Journalist, speaker, moderator. Latest book: Social Warming, on social media's inherent, unavoidable effects. Ex-Guardian, Independent. Never paid for Twitter.
@charlesarthur@newsie.social
- Tweets 323,749
- Following 1,373
- Followers 68,085
- Likes 11,357
Mine was similar, I told them they could access our bank by logging in with their name ("Quentin" - don’t have any child of that name) and the password was the family cat’s name.
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I keep expecting an African TV station to do a segment standing in a Kent field saying “the rains have failed in this breakway country where the deposed ruler still clings to power, and people are worrying about soaring costs and how they will feed their children”. It’d be karma.
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Me: how was your Spanish test?
Son: (confident) I think I did pretty well.
Me: oh?
Son: yup, it was multiple choice in Google Forms and Google offered to translate the page for me.
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how about: not something that is easily controlled by legislation? Perhaps something over which we have no control, such as congenital problems - as happens in the UK? (See "cause of death") ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationa…
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She’s as untouchable as menswear guy now. You bunch tried and she emerged from it like Daenerys Targaryen coming out of the burning temple. Meet your new queen.
Busy day, but just to say I am obsessed with all the tweets that are applying olfactory ethics to real world scenarios. I love that I have somehow equipped everyone with new terminology and frameworks!
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Because I am dim, this took me the LONGEST time. Brilliant.
nitter.app/stevenperkins/status/1…
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Can’t figure out if we’re living in Contagion, 28 Days Later or Planet of the Apes now.
Coronavirus: Monkeys 'escape with COVID-19 samples' after attacking lab assistant news.sky.com/story/coronavir…
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"You sent him to WHERE?"
On a visit to the Titanic Quarter today, I asked the Prime Minister if he is captaining a sinking ship going into this election
@BelfastLive
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This picture. This picture, man. nitter.app/Ekanaut/status/1045414…
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Toby Young on why lockdown sceptics (such as himself) lost the argument seems to boil down to “because we were wrong on the facts, and also everything else”.
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why is this relevant to his treatment? The police and air crew didn’t know it. This is cruel and unfair.
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I’d hoped the BBC social media review would cover ill-advised tweets like this, but I guess not.
Analysis:
- Is this so urgent it merits its very own tweet? No. It’s a quote in a bigger story.
- Does it advance understanding of the topic? No.
- Should the source be named? Yes.
Senior govt source responds to Starmer -
'Keir Starmer is a shameless opportunist playing political games in the middle of a global pandemic.
‘He says he wants a national lockdown but he’s refusing to vote for targeted restrictions in areas that need them most.’
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How in the name of god do you know Khelif was born with a cervix. No birth medic in the world would examine for that, and certainly not in the remote town where Khelif was born.
The claim is that Khelif is 46 XY DSD 5-ARD, like Caster Semenya, and male. It's about sex, not gender
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Tfw you realise that the Americans who designed Facebook's cryptocurrency live in a world where contactless payments basically aren't a thing
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“It’s time for us to come home” is a powerful rallying cry for a political party, especially when yoked to those accomplishments. @Ocasio2018 is by far the most interesting thing happening in US politics right now.
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I don’t get how displacing women from women’s teams by allowing males who "identify" as women to compete against them makes a sport more inclusive. It means you have fewer females competing. The opposite of what you’d want.
Senior figures from England’s three LGBTQ+ cricket clubs joined @SkySportsNews to urge more people to follow their lead as cricket continues its journey to become the most inclusive sport in the country.
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The bigger question is why she was on this program. Why not the Greens or Lib Dem’s who actually won things?
Suella Braverman unable to properly explain why the kind of politics and campaigning she is now calling for just received an absolute drubbing in London.
Suggests Susan Hall's defeat was due to her not receiving the proper "support" from Rishi Sunak.
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I’m always impressed by @BBCSteveR’s reports from Russia: easy to forget that he’s being watched by Russia and if he puts a foot wrong, eg calling Ukraine war a “war”, he’d be in serious trouble.
Yet never gives them that chance, while explaining what’s going on. Top-notch work.
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Amazing, amazing work by the PA photographer. Increasingly looks like Sunak’s team properly hates him. Or has never met even faintly adversarial photographers and journalists before.
