Sir Keir Starmer? I'm not a fan, I never have been.In December 2020, long before anyone actually thought he might actually become Prime Minister I wrote "He may be more electable than Jeremy Corbyn, but he is as inspiring as a bowl of slightly rancid haddock. I've no idea what he believes in. Like all Non Tories, I've enjoyed watching him monstering Boris at the Despatch box, but I want to see a politician that has passion and believes in helping those at the bottom of the ladder. Starmer has not convinced me that this is his mission."
I thought I'd just put that out there before saying what I've got to say. Starmer isn't great. I doubt he'll be lead Labour into the next election (deservedly so). I think he has no political judgement, is weak and is indugent of dodgy friends. He is part of a strand of the Labour party that completely alienated me. However, when I look at social media, I am completely knocked sideways by some of the bile and hatred towards him. I get that people dislike politicians, especially those that are high profile and not "on your side", but the anti Starmer rhetoric is quite bizarre. It is fair to say that Boris Johnson endured a similar amount of bile in the last six months of his time as PM. Given Boris's nature, it was unsurprising as he is a big personality, who provokes strong reactions. I myself stepped into the cesspit of slagging Boris off, with a little ditty about him. It is odd listening back to it, I clearly felt a lot more strongly about him then.
But with Starmer, I have noticed something different. With Boris Johnson, it was very much an organic movement, as his misdemeanours and shortcomings became more pronounced. With Starmer, I see all manner of strange and wonderful stuff on social media. With Boris, it was largely my contacts etc.With anti Starmer rhetoric, I am seeing posts from all manner of people I've never heard of. Anothe feature is that friends, who Facebook never normally puts on my timeline (rather annoyingly) have suddenly started popping up left, right and centre. When I click through to their feeds, they might have one post slagging Starmer off and 20 about other things, most of which I find more interesting (I don't need convincing about Starmer). To me, it is clear that I am being force fed a diet of anti Starmer rhetoric, in a way I've never noticed previously for anyone else.
To be honest, this has puzzled me, as I don't engage with it. Not because I like Starmer, the opposite. I am sick of him and don't want reminding of him. If you like and engage posts, you get more of them. So why? Well I think we got a clue yesterday. Starmer launched his crackdown on kids using Social Media. Could it be that the tech companies have been deliberately tweaking their algorythms to feed us a diet of anti Starmer rhetoric, because he threatens their profits? With the advent of AI, it has become far easier for the platforms to control what we see and what we don't see. The PR response from the tech companies to Starmer's proposed ban is clear and unequivocable. They don't like government restrictions. I do however wonder if there has been a black ops mission against Starmer being run for some time by these companies?
Social media companies make billions from advertising all manner of dodgy products and pushing them down our throats. Are they also pushing political viewpoints in a rather underhand manner? Next time you go onto Facebook or X.COM, have a look at what they are pushing towards you and then look at some of the feeds. See what else they are posting and see what the platform decided you should see. Whether or not you hate or love Starmer or anyone else, I think we all should be worried that tech billionaires have the power to manipulate their platform to shape social media opinions.
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