October 13, 2020

Facebook blocks Lebowski quote search engine by mistake

Filed under: Film,IT,Online by Orangemaster @ 3:05 pm

According to British-Canadian journalist and author Cory Doctorow on Twitter, Dutch digital rights activist Hans De Zwart, who used to head up digital rights organisation Bits of freedom in Amsterdam, created the search engine thebiglebow.ski that generates fun quotes from 1998 American cult classic ‘The Big Lebowski’.

Right from the start, the site had the rug pulled out from under it, as it was blocked by Facebook (and Instagram) with the message “Your message couldn’t be sent because it includes content that other people on Facebook have reported as abusive.” De Zwart wanted to complain to Facebook, but without a Facebook account, he couldn’t. As a digital rights activist, he doesn’t use social media, but he joined Facebook just to be able to file a complaint. He was also annoyed at the fact that he couldn’t spell his Dutch last name correctly, de Zwart with a lower case d. He was basically told ‘thanks for the feedback’, which is big tech speak for f*** you.

About a month later, De Zwart bought a five euro Facebook advert in order to be able to communicate with the tech giant. His advert was rejected with “This ad contains or refers to content that has been blocked by our security systems (#1885260)”. This error code means nothing to mortals, so he tried to complain. First, he had to agree to “four sets of legal terms”, after which he was told “Thanks for helping us improve!” He was down five euro and still didn’t have an answer. “It appears that Facebook will only look at problems if they realise that it might cost them too much political or media capital if they continue to ignore them”, he explained.

A few days after the author of the article below presented the case to a Facebook PR person, the problem was magically solved. Nobody had reported thebiglebow.ski for abusive material: it had simply been incorrectly labelled by Facebook’s automated tools as spam.

Now either watch the movie if you have not seen it and pour yourself a White Russian when you do, if that’s your thing.

(Link: medium.com, image thebiglebow.ski)

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November 5, 2016

Food bank snubs the poor over Facebook like

Filed under: Food & Drink,Online by Orangemaster @ 7:41 pm
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A food bank in Noordoostpolder, Flevoland has decided to refuse three clients access after they liked the competition on Facebook.

One of the clients who was cut off said the fruit and vegetables she got from her regular food bank are passed the expiration date to the point of starting to rot. She looked around online for other food options and decided to like the competition. Then she found out what she could do to maybe change food banks. While all that was happening, she went back down to her regular food bank, but instead of food, they handed her an envelop with a stern letter and told her to get out.

The competitor, who feeds people who earn too much to get food from the food bank but are in need of food, claims to have too many people to care for and tried to get food from the food bank for the woman in question, but was unsuccessful. The food bank refused to accept that they gave out bad food and then said they don’t want any bad publicity from people getting sick. Oh, and they were pissed about her liking the competition.

The competitor has decided to help that one client who was cut off after all. “If people are ruthlessly turned away, then they need to be helped. You can’t just let people starve”.

And that’s the state of affairs in a small village in Flevoland these days, pettiness at its best. Liking the competition came in handy after all.

(Link: www.destentor.nl)

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March 31, 2016

KLM passengers can check in using Facebook Messenger

Filed under: Aviation,Dutch first,Online by Orangemaster @ 6:00 am

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As of March 30 KLM has been letting its passengers check in online using Facebook Messenger. Passengers can get their boarding cards and flight information as well as ask KLM any questions they may have directly instead of having to use Twitter or post their story on KLM’s Facebook page for all to read. A boarding pass that used to have to be sent per e-mail or text message can now be sent by Messenger.

Although a world premiere in aviation, we’re calling this a Dutch first because car service Uber was the first company to use Messenger. You can now order an Uber as you land at Schiphol if you wanted to. In the future, other companies will follow suit as well, according to Facebook. KLM is also talking to WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, to extend their services.

