive and the click-baiting seems to have hit new highs, or lows.

On Comicsgate

[dewline]

So done with their nonsense. The stuff they were pulling re: video game and SF-Lit fandoms wasn't enough. They're coming after everyones' fandoms, people.