Harry goes - what were the odds on that?

To be evicted? According to the bookies Harry was 33 to 1 earlier in the day.

Its a funny old world

There were 4 people up.  I think the prevailing view is that BB would have liked to see them go in this order of importance:

•     Aaron
•     Harry
•     Faye
•     Jay

 But bookies had them in this order:

•     Faye
•     Jay
•     Aaron
•     Harry

Last time the viewers had a choice they gave Harry the most votes to stay.

This week Harry went from a rank outsider to the man out of the door.  The bookies are not normally that far out so there must have been a lot of voting to save the others in the short time voting was running for (if the support for Harry from the previous vote held up, and there was no real reason why it should not).

Was it possible that anyone had the Means, Motive & Opportunity to change things?

There are three possible explanations as to how this happened:

1.     That is just the way it was: the bookies misjudged the mood of the GBP.
2.     It was a scam perpetrated by gamblers attracted by the 33/1 odds on Harry.
3.     It was a scam perpetrated by another organisation who had access to the running vote totals.

We conspiracy theorists don't like the sound of option 1, and in truth you never see a poor bookie on a pushbike; they don't often get it this far wrong. Paddy Power on BBLB used to turn up and explain to Dermot each week who would get evicted and he was never normally wrong more than once a series.  He was never that far out (33/1 v Odds on which Faye was)

Against option 2 we have a real problem.  The gamblers should have no idea how many votes have been cast for who, especially in a 4 way contest.  Without that knowledge they cannot influence the outcome with any confidence.  For someone to have made money they would:

•     have had to know where the voting totals were and,
•     have a method of getting enough votes on quickly enough to swing the outcome.

Option 3.  For this to work someone or organisation:

•     would wish to influence the outcome of the eviction, and
•     know what the voting totals were, and
•     would have a mechanism for block voting.

For Option 2 and Option 3, insider knowledge would have to exist or be provided.  For Option 2 the only motivator is greed.

If Option 3 were true there are very few organisations that would know what the vote totals were.  However the voting mechanism to block vote does exist since the start of this series.  Facebook provides the ideal opportunity to apply large numbers of block votes very quickly.  Each account can purchase and use 500 votes per eviction/week. Costs are as follows (C5 website):

1 vote for 1 Facebook Credit (7 pence)
12 votes for 10 Facebook Credits (70 pence = $1)
24 votes for 20 Facebook Credits (£1.40)
50 votes for 40 Facebook Credits (£2.80)
100 votes for 80 Facebook Credits (£5.60)

So 500 votes cost £28.00 & 1000 = £56.00

You can block vote your 500 votes on the push of a button (and 2 accounts add up to votes 1000 times on the push of two buttons - a truly automated system using software in the form of the Facebook App).
Note: The Iphone and Android Apps charge £4.99 or £5 for 500 votes - slightly cheaper than Facebook

In the Terms and Conditions C5 says:

34. Channel 5 reserves the right to disallow votes if it has reasonable grounds to suspect that fraudulent bulk votes have been cast (i.e. more votes than a human being could possibly submit in the time available without the use of software or other devices designed to make automated votes).

But this does not seem to allow for the use of any of the Application voting systems outlined above.  In theory all bulk votes could be disallowed but that would negate the reason for having the systems in place.

Channel 5 have not said how they monitor block votes from Facebook and other accounts and do not publish either voting totals or percentages cast using the various mechanisms.  Channel 5 sister publications Daily Express and Daily Star have withdrawn from the (voluntary) Press Complaints Commission supervision so it seems unlikely that they will volunteer such information.

On balance it seems fair to say that an individual or organisation could purchase many thousand votes (using different Facebook accounts) and use them using the new software provided with this series. 

I suggest that the Means to block vote exists now.

Motive? 

Big Brother would have to have a preference about which housemate stays in and potentially wins.  Can that be true?  Is there someone that they want to win?  Is there someone they want out?

Opportunity?

