Akash Mapara 🦕

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[Daniel Cuthbert @dcuthbert]

The state of UK mobile networks and data is abysmal. No matter where I travel, mobile data is usable except here in the UK. Even in central london, I get 1 or 2 bars with little throughput.

It's painful.

[Akash Mapara 🦕 @AkashMapara]

@rionabuthello Have you sent an email about this one?! I haven't seen it!!

[𝐋𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝 @Be_like_legend]

As someone who has dealt with OCD since childhood (undiagnosed until 20's), I just learned about Optimization OCD.

Which is like "I need to shower.
But if I'm going to shower, I need to work out first.
But if I'm going to work out, I need to eat first.
But if I'm going to eat, I need to clean the kitchen first.
But if I'm going to clean the kitchen I need to start a load of laundry so it's done by the time I shower."

My brain does this FOR EVERYTHING.
I always assumed it was just part of ADHD.

[Tennis Legend @TennisLegende]

Il me met un ace à 228. J’étais là : Fuck, je fais devoir servir.

- Pas le mot en F s’il te plaît.

- Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

- Nos excuses pour le langage. Corentin, je vais te poser une dernière question, s’il te plaît, reste poli […]

- Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

[Chris Fawcett @chrisgambler247]

Polymarket about to hit $2.5bn traded on the World Cup winner. Betfair exchange only approaching £12m.

[Jake @jakonian]

NEW: Keir Starmer confirms that Pinterest will be included in the under-16s social media ban.

"Kids don't need ideas" he said, while spinning in a chair and stroking a white cat.

[Alex 🇵🇸🇱🇧 @foleywoley]

Beautiful demonstration of how the proscription is designed primarily to police discourse and criticism of the government. Thanks, Mike.

[l feII in Dior @LIRIO_AG]

“Ay no, tarjeta gris otra vez”.

[Akash Mapara 🦕 @AkashMapara]

@TeamPokerFlops @WSOP Why tf did he call?! That's one of the worst calls I've seen in my life 😂😂

[Cambridge University @Cambridge_Uni]

The UK government has announced plans to introduce a social media ban for under-16s by spring 2027.

Professor @Sander_vdLinden shares his reaction to today's news, and measures it against the evidence we already have about social media restrictions.

Learn more about his proposal for social media passports 👉 https://t.co/jqdggjan0E

Professor Sander van der Linden is the Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Laboratory and a Professorial Fellow of @ChurchillCol.

#SocialMediaBan #SocialMedia

[Chris Heatherly @chrisheatherly]

I’m actually a child online safety expert and was one of the pioneers in this space with Club Penguin and so I feel uniquely positioned to critique this.

The groomer problem is real but it’s also vastly overstated. The far larger issue we saw at Penguin was suicidality or reports of sexual abuse in the home.

There is no solution for lazy/bad parenting. You can implement all the ID laws you want but if parents are going to just hand kids their phones unlocked, those kids will have access to all the same things the parents have unfettered.

What I found is that these draconian safety laws actually make it harder to be an honest operator of kids apps because on one hand it’s so much legal risk and so much user friction that it simply becomes uninvestible as a business.

Parents will just lie to let their kids use the unfettered internet. For example, I have a friend who works in mobile gaming who has two kids, one above and one below the age limit but separated by just 2 yrs, and the two wanted to play and chat together on Roblox - which is reasonable. To do this, he just verified that his younger kid is old enough for the chat feature when he’s not.

This happens all the time and will happen with these laws to. How far do we want to go with this? Scan the face of the user in real-time to make sure it’s not a kid using the device? We could do that but it feels like a massive unwanted intrusion of privacy.

That’s how you know this law isn’t about kids. COPPA and GDPR-K and so forth already make it illegal to allow chat and other grooming vectors to kids.

What’s really being done here is trying to eliminate online anonymity. And this is a far bigger issue that goes to core speech rights because if you cannot criticize the govt anonymously and if wrong speech is a crime then it becomes easy to identify all the detractors of the govt in power, and ban, fine or jail them for speech crimes.

Starmer has already been doing this and he wants to do it at a much bigger scale. Starmer won’t even acknowledge the problem of actual grooming gangs in Britain’s neighborhoods but he’s worried about online grooming?

No he’s not, and this hypocrisy gives away the game. What he wants is to kill online anonymity so he can enforce censorship of his unpopular policies. No politician should have this power.

[Save the Children UK @savechildrenuk]

This announcement reflects legitimate concerns about children's safety online, but a ban of this scale would change how children access and experience the digital world. The UK Government must ensure that any decisions are informed by children themselves and by independent experts.

We are concerned that a blanket ban may look protective on paper, but instead pushes children into less regulated spaces, where they are less likely to seek help when something goes wrong. Children growing up in poverty are likely to be among those most affected.

If ministers want to make the online world safer, the answer is not simply keeping children off platforms. The focus must be on providing better support for parents by making platforms safer by design, tackling addictive and high-risk features such as stranger contact, live streaming, nudification tools and unsafe AI systems, so that children are not exposed to harm online.

[David Deutsch @DavidDeutschOxf]

And the chess videos, the maths videos, the science videos, the economics videos, the archaeology videos…?
Whether you are in class or not, you're not allowed a millimetre outside the syllabus.

If the syllabus were excellent, this would still be an abomination. But it isn't.

[Colin Millar @Millar_Colin]

Cape Verde centre back Roberto 'Pico' Lopes has spent his entire career in Ireland, ignored a LinkedIn message from Cape Verde FA asking him to play for them because it was in Portuguese. A year later, they sent it in English. He accepted. An all-time great World Cup story.

[Andy Ha @AndyHa_]

Footage of Japan fans taking litter out of a bag and leaving it all over the stadium at full time, whilst moonwalking around. Shocking scenes.

[Adrian Dittmann @AdrianDittmann]

This style of speech is called affective framing btw.

It’s what politicians use to sell you on the implementation of a piece of legislation you might take issue with, and it’s executed in 3 steps:

Emotional Priming
Cognitive Hijacking
Value Alignment

His speech uses all three.

[sim 🇧🇷🇲🇽🇸🇳🇫🇷🇭🇹 @simscircuit]

FRENCH FINAL LAP COMMENTARY. GOOSEBUMPS.

"The boy is a living legend of his sport. His aura radiates beyond the limits of our sport."

"The greatest names are always written in red."

"A first win for at Ferrari for a giant of Formula 1."

[Commentary by @Julien_FEBREAU | Video & English Subtitles by @bonotires]

[Scott Bryan @scottygb]

BBC: “What was your screen time?”

Student: “Nine hours.”

BBC: “You’re gong to have a lot more time to fill. What will you do?”

Student: “Stare at a wall.”

[Nick Volpe @nvolpewild]

Ivory Coast becomes the FIRST team in this World Cup to win whilst having LESS Bird species than their opposition! 😲