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> I wonder why nobody else is willing to do this? Because it makes you look like a fool. Doesn’t mean it won’t work though. Bojo apparently targetting the segm

by rusk 7y ago

> I wonder why nobody else is willing to do this? Because it makes you look like a fool. Doesn’t mean it won’t work though. Bojo apparently targetting the segment for whom this kind thing goes over their heads

Rainymood 7y ago
Then I'd argue that we are the greater fools for letting this happen without any consequences. Personally I think this is a genius move by Bojo and something that should be applauded by hackers (this is Hacker News after all). It literally hacks the system, and I think it's beautiful.
- croon 7y ago
  It's genius in the same way as crawling over websites looking for a 90s relic to inject "DROP TABLE IF EXISTS x;". Personally I don't deem anything genius simply on the merit that "it works".
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Then I'd argue that we are the greater fools for letting this happen without any consequences. Letting what exactly happen? Him using a phrase that might or might not have been intended to make a previous story fall in search results? As if the original story about the model could not still be in the front pages of newspapers and websites, and so on? That's not even half an accusation... The public voted for something specific and 3 years down the road it has not happened or been scheduled properly. That should be the bigger democratic scandal (in the real sense of the people's will being followed) than "the PM used a SEO phrase..."....
  - m-i-l 7y ago
    "The public voted for something specific and 3 years down the road it has not happened or been scheduled properly. That should be the bigger democratic scandal" The public did not vote for something specific - they voted for something very vague and ill defined, the little information they were provided was incorrect (e.g. "an extra £350m a week for the NHS"), nobody had anything even approaching a plan, the whole thing was a shambolic amateur affair, and that's one of the reasons it has taken so long and cost so much to get nowhere. The only vaguely professional part was the manipulation of the small majority via social media (Cambridge Analytica etc.) That is the bigger democratic scandal - the fact that we can no longer have nice things like democracy thanks to the abuse of technology by arrogant thugs from expensive schools, which is the original point of the parent.
    - scarygliders 7y ago
      > they voted for something very vague and ill defined Utter tosh. The consequences of a Leave vote were hammered out by Remain-supporting politicians for weeks and weeks before the referendum. The government spent 9 million GBP to publish a leaflet in support of Remain which went to every household in the UK, before the referendum. Claiming that no one knew what a Leave vote meant, is gaslighting in the extreme.
      - m-i-l 7y ago
        "The consequences of a Leave vote were hammered out by Remain-supporting politicians for weeks and weeks before the referendum. The government spent 9 million GBP to publish a leaflet in support of Remain which went to every household in the UK, before the referendum. Claiming that no one knew what a Leave vote meant, is gaslighting in the extreme." You've talked about the Remain side, not the Leave side. The "no change" side doesn't need to provide a plan for how they would execute "no change" - it is the "everything changes" side that needs to define how they would change everything. My point was that the Leave side had nothing, just some vague largely unwritten appeals to emotion. Contrast with, e.g. the Scottish Referendum, when the "Yes" ("everything changes") side had a several hundred page document detailing all the steps that would be taken should they have won. You might agree or disagree with one side or the other, but having a plan gives people more opportunity to make an informed decision, and give people a reasonable degree of confidence that it could be executed relatively smoothly by people who knew roughly what they were doing, rather than have a process dragging on for years and years costing tens of billions with the people responsible still as clueless as they were at the start. If you fail to plan then plan to fail.
      - VBprogrammer 7y ago
        So what you are telling us is that the leave side knew what they were voting for because they saw through the lies from the leave side which said that everything the remain side was saying was "project fear". Do you honestly think you can claim that is democracy working as intended?
        7y ago
afarrell 7y ago
Because empirically, it doesn't work. The front page of google for [Boris Johnson bus] has stories about: - The failure of a busmaker - The brexit bus advert - The suspicion that his 'model bus' answer was this ploy.
- sorokod 7y ago
  It is likely that Google is surfacing the matches it empirically considers more relevant to you.
  - meowface 7y ago
    Possibly, but it's also a timeliness thing. This stuff has a window of opportunity: for like a week after the interview, it'll successfully game the results, but after that they may be crowded out by the reporting on the gaming itself. If he's trying to spike negative results for just a certain period of time, it's quite an effective tactic. News cycles quickly, so even if each instance is eventually caught, it may successfully push down recent news / current events until they're no longer current, which may result in millions of people missing the reporting.
    - sorokod 7y ago
      All this is possible and maybe even probable but not knowing how Google determines relevancy, makes it impossible to reason about.
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
  I've just realised that another example of this was his momentary diversion on building a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland. This reeks of an attempt to divert attention from his failed garden bridge project as London Major. Googling "boris johnson bridge" is filled with articles about he former for me at least. The thing is, it doesn't have to be completely successful for it to be worth his while doing. It probably serves multiple purposes, like changing the current news cycle.
  - 7y ago
Crosseye_Jack 7y ago
It would be funny to play him at his own game. Get say “Boris Johnson Feline” into Google Trends and then watch how he mangles it into his speech.