Was anybody watching when the votes were cast? Brian said nothing about votes being verified did he? The voting day allowed in the rerun did go by very quickly. Rumours say that voting numbers are low this series so perhaps it never took many votes to swing it anyway.

I suppose we have to trust Channel 5 that nothing untoward occurred don't we?  After all it does say that:

37. All votes are monitored by Electoral Reform Services.

But of course it does not say how and when.

38. Channel 5's decision in relation to all matters affecting the Vote is final.

I certainly believe the last one though.

If I were an organisation minded to carry out that sort of activity and I knew the vote totals I think I would get a large group of accounts under the control of perhaps one person (who I could trust implicitly and contractually).  Then I would get them to sit there and vote when the moment was right. Just before vote close (when I knew how many votes I needed) I would get them to press the buttons.  Of course that sort of activity would show up if somebody monitored it. 
IF.

Petition Endemol to remove BB from Channel 5

Please: Sign the petition and spread the word.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/an-open-plea-to-endemol-ecc.html


Thank you 

Telegraph & the FB Rape pages - a useful example for us?

Telegraph & the FB Rape pages
There was a story today in the Telegraph.
This section caught my eye.

Campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic have now switched their attention to businesses as they believe Facebook is inclined to allow the pages to continue because of the viewers and hence advertising revenue they bring in.

"Facebook will only listen to money, so we are now targeting the advertisers who have appeared on their pages,"[..........]"We are delighted with the response of companies like John Lewis that pulled their ads."

Major companies that advertise on Facebook were furious to discover that their advertisements were appearing on the "rape page" and demanded they be removed. They included Barclays, 02, John Lewis, Sony, BlackBerry, American Express, Groupon, Heinz, National Lottery, the White Company and PepsiCo.

After complaints from several businesses to Facebook, the "alleyway" page was "whitelisted" last week, meaning that no adverts could be rotated on it.

Why is this a useful example?
It tells us that Facebook don't really care what people think.  We can pester OBB as much as possible, they are managing the situation between them (Ch5 & FB) as this weekends' cull proves.  If FB can allow this loathsome page (and similar) to exist, us moaning about OBB tactics won't cause them any lost sleep.

What do FB care about?
Money.  How does that help us?  No posting, no advertisers, no FB.

Will the OBB campaign bear any fruit?
Only if there is publicity.  The press have had 5 weeks to pick up on it; it is not generating many column inches.

How do we get publicity?
We need to stop writing on the wall and write to the sponsors.  All that is happening is that profiles are being removed as fast as they are created.  Very soul destroying and effort wasting.

Campaign steps?
We need to bring our list of key players (advertisers and major execs involved in various decisions) up to date and push now.

Why now?
Because BB are increasingly vulnerable as viewing figures are falling.  Voting may bring revenue to the table for Ch5 (if there is any voting)  but unless there is a sizeable audience the advertisers wont want to pay.

'Accidental' Facebook Account Suspension Claims

You may have seen adverts similar to this on the media.

If you've been suspended by Facebook since Big Brother started and it wasn't your fault, the Facebook Accidental Suspension Helpline can probably help you claim, why not find out?

Facebook Accidental Suspension Helpline is the UK's leading name in Facebook claims.

Thinking of making a claim due to an suspension that wasn't your fault? If so, you may be entitled to compensation, and the Facebook Accidental Suspension Helpline™ are here to guide you through the claims process. In the past , we’ve helped tens of thousands of people across the UK (well some anyway) make compensation claims for their accidental suspension - compensation they deserved.

Account Suspension can happen at any time. Many suspensions occur on the OBB, involving simpletons and mods or paid lackeys.

Why make an Accidental Suspension claim?
Victims of more serious suspensions regularly need time off Facebook to recover from their suspension, leading to credibility problems such as struggling to keep up with games and their crops dying. In fact, many people return to Facebook too early due to these problems. That is why it is important that Accidental Suspension victims make an Accidental Suspension Claim and are awarded the compensation they deserve - to give them the time needed to make a full recovery.

