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Jonn Elledge

@jonnelledge.bsky.social

51K followers 4.7K following 13K posts

#1 Sunday Times bestselling author, because apparently that matters. New Statesman, New World, Oh God What Now, The Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything, Paper Cuts (RIP). Not an American.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 1m

mate.

bsky.app/profile/jonn...

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 1h

Before you all yell at me, my answer can be summed up as "fuck, no".

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 7m

yeah i do miss the single public square thing loads. and there are some of the less mad right wingers who didn't make the move I'd like to argue with again? but we are where we are

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 9m

anyway this is gonna be a big day because, feet willing, i am going to finally finish my big round London walk.

Colindale to Walthamstow. 13 miles. we'll see

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · May 10

Anyway it's walking season. There's a big map of London on my wall which goes out to roughly zone 4. This summer I'm gonna walk the perimeter. To save battery and time though will only post when I hit waypoints. Next one: South Woodford.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 14m

she is BRILLIANT. we gave up on training embarrassingly early and accepted Henry is his own person who will probably choose to do what he's asked. but we got away with this because he's both good natured and cute.

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 20m

I'm not rehashing anything, as strongly implied by the post you're replying to I agree with you

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 21m

anyway enough of this tell us about the puppy

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 22m

not compulsory to read anything! we all have lives to read. but it does mean you're kinda arguing with a bunch of assumptions rather than what I actually wrote. I absolutely think leaving was the right call.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 28m

I almost texted you last night BTW. "Matt, you're in Slow Horses!" Then I realised you probably already knew that.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 29m

you didn't read either the piece or the rest of the thread huh

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 31m

also - one last datapoint before I take HS for his morning walk. I posted the column on X, too. it has sunk without trace because it has a link in it. even ignoring the owner and the politics, that was a good reason to stop feeding the beast.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 40m

thanks Rigg x

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 42m

That's basically what I do without the code but. I'm never going to delete - sorry, but Agnes is there, my memories of us are too bound up in that silly website - and I still nominally have a lot of followers so i still post the occasional link. But most of the people I want to talk to are here.

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 44m

anyway, I am pleased with this column, I think it is good, I hope you read it rather than just shouting at me for what you think it might say

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

By Jonn Elledge

Illustration by Roy Scott / Ikon Images
“Acomputer terminal,” Douglas Adams once wrote, “is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.” In the same way, while the platform known in happier times as Twitter is famously not the real world, that’s never meant it can’t affect it.

One of the less upsetting ways those effects can manifest is outlined in a new report from “reputation management consultancy” (euch) Montford Communications. Posting to Policy explores the way wonks, politicos and shitposters alike drive government action through the raw power of their takes. “A niche account posts something punchy. It lands,” the report explains, with more full stops than is acceptable anywhere but LinkedIn. “Traditional media pick it up. Politicians respond. And policy follows. This is the ‘posting to policy’ pipeline and it’s fast becoming the new normal.”

Not all the examples the consultancy gives of this pipeline in action are entirely convincing. The “Nick, 30 ans” meme may have generated discourse, but it has not, as far as I’ve noticed, led to attempts to actually rethink intergenerational fairness; and while Robert Jenrick’s fare-dodging video made some waves, the shadow justice secretary is not, appearances notwithstanding, a shitposter. The most persuasive example offered is the transformation of Motability from a worthy but obscure scheme allowing those in receipt of mobility allowance to lease cars, to a “something must be done”-level spending scandal through noise on X alone.

Montford’s argument isn’t wrong: it’s abundantly clear by now that things that happen on the internet rarely stay there, and while hacks and wonks hang out on the same platforms as those with actual power it’s unsurprising that ideas sometimes migrate from the former to the latter. That, though, does not mean these conclusions are either new or significant. I can think of things I put on the internet ten years ago that g…

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 46m

I didn't get those ads, that sounds algorithmic to me, what on earth have you been googling mate

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 52m

SOMEONE ACTUALLY READ IT BEFORE COMMENTING Margaret thank you

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 55m

it's not even that I'm bloody minded on principle it just sort of happens

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 56m

this was why I did this - was checking my hunch that this place just works better for me so I could answer the question an editor posed with "no"

bsky.app/profile/jonn...

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 1h

The platform formerly known as Twitter may be horrible, but it is still shaping policy. So were we all wrong to leave?