(Link: www.nu.nl, Photo: Steven Straiton, some rights reserved)

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January 9, 2015

2014 a record year for Dutch organ donation

Filed under: Science by Orangemaster @ 3:45 pm

Last year was a record year for the number of organ donations from the deceased in the Netherlands, according to the Dutch Transplantation Foundation. The count was 271 people, 11 percent more than in 2013. The number of people who donated part of their liver or a kidney for transplantation while alive was 533 in 2014 as compared to 522 in 2013. Since 2007 the number of donors has risen by 20 percent.

Over the past year, organ donation has made headlines a few times, particularly in 2007 when hoax reality television show
The Big Donor Show fooled people around the world into believing that a terminally ill woman was prepared to donate a kidney to one of 25 people who needed one. Although shocking to many, the goal to achieve greater awareness about the urgent need for organ donors obviously had some effect, as did, I’m sure, many other regular campaigns.

Recently, a man from Almere with kidney disease found a kidney donor after an appeal on Facebook about a year ago. The transplantation apparently has a 90% chance of succeeding.

(Link: nos.nl)

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November 20, 2014

Comedian’s failed photo gag about black boy going viral

Filed under: Photography by Orangemaster @ 10:58 am

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Dutch comedian Guido Weijers stirred the pot on Facebook recently by placing the photo of a small boy advertising bear and ape cuddly toys for Zeeman (bargain items chain), with the ape cropped out and the words “ape or bear” left in.

By cropping out the ape Weijers tried to make a joke about why such a photo hadn’t been addressed in the Zwarte Piet discussion, comparing the boy to an ape. His joke fell flat and he spent some time writing apologies. He’s managed to piss off Zeeman (surely), the casting agency (probably), the mother (absolutely), and anyone including the Dutch courts who think Zwarte Piet is a relic.

When the boy’s mother saw the cropped version of the picture, she said it felt like her heart stopped and asked Weijers to remove the joke, which he refused to do. On a Dutch news show, she calmly explained that her son is in a very nice advert (his first photo shoot), and an adult has created an image of her son as an ape. “He’s five years old, he can’t defend himself and he’s proud to be in that picture,” she said clearly relaying her emotions.

Weijers apologised in a letter to the mother, saying he had no idea the joke would go that far, which is very lame considering he posted it online. The mother is considering pressing charges against Weijers.

(Link: www.parool.nl, Photo: Zeeman)

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October 5, 2014

Con artist leaves Facebook page open; arrest follows swiftly

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 10:28 am

town-hall-haarlem-jan-kunstA man and a woman from Haarlem were arrested last Tuesday on suspicion of theft after the man had left his Facebook page open on the victim’s computer.

The pair had ‘befriended’ the victim earlier when the latter was walking his dog, Haarlems Dagblad writes. They rang his door, asked if the woman could use the facilities, and while the man suggested he would log in to Facebook to ‘friend’ the victim, the woman stole the victim’s wallet.

The two then stole a bike from the apartment building to make tracks.

(Photo of Haarlem city hall by J. Kunst, some rights reserved)

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June 29, 2014

Surfbook patent struck down in US court

Filed under: Technology by Branko Collin @ 11:21 am

mark-zuckerberg-elaine-and-priscilla-chanEarlier this year Facebook was sued by American patent trolls Rembrandt IP, allegedly representing the deceased Jos van der Meer.

Van der Meer’s heirs claim that the Dutchman invented the concept of Facebook in 2001, calling it Surfbook. The Register reports that an American jury disagreed in no uncertain terms: “the Eastern District of Virginia jury decided that the patents were “shabby” and shouldn’t have been granted”.

In 2001, a full two years before Facebook was founded, Van der Meer had patented things like keeping a personal diary on the web. Damning evidence indeed if you squint your eyes for a moment and forget that Geocities was founded in 1994 and the word ‘weblog’ was coined in 1997.

On its website Rembrandt IP writes: “[our company] undertakes a rigorous diligence process to investigate all intellectual property it considers for enforcement actions. […] Due to the high level of internal resources needed to complete this in-depth process, we are very selective when determining which opportunities to consider.”