We can make an Accidental Suspension Claim if it can be shown that someone in FB or BB has been at fault in some way - that they have failed in a duty or not taken reasonable care - and that this fault or failure caused (or partly caused) the suspension or that the suspension was instigated or encouraged by the Channel 5 employees or their supporters on the Official Big Brother site and carried out by Facebook.

There are reported instances of Facebook suspending accounts and when challenged backing down and admitting they made a mistake.  This suggests that the suspension is not a random occurrence  but a targeted selection of an individual, probably from the Official Big Brother Wall as this seems to be a linking feature.  The likeliest sequence of events if that someone on the OBB wall is reporting people that they do not agree with and claiming that they are fake profiles.  The speed with which Facebook is now backing down suggests that they have had some practice.  If they cause you inconvenience by suspending your account you should be entitled to compensation, not some feeble apology in an email.


How about it Facebook?  
Is it time to stop the suspensions and more emails saying that you have made more mistakes?
Is it time to identify the individual or individuals who are instigating this process and suspend them instead?
Or is it time to pay compensation? 
I am sure the ambulance chasers would love a new group of clients.

Facebook or Fakebook - you decide

Should you be unlucky enough to be blocked by Facebook and you have no idea why, you have probably been reported by 'holier than thou' Official Big Brother for not agreeing that 'New Improved Channel 5 Big Brother' not only washes history whiter than white but it also removes all unsightly stains in the freezer.
No warning, just a disabled account.
They will ask you for a cell phone number or photo ID, or you will be set a quiz to identify photos in your mates' albums, or photos your friends have been tagged in that are in someone else's album.

You need Help!
 So you go to the Help Center.  You are sure you have not broken the Rights and Responsibilities of course.  You wouldn't do that because it is hard enough to keep your profile even when you do conform.  You arrive at this page

And you notice the text,
If you have not posted violating content or otherwise violated the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, click here.

And you notice that....... Submit this contact form ONLY if your account was disabled for violating Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

And you realise that they are in fact Fakebook and they don't want you to find the way to speak to someone.

What they meant to say was:
Write to:

disabled@facebook.com
and
appeals@fb.com

Write to disabled@facebook.com with a cc to appeals@fb.com and then as soon as you get an answer from appeals continue to use the reply as it has a reference attached to it assigned to the disabled account and a record of all you are doing rather than a new mail each time.

Keep on writing, don't be rude but be persistent. Say how much the account means to you and how important it is to get back in and that if you don't hear anything in a day or so you will come back to remind them as you know how busy they are and you don't want your appeal to be overlooked.

Just a little note about a big inconvenience & some selling out

The Inconvenience.
The new OBB tactic is to target Live Feeders by reporting them as Fake.  The sycophantic Facebook team, who cannot bring themselves to take down a Facebook page that tells jokes about rape, have no hesitation in blocking the profiles of the Live Feeders for asking for something sensible on the OBB site.  I am not sure who comes out of this smelling more like the contents of Jay's cigarette packet in the freezer; Official Big Brother or Facebook.  Neither of them are covering themselves with glory though.

Selling out. 

Some of the stalwarts on Twitter who have been fighting for Live Feed seem to have changed their tune. BB_Superfan for example has been a key player on the Twitter Live Feed campaign for the last month but now has now decided to give BB a chance.  Nikki Cowan who was treated very badly by Big Brother for mentioning Live Feed on BOTS is now welcomed back into their arms.   I have asked him if he is back in again.  I await his response.

I saw this post on Facebook: 


"Two of my Twitter chums received DMs purportedly from you-know-who suggesting they ought to consider being housemates, as they clearly have the requisite qualities"

 If this is fact it suggests that Big Brother are willing to 'buy off' the opposition with worthless offers of being a future housemate *LOL*.

