NEW The letter the BBC could send back to Trump A proposal for a reply to his $1bn claim By me. Enjoy. emptycity.substack.com/p/the-letter...

Good morning from #Aberdeen

It takes an obscene amount of hubris to lecture the BBC when you have The Telegraph’s record on truth-telling. Some of the paper’s errors this year are so bad they’re almost laughable 👇🏻

New #Substack post... open.substack.com/pub/theantho...

Everything on our news agenda is being driven by a corrupted disinformation machine, run by a billionaire who sponsors Tommy Robinson and who keeps trying to foment civil war in the UK. And incredibly our MPs & news providers stay there. THAT is the problem. Not some bad editing choice on the BBC.

Happy birthday, Meta-Wiki 🎉 If Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, Meta‑Wiki is where those editors meet to plan, discuss, and dream. Dive into Meta‑Wiki and see how global collaboration comes to life ➡️ w.wiki/37o

A majority of the days the government has ever been shut down, Donald Trump was president. www.howtoreadthisch.art/red-versus-b...

photos of Trump sleeping through yesterday's Oval Office event via Andrew Harnik of Getty

When deception’s more profitable than honesty, users lose. Internal documents suggest that Meta earns $3.5B(!) every 6 mo. from scam ads, revealing a deeper systemic problem: the economic incentive to tolerate “higher legal risk” content still outweighs any penalty. www.reuters.com/investigatio...

Thank you to @katysclark.bsky.social MSP for holding last night's roundtable at the Scottish Parliament on the FoI Reform (Scotland) Bill! The speeches and discussion provided a much needed opportunity to discuss the Bill's importance #FoISAReform25 #freedomofinformation #humanrights #scotland #foi

incredible photo that's definitely worth at least 1,000 words from Andrew Harnik of Getty

Today would have been the 111th birthday of my grandfather, Joe, who was a great influence on me growing up. As a youngster I used to believe that the 5th November fireworks were being set off for his birthday! #guyFawkes #fireworks #birthday

Samir Zitouni who works for LNER was the first person to try and stop the attack in Huntingdon. He is a hero spread his name far and wide, judge people on their actions not their names or immigration status.

Timeline cleanse! The @rijksmuseum.bsky.social has put out a banger of a voyage round Petronella Oortman's dollshouse. Not to be missed. www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/dollshouse

This Tuesday #Aberdeen ⏬️💥⏬️ Three great #datascience talks!

"I PITY THE FOOL who measures out his life in coffee spoons. I ain't gonna wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled, fool." Oh look. It's Mr T's Eliot.

Wikidata has been recognized as a digital public good by the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) 🎉 Learn how Wikidata, which houses over 1.6 billion facts, advances education, innovation, and public institutions ➡️ wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/10...

OK, who did this?!!! 🤣

Enten: "Trump is doing absolutely awful in the minds of the American people. We're talking about new lows. CNBC, -13 net approval on the economy. It's -19 among Quinnipiac ... He's not just beating himself with record lows -- this is the lowest for any president ever."

Tech billionaires are serving up ultra-processed culture, and we’re swallowing it whole. This isn’t innovation. It’s consumption disguised as creativity. Tom Haczewski reports

ICE is stockpiling arms, including chemical weapons, guided missile warheads and explosive components. The spending dwarfs anything we've ever seen in the agency - a 700% increase. The President is building an army to attack his own country.

the president has destroyed the east wing of the white house without so much as a word of input from anyone else to build a royal ballroom paid for with bribes

Interested in improving the world's largest free knowledge resource? Join us for the next Aberdeen Wiki Meetup! 📅 Mon, 27th Oct 2025 ⏰ 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM 📍 The Soap Factory, 111 Gallowgate AB25 1BU 🎟️ ti.to/code-the-cit... #Wikipedia #WikimediaUK #OpenKnowledge #DigitalSkills #CodeTheCity #Aberdeen

Join us for the AI Builders Full-Day Session on 25th Oct! This event will explore AI tools, develop projects, and provide networking opportunities for AI enthusiasts. Sat, 25th Oct 2025 10:30 - 16:00. The Soap Factory, AB25 1BU luma.com/zsyvpx6n #AIBuildersAberdeen #AIForGood #CodeTheCity

📊 Aberdeen Data Meetup: Lightning Talks! 📊 📅 Tuesday, 4th November 2025 ⏰ 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM 📍 The Soap Factory, 111 Gallowgate AB25 1BU 🎟️ ti.to/code-the-cit... Lightning Talks: Share Your Data Stories! #AberdeenDataMeetup #LightningTalks #DataCommunity #CodeTheCity #DataScience #TheSoapFactory