Did their process fail them this time around or did Rembrandt IP expect to lose? Given that they started a lawsuit in January against another tech giant, Apple (PDF), a reasonable person would probably forgive me for thinking that they start these cases for the publicity it generates. (I am not sure how effective a strategy it is to lose your cases).

See also:

(Photo of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg by Elaine and Priscilla Chan, some rights reserved)

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June 15, 2014

Silly dilemmas on Tuesdays

Filed under: Comics,Weird by Branko Collin @ 12:16 pm

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There is this Facebook poll that proposes a silly dilemma each week for you to choose from. It’s called Dilemma op Dinsdag (Dilemma on Tuesday) and it seems to be a minor hit in that I see their dilemmas shared regularly.

The dilemma shown here: you either must read a Harlequin romance novel each week or change all your user names and e-mail addresses to wienerboy69 for the rest of your life. (The cartoon shows a business card for a government spokesperson called Jasper Jansen).

Some of the dilemmas of past Tuesdays were:

  • Nobody ever laughs about your jokes or you have to laugh every time somebody cries.
  • You have 100 almost identical keys on your key chain or you always give the third kiss on the mouth when greeting someone.
  • You never eat warm meals or everything you read, you read out loud.
  • Your clothes disappear once a month or you always have the hiccups when you wake up.

Dilemma op Dinsdag is made, it appears, by “some individuals from Utrecht and Amsterdam”, but the cartoons are drawn by Marloes Toonen.

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June 12, 2014

Facebook on trial for infringing Dutch patent

Filed under: Online by Orangemaster @ 10:58 am

More than a decade ago, Dutch computer programmer Jos van der Meer originally thought up and eventually patented his Surfbook site in 2001 and 2002 before Facebook launched it site in 2003. Surfbook let users share their information with selected people, approve posts using a ‘like’ button and link to external information. Van der Meer passed away in 2004 aged 44, but in Feburary 2013 the patent holders, Rembrandt Social Media run by his elder brother Wil van der Meer, filed a lawsuit against Facebook for infringement just as the latter hit the stock market. Van der Meer said that it is about recognition, not about the money.

Although Facebook usually swats its opponents out of the way like flies, this case has made it all the way to a federal jury trial in the US, which is extremely rare. And even though Rembrandt Social Media can prove it was first, Facebook can claim that the market was going that way anyways and swat another fly. If RSM were to win its case, it would probably be paid money for damages and the Dutch could lay claim to Facebook down the pub.

US sources read as if RSM is just a patent troll trying to make money off the Van der Meer family and that Facebook is so big it does whatever it wants anyways.

(Links: phys.org, www.nrc.nl)

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January 8, 2014

New Internet meme pokes fun at Dutchiness

Filed under: Online by Orangemaster @ 10:52 am

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Following in the footsteps of ‘Dudes be like’ and a lot of other similar memes, ‘Tattas be like’ is the newest Dutch meme to poke fun at typical Dutch values. The guy who started the thing off is of mixed Surinamese and Caucasian background, which explains his use of the word ‘tattas’, Surinamese slang for ‘typically white Dutch folk’ and not breasts like many would think. More digging would suggest that ‘tatta’ refers to ‘patata’ (‘potatoe’), something many Dutch people think is theirs, although potatoes come from South America and were introduced to Europe through Spain.

The creator explains that after serious discussions about racism these past months, he felt people needed something light-hearted. The new meme is successful because of how easily recognisable the situations are at least if you’re Dutch, live in the Netherlands or have some understanding of Dutch culture. The pic above refers to the Elfstendentocht fever that takes over the news the moment ice starts forming on the canals.

I chuckled at this one below because it depicts a typical Dutch birthday party. Family and friends sit in a circle, whether it’s favourable or not to having conversations, and eat cake and drink coffee until told to leave. ‘Fissa’ is slang for ‘feestje’ (party), which this isn’t — it’s a dreaded obligation. It also depicts the idea of ‘gezelligheid’ (roughly, ‘having fun’) that is forced upon people who then collectively must pretend it’s fun because it’s a birthday party.

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(Link: motherboard.vice.com)

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