What does it tell us if these rumours are true? 
I think it was in Calvin and Hobbes that our stripy hero said that "I don't know which is worse...that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low.." (The Days Are Just Packed p56 (08 Apr 92) )

The OBB Mods seem to have blocked every feeder last night (12/10/11).  I know I mentioned that this was their intention in my last blog but it still comes as a shock when it happened.  Another little inconvenience.

In summary then.  Buy off (cheaply) as many people as you can (people who may have a following) then block the rest.

The battle lines are drawn up - CH5 & FB versus decent people

The following represents my recollections of a month of Facebook conflict (and this weekend's hostilities) and my interpretation of what has occurred behind the scenes.  I know more of the actions of the Live Feeders because I am one.  I also know more of the Live Feeder's discussions than are mentioned below.

The area for fighting against Channel 5 appears to be Facebook at the moment.
Rightfully it should be on the desks of newspapers and magazines, and on the desks of the advertisers.  I am sure that the written media (both paper based and on the Web - excluding the Northern & Shell titles of course) would be anxious to have a good story that showed Channel 5, Big Brother and/or Northern & Shell publications in a poor light.
The advertisers need to have a real understanding that their potential market place is far smaller than it would be if the programme we were watching was similar to the one which has traditionally been provided by Endemol and Channel 4 (especially if it was in the style provided before Channel 4 lost their nerve). The beginning of Channel 5's involvement with Facebook coincided with a cull of many accounts by Facebook.  Some of them were previously involved in Big Brother on Facebook.  For many accounts the choice presented by Facebook was simple: trust us with your photo ID or cell phone number or your account remains blocked.  For many people this was something they never wished to do.

The Sides
On the one side you have Channel 5 and Facebook who have formed a group with linked interests, common purpose and financial agreements.  On the other those people who think that Channel 4 did a better job of Big Brother than Channel 5 (the so-called Live Feeders).  The place chosen for conflict is the Official Big Brother Wall on Facebook (OBB).

The Beginning
It started off fairly evenly balanced.  There were far more Live Feeders than Admin on OBB.  The only assistance that Channel 5 could count on was a group of posters on OBB, often similarly poor spellers and given to text speak, who could be guaranteed to applaud each item delivered by Channel 5 to the OBB.   In response to the vigorous posting by Live Feeders Channel 5 started to delete anything which did not carry the message that Channel 5 wished to publish.  This led to a major escalation in posting by Live Feeders.  This in turn led to Channel 5 blocking people from posting on OBB.  Many posters responded by rejoining Facebook to get back onto OBB and openly discussed when they should concentrate their efforts.  Friday was chosen as a good day to focus their efforts.  

The Middle
In response OBB raised their game and staffing levels.
They identified the group of people that are real thorns in their side and they seem to be trying to get that group isolated from anyone else who comes in to harangue them by asking for Live Feed. A classic divide and rule.
In response to the improved organisation of the Live Feeders Channel 5 seemed to adopt a new strategy on that Friday evening.  They began reporting any new posters on OBB to Facebook as spammers.  FB responded by putting those accounts through the Verify hurdle where you need to provide a phone number, or identify 5 of your friends from random photographs from their albums that they have been tagged in (not their profile pictures).  I was shown pictures of a car bumper and a mobile phone in my set.

It is my belief that once they have just the 'thorns' isolated they will add them to a group and switch them off as a single entity if they wish knowing that nobody else will come into OBB to replace them.  Anyone who arrives on OBB and then is put through and passes the Verify step will either be blocked or added to the 'thorns' group.  Since Friday many Live Feeders have lost their accounts.  As I write this on Monday OBB appear to have resorted to blocking again as I suspected they would, and are still selecting accounts to go through the Verify process to regain their profiles.  They believe that they now know who the core members of the Live Feeders are.  They also must know that arranged against them are a tenacious group of resourceful and articulate people.  The writing abilities of some of the sycophantic OBB supporters group are not obvious and many of them seem to be angry and habitual flamers who readily abuse anyone who does not agree with whatever they are trying to say.