📣 Working Groups (WG) Update A month since our WG Info Event, we're making great progress! • All new volunteers are successfully onboarded • 2 WG kickoff meetings have taken place • 5 more meetings are scheduled • Quick wins identified across multiple workstreams Ge involved. DM us! #aberdeen

Watch this and take a second to think about the likelihood of anyone bothering to do the due diligence Drew describes. Facebook and Whatsapp groupchats are going to get VERY STRANGE (read: divorced from reality) very soon (and everywhere else too tbh)

Note that Ofcom is actively encouraging sites to geoblock UK users if they don't want to absorb the costs of implementing age assurance or other regulatory demands. Effectively, population-wide censorship – but it gets those sites off Ofcom's plate, no court order required. #openweb #techpolicy

If you could please do us a favour and RT (or whatever it is on here) my writing CV I would be extremely grateful. I am a very capable writer of words, mainly “humorous”’ and if you have some PROPER paid work for me, please DM me. Thank you for your time www.mathew-owen.co.uk

Closing today!

Our new episode of Spitting Image has dropped, in which Trump finds out he didn't bag the Nobel Peace Prize, and Kim Jong Un performs at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Enjoy! youtu.be/iERS42agaPg?...

🎉 Big #WIN for student privacy! 🔒 Austria’s DPA has issued a decision finding that #Microsoft 365 Education illegally tracks pupils and uses student data for Microsoft's own purposes. 📰 Read the full blog post, including a comment by Max #Schrems 👉 noyb.eu/en/noyb-win-...

“London hits 'historic' clean air milestone 184 years early…a 'truly remarkable turnaround for the city's air quality.” Quite a leadership achievement for @london.gov.uk’s government! While nations talk, (some) cities act. And get results.

This is why mandatory online age verification is bullshit.

Banner printed in Britian?

very interesting what is not allowed these days. in this case, basic archiving of real videos www.404media.co/apple-banned...

📊 Aberdeen Data Meetup - Join Us on the 7th October! 📊 📅 Tuesday, 7th Oct 2025 🕖 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM 📍 The Soap Factory, 111 Gallowgate, Aberdeen (online too) Discover Wikidata, its licensing, and use SPARQL with Python. 👉 Book now: ti.to/code-the-cit... Sign up for updates: bit.ly/ctc-news

This is on tonight in #Aberdeen. Still tickets available. There will be #pizza! And #beer! #wikidata #sparql #opendata #linkedopendata

Elderly parents living on a pension - also very proud so I signed them up for a bonus card with the nearest supermarket. Every few weeks I put money on it and then they get asked if they'd like to use their balance - they think it's from points they've collected.

Why is Starmer becoming more confident criticising Brexit? Because quietly, without any great drama, a consensus has been reached. It's a disaster inews.co.uk/opinion/brex...

Reform’s Russia connections are a danger to our national security. It’s time for a public inquiry.

“I would gently point out to Nigel Farage that before we left the EU we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU. He told the country it would make no difference if we left. He was wrong about that. These are Farage boats in many senses coming across the channel” 👏 PM Keir Starmer

Wikipedia editors have put together a guide on signs of AI writing: -Tone: vague attribution of opinion ("has been described as") -Style: the now infamous em dashes; excessive use of boldface -Communication intended for the user: "I hope this helps," "You're absolutely right," sycophantic chatter

During 14 years of Tory Government they raised the tax burden on us all to a 70 year high Kemi BadEnoch who was part of that Govt is so supremely arrogant and thick she thinks we forgot that as she takes a pop with a pie chart the Tories made up that looks like a 5 year old did it 🙄🙄🤷🏼‍♂️

We’d like to thank our Silver sponsor, TPXimpact @tpximpact.com, for helping to make Open Data Camp 10 possible. www.tpximpact.com We had a great time, we hope you did too. We really appreciate the support from all our sponsors. #odcamp #opendata

NEW: Rachel Maddow drops unseen bodycam footage of feds coordinating the arrest of Newark Mayor Baraka. I REPEAT: the feds ordered his arrest even though he wasn’t breaking any laws. Federal agent: “We are arresting the mayor right now per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States.”

Back from #ODCamp and Edinburgh. Had a wonderful time with great people; gave a talk on #Wikidata, attended great #opendata sessions; had several walks in the sunshine; and even managed to upload a few photos to #WikiCommons for 2025's #WikiLovesMonuments.

Proud to be the originator of "Open Charlatans Register" at Open Data Camp (@odcamp.uk) today. Brilliantly captured here by @drawnalism.com's Royston!

The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?

During WW1 there was a rumour that aspirin caused the Spanish Flu. As I was writing about that last year I often shook my head in disbelief at the stupidity of our near ancestors. Seems a lot of people are still dumb enough to believe nonsense.