by rusk 7y ago

Rainymood 7y ago

Then I'd argue that we are the greater fools for letting this happen without any consequences. Personally I think this is a genius move by Bojo and something that should be applauded by hackers (this is Hacker News after all). It literally hacks the system, and I think it's beautiful.

croon 7y ago
It's genius in the same way as crawling over websites looking for a 90s relic to inject "DROP TABLE IF EXISTS x;". Personally I don't deem anything genius simply on the merit that "it works".
coldtea 7y ago
>Then I'd argue that we are the greater fools for letting this happen without any consequences. Letting what exactly happen? Him using a phrase that might or might not have been intended to make a previous story fall in search results? As if the original story about the model could not still be in the front pages of newspapers and websites, and so on? That's not even half an accusation... The public voted for something specific and 3 years down the road it has not happened or been scheduled properly. That should be the bigger democratic scandal (in the real sense of the people's will being followed) than "the PM used a SEO phrase..."....
- m-i-l 7y ago
  "The public voted for something specific and 3 years down the road it has not happened or been scheduled properly. That should be the bigger democratic scandal" The public did not vote for something specific - they voted for something very vague and ill defined, the little information they were provided was incorrect (e.g. "an extra £350m a week for the NHS"), nobody had anything even approaching a plan, the whole thing was a shambolic amateur affair, and that's one of the reasons it has taken so long and cost so much to get nowhere. The only vaguely professional part was the manipulation of the small majority via social media (Cambridge Analytica etc.) That is the bigger democratic scandal - the fact that we can no longer have nice things like democracy thanks to the abuse of technology by arrogant thugs from expensive schools, which is the original point of the parent.
  - scarygliders 7y ago
    > they voted for something very vague and ill defined Utter tosh. The consequences of a Leave vote were hammered out by Remain-supporting politicians for weeks and weeks before the referendum. The government spent 9 million GBP to publish a leaflet in support of Remain which went to every household in the UK, before the referendum. Claiming that no one knew what a Leave vote meant, is gaslighting in the extreme.
    - m-i-l 7y ago
      "The consequences of a Leave vote were hammered out by Remain-supporting politicians for weeks and weeks before the referendum. The government spent 9 million GBP to publish a leaflet in support of Remain which went to every household in the UK, before the referendum. Claiming that no one knew what a Leave vote meant, is gaslighting in the extreme." You've talked about the Remain side, not the Leave side. The "no change" side doesn't need to provide a plan for how they would execute "no change" - it is the "everything changes" side that needs to define how they would change everything. My point was that the Leave side had nothing, just some vague largely unwritten appeals to emotion. Contrast with, e.g. the Scottish Referendum, when the "Yes" ("everything changes") side had a several hundred page document detailing all the steps that would be taken should they have won. You might agree or disagree with one side or the other, but having a plan gives people more opportunity to make an informed decision, and give people a reasonable degree of confidence that it could be executed relatively smoothly by people who knew roughly what they were doing, rather than have a process dragging on for years and years costing tens of billions with the people responsible still as clueless as they were at the start. If you fail to plan then plan to fail.
    - VBprogrammer 7y ago
      So what you are telling us is that the leave side knew what they were voting for because they saw through the lies from the leave side which said that everything the remain side was saying was "project fear". Do you honestly think you can claim that is democracy working as intended?
      - 7y ago

afarrell 7y ago

Because empirically, it doesn't work. The front page of google for [Boris Johnson bus] has stories about: - The failure of a busmaker - The brexit bus advert - The suspicion that his 'model bus' answer was this ploy.

sorokod 7y ago
It is likely that Google is surfacing the matches it empirically considers more relevant to you.
- meowface 7y ago
  Possibly, but it's also a timeliness thing. This stuff has a window of opportunity: for like a week after the interview, it'll successfully game the results, but after that they may be crowded out by the reporting on the gaming itself. If he's trying to spike negative results for just a certain period of time, it's quite an effective tactic. News cycles quickly, so even if each instance is eventually caught, it may successfully push down recent news / current events until they're no longer current, which may result in millions of people missing the reporting.
  - sorokod 7y ago
    All this is possible and maybe even probable but not knowing how Google determines relevancy, makes it impossible to reason about.
VBprogrammer 7y ago
I've just realised that another example of this was his momentary diversion on building a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland. This reeks of an attempt to divert attention from his failed garden bridge project as London Major. Googling "boris johnson bridge" is filled with articles about he former for me at least. The thing is, it doesn't have to be completely successful for it to be worth his while doing. It probably serves multiple purposes, like changing the current news cycle.
- 7y ago

Crosseye_Jack 7y ago

It would be funny to play him at his own game. Get say “Boris Johnson Feline” into Google Trends and then watch how he mangles it into his speech.