The battle continues.  Channel 5 are not prepared to listen to reason and to engage in any dialogue.  They are behaving like petulant children who insist that it is their game and their rules.  Channel 5 are oppressing the free speech of the OBB posters and Facebook are acting as the removers of those who Channel 5 do not like.  If it looks like censorship and acts like censorship it is censorship.

Channel 5 have also put in place (with Facebook's assistance) a non-UK IP block to prevent anyone from outside the area from having any sort of say in how the programme is presented to us.  Americans, for example, are not only prevented from seeing any highlight shows, or web/YouTube based clips but they cannot even say anything about it on the OBB.  Northern & Shell say on their website: "Northern & Shell was founded in December 1974 with the vision of becoming a significant force in British and worldwide media."  and they are "determined to maintain all its products and activities as benchmarks of excellence to its readers, customers, advertisers and business partners."  These seem laudable and lofty ideals which are not very obvious to me in the way Channel 5 is conducting its Big Brother business.

I had a glance at a thread on OBB early this morning before the Live Feeders had stirred themselves for another day of posting.  I saw what happens when they are not there to post.  It was not interesting, not thoughtful, not stimulating or witty.  It was bland, insipid and banal.  That is what OBB will be without the Live Feeders who represent the philosophical, educated and articulate wing of the Big Brother audience.  If the Live Feeders leave Facebook the OBB page will be nothing.  The audience for the show is evaporating week on week.  Channel 5 have pinned their hopes on Social Media interactions as the stimulus for the show but it looks doomed to failure. 

The End
One of my colleagues spent an interesting hour or two going back through past threads the other day.  I say interesting only because all the older threads had been carefully examined and any post that was not to Channel 5's liking had been removed.  History had been rewritten.  No doubt future historians, combing through the Facebook archives will realise what a great success this series has been, universally acclaimed and enjoyed throughout the land.  The more astute amongst them may ask why it was taken off the air if it was such a great success, but the past is written by the Victors.  And nobody liked him very much at the time did they?  Channel 5 are going out of their way to portray the Live Feeders as anti Big Brother but nothing could be further from the truth.  They are just decent people who enjoyed the show in the past and would like to enjoy it again.  They want it to be the show they loved before Channel 5 provided their scripted reality BB version of TOWIE.

As I said at the top, this is my view.  If you have anything to add or subtract please leave a comment.  I will read it and if I think that you are more correct than me unlike Channel 5 I will do something about it.  Thank you for reading. 

Absolutely pathetic BB, you are hopeless and you must know it by now

Many things are doubtless occurring in the BB house that Dirty Desmond and his underlings would prefer that we did not know about right now. Our moments of revelation will arrive in the magazine scoops afterwards. Scoops indeed, and not just for scooping out the freezer. But by their actions you can get an insight into how they are thinking though.

Consider this. We don't have live feed because they have a pathological obsession for controlling every aspect of the show. That works while the lab rats are in there but when they come out the game is up. Two housemates have told tales about Jay.

BB has tried to supress all mention of the second incident. They have edited videotapes and have employed extensive filtering on Facebook to stop anyone mentioning freezers and shit and a wide variety of synonyms for those words. But the world prefers to enjoy the words from the lips of Heaven than the BB spin machine. She may be as batty as a cave full of bats but she is honest. He did shit in the fridge. Fact 1.

Fact 2 is that Jay was told off for saying the 'deeply offensive' word 'black'. Well deeply offensive to the chattering classes perhaps. He used it in the context of telling a joke by using a poorly remembered film quote. So what? No more offensive than his stories about fisting, muff diving and five in a bed romps to most people. The only interesting thing is that BB chose to show the incident and his resulting admonition.

A poster on Facebook took this to mean that he did not crap in the freezer because we would have seen him being told off for being naughty. Abject bollox of course. The reason BB showed the incident and the Diary Room sequel was to show us that they are as tough on naughtiness as they were when Emily got the boot for saying the N word to the C woman.