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“People like you are the reason your generation is so entitled” nitter.app/forexposure_txt/status…
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Unconfirmed reports suggest this will be done by putting more water into sea at Dover so route from France is uphill all the way.
The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has appointed former National Crime Agency executive Dan O'Mahoney as the UK's Clandestine Channel Threat Commander. He will work to make the Channel route 'unviable' for small boat crossings.
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Carrie upstairs in No.10 desperately steaming the gold wallpaper off and rolling it up to keep
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That’s because they’re prescribed to block *precocious* puberty so it can occur normally at a normal age, and the incredibly complex hormonal dance of the body’s own sex can go ahead.
They’re not used on “cis kids” to block it at the normal age. You’re comparing unalike things
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I’m on the other side of this argument. If a cheek swab is invasive, what about dope testing? Why are XY DSDs hugely overrepresented in female sports? Is the row that emerged over Semenya et al a better way to handle this than earlier testing? How do you delineate women’s sports?
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“We want to see green energy being produced, but not now and for god’s sake not here in this rather bleak field with no obvious value which its owner was happy to give over to solar panels but which we have overruled because NIMBY.”
🚨 BREAKING - WEST BURTON 4 SOLAR PROPOSALS DROPPED!
 I am delighted that the beautiful surroundings between Clayworth and Gringley will now be staying beautiful. 1/4 @WGUNews @LincsLive @nottslive @Daily_Express
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They're jumping over the brow of a beach. They'll land on the sand at the level from which the photographer is taking the picture. Very common picture format. Here's one I did years ago.
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"Endless venom"? Have you seen some of the stuff aimed at Rowling? You want to see venom, try that.
And don’t you think people can distinguish one issue from another? Graham Linehan campaigned for abortion in Ireland in 2015. You’re conflating issues which others don’t.
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1) do you have any idea of how many laws and regulations there are around motor vehicles?
2) motor vehicles' primary purpose is to carry people and objects, not to harm people and objects
3) hardly any deaths by cars are intentional. Cf guns.
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I am SO SICK of BBC vox pops asking Leave voters who have never organised anything more complex than a mortgage what they think of taking a country out of millions of supply chains and international treaties.
And one on now isn’t even satisfied. “They lie.”
Pointless, stupid.
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2004 music industry: "stop taking music for free!"
Internet: "haha!"
2014 music industry: "have this music for free!"
Internet: "nooo!"
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Not sure precisely who that was aimed at, but Walsh's point was that women are the group who, as a group, have the capability to become pregnant. Infertility in a woman doesn't make her not a woman. Just as being born with one leg, or losing a leg, doesn't make you not human.
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I just published “Charlie Gard: facts, medicine, and right-wing fictions” medium.com/p/charlie-gard-fa…
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If the story about insect dieoff didn’t worry you very deeply, then you should listen to people - scientists - whom it did. And then realise that criticising children who are concerned about the biggest threat to our and their way of life is irredeemably foolish and shortsighted.
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Who funds the IEA, Kate? Where can we find a list of donors? Why don’t you disclose funding sources for reports?
If you’re not a lobbying group, but an educational charity, could you explain what outreach you do to schools and universities?
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Not sure who it is at SciAm who hasn’t had the memo and keeps pushing this, but sex in humans is, yes, binary. DSDs (differences in sexual development), as here, don’t change that; they just show that going from fertilised egg to embryo to newborn to adult is really complex.
In the second episode of our documentary series "A Question of Sex," we look at how people with sex variations are challenging longstanding notions of the sex binary in medicine. 🧵 (1/7)
📽️ @meg3mcd
scientificamerican.com/artic…
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When you’re a coder, you code things to happen automatically so you don’t have to do them again and again manually.
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"Live your life as you choose" is an excellent philosophy, but crashes into biological reality in female sports, and female prisons, where it's not just "as you choose". Those expose the contradictions in *your* beliefs, I think.
Unless you think females should be ignored.
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Lots of misconceptions have grown up around them. They “pause” precocious puberty - but that doesn’t mean they’re a pause button for normal puberty, because delaying that for years means missing vital bone growth that might not catch up. The idea they’re safe off-label is false.
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This is wonderful and amazing. Builds and builds.
'I don't care what your understanding is - I deal in the facts!'
