However, this morning I awoke to find this re-tweeted into my timeline:
Dear UK, just so you know, George Osborne went to the Superbowl as a VIP guest of Google. It’s fun being in charge of taxes.— Chris T-T (@christt) February 8, 2016
At first glance, it was interesting, and I had the initial reaction of "Of course he bloody was, neo-capitalist old boys club" which I'm ingrained, through years of hating the conservatives and their ilk, to feel.
This post isn't a defence of George Osbourne. It's not even a defence of Google. Although, it is being typed in a google chrome web-browser, but even still, I'm not sponsored by Google. This post is about how through a zest for making a point, the rantings of a comic-posing-as-a-newspaper are legitimized.
You see, we're taught that the Daily Mail is a hateful, deceitful, lying rag. Yet, this argument, with all it's rational, evidence based reasoning and logic is thrown away when an article has a jazzy headline that a) bolsters our political hatred and b) is easy to tweet without reference. Thus bolstering it as a factual reference source. Much in the same way that if we repeatedly assert that Bob Holness played the saxophone on Baker St, the original sax player is lost to history.
I decided to find out where this revelation came from, and knowing that the Superb Owl had finished its yearly flight merely 10 hours ago, I decided to do a twitter search (google wouldn't have been as accurate, and as we know would have censored everything to do with the conservatives, ahem #tinfoilhat)
In the twitter search results, there were the usual suspects in amongst a slew of tweets referencing Osbourne's free seats courtesy of google, and how this so obviously points to the reasons behind Google's lenient tax payments (as an aside, I'm sure that those who are so very angry at this set of cross border tax affairs are all reved up and ready to vote alongside UKIP to leave the EU, yeah? Fuckity Bye to You).
Yet, there were no links to any evidence or articles. Until, that is, you scrolled further down to the origin. A Daily Fucking Mail link.
Yeah, today's piece of ammunition against the pesky Osbourne, comes from the same source that we are concurrently told is a pile of lies and not to be trusted. In fairness, to the staff writer at the Mail, the headline does make it clear that it's the Superbowl that's sponsored by Google, rather than Osbourne, but then again, as Facebook news-feed mathematical challenges make it clear to us: you can appear smarter with poor use of punctuation and language than by actually being intellectual.
The article makes no note of Google paying for Osbournes flights nor seats, it even says, at the bottom line, that Osbourne was there 'privately'. Just like the other 10's of thousand's of spectators.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make is: by all means attack and debate the conservatives online, but please, let's stick to the facts and reputable sources. It'll get you less re-tweets, but it'll give you more respect.
Anyways, Osbourne probably doesn't even use an Android phone, he seems like the kind to use an iPhone, and didn't Apple get lenient tax rates too? Let's jump down the conspiro-spiral again!
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