Twitter refugees seek asylum on Matt Hancock’s app • The Register

Throw your thoughts back to Before Times and you may recall that Matt Hancock wasn’t Britain’s disgraced Secretary of Health, but the head of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. You may also remember that he took his portfolio so seriously that he had his own mobile app developed: “Matt Hancock MP”.

No, the app was not good. When it was launched in 2018, The registry reported on an overbearing and unified privacy policy by cookie-cutter app developer Disciple Media Ltd. The app’s stated purpose was to help people from his constituency (West Suffolk) ‘engage’ with their MP.

And yet The Wall Street Journal, which has apparently strayed from its US-centric broadsheet news territory, has found that the app now has more than 243,000 users – of whom only 200 actually follow the MP. Hancock, of course, resigned as health secretary last year after being caught on camera indulging in an affair of his own: violating COVID-19 social distancing rules.

That WSJ claims tongue-in-cheek Twitter users are using the app to protect themselves from the Elon Musk-shaped storm that has engulfed the internet’s “town square.”

Like omg totally. You are so random xD

Mr. Hancock frowns at these kinds of shenanigans, as outlined in the app’s policies:

Obviously the WSJ is disingenuous. The real reason Hancock’s app lights up is because the MP is somewhere in the Australian jungle eating bugs and kangaroo genitals as part of a reality TV car crash I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. Below is an example of the type of content you can enjoy on Matt Hancock MP (yes, we signed up so you don’t have to).

The thing is, the app works pretty well as a naked Twitter analogue. Aside from the homepage, which looks like you’re following the MP on another social media site (which we don’t), there’s the ‘Speak Up’ page, which acts as a newsfeed and shows what others are doing users wrote.

But the self-proclaimed “cockers” seem intent on publishing Hancock-related content – and with no West Suffolk issue in sight – a meaningful discussion seems a long way off. Even if it’s not always possible on Twitter.

That i am a celebrity Stunt drew viewers because Hancock is far from the most popular guy in the country. Many see his handling of Britain’s response to the pandemic as inadequate, blaming him for the deaths of loved ones or the inability to see them in hospitals and care homes. The real slap in the face, as with ousted Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ‘Partygate’, was when he was filmed on CCTV engaged in a passionate liaison with a colleague. Hancock was married at the time – not to the colleague.

It’s one rule for them and another for us. What if we wanted to have an affair with a colleague?

As a result, he’s spammed to take on the show’s most off-putting challenges, which usually involve eating exotic animals whose lives have been wasted on our entertainment. We don’t recommend it.

Mastodon on the march

Aside from the glamor of Matt Hancock’s news feed, “tootte” (equivalent to “tweeted”), Mastodon creator Eugen Rochko states that the open-source microblogging platform now has a million more users than the 380,000 it had at the end of October, showing that Since Musk’s $44 billion acquisition, there’s been an appetite for a real Twitter alternative.

However, it has its shortcomings. Mastodon works across an interconnected network of servers, and users must choose one when logging in – although they can see activity on other servers. While this isn’t a deal-breaker for those familiar with the legacy internet infrastructure, users have commented that the added hurdles won’t do Mastodon any favors when it comes to attracting Twitter believers – who can just opt-in , to stay despite the raging dumpster fire it has become .

In the meantime, The registry Thoughts are with the residents of West Suffolk, who joined Matt Hancock’s app to keep up to date with local issues, only to see it become a meme. ®

bootnote

It appears that Matt Hancock’s MP app is a political donation from Disciple Media, if that “cocker” is correct.