James O'Brien educates caller who falsely claims refugees will be able to return to Britain if their asylum applications are approved in Rwanda.
@mrjamesob
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If you don’t know who Omar is, why are you saying that Lammy’s tweet is bad taste? I can’t follow how you’d say “I’ve no idea what this is a reference to, but it’s in terrible taste!”
I’m not trying to preen. I’m trying to find out what our shared knowledge is.
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nobody captured it. It’s AI-generated. Look at how the rightmost chick doesn’t actually have a head. Inconsistent number of claws on feet. Inconsistent number of feet. Inconsistent feet. Surface of "tree" has grain running in wrong way. If it looks too good to be true..
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It's not very cave-y though is it. "We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people" is the only part of the whole thing that even vaguely addresses the topic. Might not have been the intention but was certainly the effect. Have these people not met the internet?
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Totally nonplussed why a universities union thinks a review (it's not a "report") based on six peer-reviewed systematic reviews is something it should have a position on. Do they have a position on HMWNA injections for arthritis too? Knee meniscus surgery? Where's the line?
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No longer says "Most scientists now reject the idea that sex is strictly binary."
Says: "While sex has traditionally been viewed as binary, many experts now believe it is more complex and goes beyond a strict two-category system."
I told the Readers Editor it’s still wrong.
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The extremist mind works differently from yours or mine. Fascinating insight via (non-extremist) @iyad_elbaghdadi
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Every adjective you chose to put in your original tweet was intended to be offensive or insulting or demeaning. Be honest with yourself, even if not with us. Try to raise the quality of discourse, rather than lowering it.
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Apple posts "answers to your questions" on That iPhone, Apple, the FBI, and whether it has unlocked in the past apple.com/customer-letter/an…
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“The airport bomber from last week you never heard about”. @shaunking on nail bomb attempt in North Carolina theintercept.com/2017/10/11/…
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It’s more subtle than that: I think Maitlis’s point is that if only 1 in 100 experts on a topic think X is good, putting that 1 pro-X up against 1 anti-X is false context.
As with climate change: if you need to scrabble for someone on the other side, maybe the other side’s wrong
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Follow the money; rely on sourcing; don’t trust spokespeoples’ denials. Your new ground rules (same as the old ones, but higher stakes.) nitter.app/SopanDeb/status/800889…
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Monday: iPads updates
Tuesday: iMacs updates
Wednesday: Airpods update: better sync, wireless charging case, longer talk time. Same price.
Thursday: AirPo…w….e…r…..?
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To check whether this is true, I tried. It spots previously-used email addresses, even if you use a different postcode and name. Sorry, @juliahb1, they thought of this. Nice to know you want to revoke A50, though.
Oh, this is going to be a fun afternoon. You can sign any name you want to the Revoke Article 50 petition and use the same email address repeatedly. Let the games begin! #RemoanerMcRemoanface
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Leaving aside your claim (not proven) on Khelif's sex, the point throughout has been that female sport is for biological females (or those without male advantage). "Gender" has nothing to do with it. Three trans men competed in OG female sport. Nobody cared.
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At the same time it’s the perfect Silicon Valley metaphor/example: a highly technological solution requiring huge investment, which turned up too late and was anyway redundant because human flexibility could do the job better and cheaper and sooner.
I think it's nice that Elon Musk tried to help with the Thai cave rescue, even if his little submarine didn't wind up being used. Don't @ me
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Namecheck for @carolecadwalla Ted talk from Tim Berners-Lee in his Dimbleby lecture. (I’d recommend watching her talk.)
And now we get the head of MI6 asking a question. Blimey.
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Tis the season to analyse ‘It’s a Wonderful Life', and this is one of the best I've read: about the overlooked yet central character. thebulwark.com/there-is-no-m…
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Wow, Facebook *really* doesn’t like the idea of these people (who include an early-stage investor in Facebook, and someone who worked there and tried to get it to take election interference seriously) Having Public Opinions About Facebook.
Facebook is a weapon. A private company, controlled by one man, being used to undermine democracy. We urgently need to hold it to account. Before it’s too late.
Today we launch the Real Facebook Oversight Board @FBoversight to try & do just that. Join us
nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/f…
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no, just don’t expect Vitamin C to stop you getting a cold, or to shorten a cold. That’s all.