The insight into BB is that they thought that we would swallow this feeble bit of spin. The freezer crap never occurred because if it did we would have seen Jay being told off.

And one gullible poster actually said it, although it is very doubtful if that was his own thought, expressed in the particularly inarticulate way so beloved by many of the posters, or if he was used to plant it into our consciousness.

Either way no dice BB.  You thought that if you showed us Jay being told off for one massive crime, we would realise that we had not seen him being told off for taking a dump in the freezer, therefore it could not have happened.  You are as hopeless at spin as you are at many of the other aspects of the programme.  We see nothing except what you choose to show us i.e. very little.  You chose not to show us the freezer dump and you chose to show us naughty Jay being told off for that worst sin in the whole world.   Social Media will be your downfall CH5.

BB is sponsored by Andrex toilet tissue, so soft you can use it straight from the freezer

Heaven: "Jay is cool, apart from him shitting in our freezer and having to get all our food bloody taken out"

Company Stooge "Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly"

Heaven: "No he actually did do that for a joke"

Company Stooge ""Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly, keep going"

Heaven: "Come on, you lot saw that"

Heaven on BBBOTS

We never saw it Heaven.   No live Feed thank goodness.  It makes Sandy pissing in the bin pale into insignificance though.

I have a headache brought on by BB - bring back Luke Marsden

I am a week older.  I have seen no Life Feed (in truth I haven't watched much of the HL show either).  Many of the show participants have previously appeared in some sort of acting video or song video or are registered as actors - whatever that means.
The OBB FB posters have revealed themselves as pretty incompetent and their admin/moderation policies towards non-"approved content" posters have been confirmed as consistently ruthless.

The show is absolutely dire (all 45 minutes of it) regardless of the soundtrack selected.  It is so bad that I popped into my Time Machine to 2008 to look at the Live Feed and have a browse on the C4 forum.  At the time we never thought things could get any worse, but we were badly mistaken.  We saw the stream and set our own agendas in the forums.  We decided what we would talk about and as long as we were not really nasty we could say what we chose..  Choice was the key issue.  We could watch what we wanted and the discussion topics we wanted were the ones we had.  Compare that to Twitter and Facebook now.  We cannot see what is happening and we are supposed to sit like Pavlovian dogs responding to each new inanity set by poorly trained simpletons employed by the very people who deny our requests for Live feed.

The viewing figures are dismal - earlier today there was talk about the summer like weather causing people to not come in at 10pm to watch the show (sunset is about 18:45 now).  If that is their best excuse it will be interesting to see what it is when the weather returns to Autumn normal next week.  There was even a suggestion that they may pull the show rather than admit they are doing something wrong.

They seem unable to accept that it the how they are doing it rather than the show itself that is at fault.  They can turn it round if they push that stream they are providing to journos out to the public - red button if they can.  Then sell the stream on the web to whoever will pay for it, regardless of country.  If that is at odds with their broadcast license terms then they should do something about it rather than going down without a fight.  They are taking the cowards way out if they drop the show because of the piss poor decisions that they have made so far.  And if there is one big fat ego at the root of it all then they should put him and his team of whizzo 'blue sky' thinkers out to grass and get in some people who understand that the show is only one thing - a social contract between the viewers and the show providers.  If they do not provide what we want we walk away.

Today I read a thread I wrote about Luke Marsden on C4 Forum in June 2008.  We loathed him and we watched him.  The posts in the thread were so funny that I had tears rolling down my cheeks.  It was a subject that we chose, we had observations to talk about, we had humour, sarcasm and a community.  Regardless of what Channel 5 and Big Brother may think, we have little of that now.  I never cared much for Luke but he was funny then and he probably is now.  He may have been a pain but he never gave me the headache that this load of bozos is; and the HMs are pretty irritating as well.