There are things you can eat and things you can do that will maintain your immune system at its natural level. But "boost"? Mm, don’t think so.
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There was a time when there weren’t “trends” and you just had to figure it out for yourself. But that’s not sufficient to get people scrolling and looking at ads.
Coverage of Portland is a perfect example of an information vacuum—a huge hole for reporting on a breaking event that gets filled with guesses by bad actors.
The top post on Twitter’s No. 1 trend is by a pro-Trump guy who’s never been to the US and constantly spreads disinfo.
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Beautifully put by @seatrout in this op-ed for the Boston Globe bostonglobe.com/ideas/2016/0… wish BBC had sought truth.
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Damon Jones
What could have contributed to Diana’s “paranoia”? Perhaps the stories appearing in tabloids that were hacking her, and friends’, phones.
Should we look forward to that judicial investigation?
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Strange world where £3.2bn *every year* isn’t worth picking up. Fuel duty rise next year? Adds about £5.7bn. Hardly worth doing! This isn’t really a credible argument, Matt, and if the PM’s wife is a beneficiary the unfairness really sticks out and gives Labour an easy attack.
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“Genuinely tough interviewers are rare on American TV, as are strong progressive voices; @mehdirHasan is both”. Really good profile of a tough Brit TV interviewer making waves on US TV by being, well, a tough Brit TV interviewer.
"Like, you could pay me a million dollars—I’m never going to interview Marjorie Taylor Greene. Why? What would be the point?"
cjr.org/special_report/mehdi…
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Worth keeping tabs on this topic: the stone has been unturned by Johnson’s testimony to the Liaison Committee, and there are lots of worms underneath.
Yvette Cooper absolutely rips into the government for covering up Boris Johnson’s security breach when Foreign Secretary.
This is serious. This kind of lax behaviour is very dangerous.
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I think she felt the need to get involved because she’s a biological woman, and there are some elements of proposed reforms that she thinks infringe her rights as such. So she spoke up.
As to why a man would attack (verbally) her - well, that’s sort of the point, isn’t it.
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Minor style point, Drew, but “child porn” really gives the wrong impression. It’s “child abuse imagery”, because it is abuse, and that’s the primary and overwhelming problem. “Pornography” can be consensual; that content never can be.
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The Swedish advertising watchdog is the one on the right, yeah?
Swedish advertising watchdog has ruled that the ‘distracted boyfriend’ meme is sexist - stereotyping men, and making women appear ‘interchangeable’. thelocal.se/20180925/distrac…
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I don’t think a single top-tier media outlet (this one apart) would think this is a story worth devoting time and resources to. Imagine the icy stares from the newsdesk as you pitch it.
So why does the BBC newsroom think this worth covering? Something has got wildly out of whack.
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This is amazing. Scary and awesome. nitter.app/Sandeepvarma787/status…
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Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I’ve learnt a great deal about T1D, US drug pricing, and more. This thread is quite an eye-opener. It’s enough to make one demand a national healthcare system free at the point of use and funded from taxation.
There's a serious misunderstanding of the details here.
1) Walmart insulin (Regular/NPH) does not work the same as prescription insulin (Humalog/Novolog). It cannot be used in insulin pumps and takes careful planning (like eating on a set schedule) to work well.
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Very true from @fotoole - Brexit is the UK’s reckoning with itself, not with Europe. theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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As I pointed out yesterday, this poll is from January, and it’s an online self-selecting poll. Anyone who would retweet this clearly doesn’t understand statistics, and possibly doesn’t know how time works.
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Powerful thread with a single message
1. I've never had a hard time sleeping. But the past three nights I have slept a total of 3 hours. I'm writing this so I can sleep.
I am very angry. And I've realized during that having the space to be angry is a privilege because many people are too busy being terrified.
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in the name of all sanity, Laura, let No.10 tell the story. They have a Twitter account, they have web pages, they have all the apparatus they need. You’re not their conduit, they do not pay you, it is not your job to do this.
You’re the BBC Political Editor. Get the truth.
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Oh, nothing much, just @bellingcat with a database of names, passport and mobile phone numbers for 305 of Russia’s GRU staffers. As they say, if valid, it’s “one of the largest mass breaches of personal data of an intelligence service”. bellingcat.com/news/2018/10/…
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