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A friend of mine who is an SEO expert has pointed out an interesting reason why Boris Johnson is talking about #TimTams - It’s a social media and search engine tactic, weaponised for political gain. Allow me to explain in this thread:
If you currently search for “Boris Tam”, you get a bunch of news stories about the PM banging on about Australian chocolate biscuits, which has had a lot of he country bemused and bewildered as to why he would do so: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=boris+tam&t=iphone&ia=news&iar=news
This is to distract from news about Jonathan Van Tam, the Govt Health Advisor, giving advice after the scandal where Dominic Cummings drove from London to Durham whilst experiencing coronavirus symptoms: https://www.express.co.uk/videos/6160543217001/Dominic-Cummings-Van-Tam-says-lockdown-rules-apply-to-all
Of course, they want to bury the story about how the PM’s senior advisor broke the very rules that he helped to shape and message, but also that health advisors are helping to reinforce that by giving expert advice that it was a selfish and ignorant thing to do.
Coincidence? Wouldn’t credit the government with that much intelligence? Okay then, try this on for size: remember when Johnson was interviewed, and he burbled on about making models of buses? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-48766451/boris-johnson-i-make-models-of-buses
That, of course, was to try and manipulate SEO away from the story about the famous big red Brexit bus with “we send the EU £350 million a week, let’s find our NHS instead” on it, which has been proven many times over to be a fallacy: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-boris-johnson-nhs-bus-claim-350-million-fundraiser-campaign-prosecute-a8528886.html
Of course, if you search now, you get varying results, but it was enough to shift it out of the news cycle, just when they needed to. Oh, and it’s not just the PM. Remember this? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/03/sit-up-jacob-rees-mogg-under-fire-for-slouching-in-commons
That one was to change the news cycle about Rees-Mogg’s previous statement defending Johnson, and saying that “he never lies”, which is blatantly untrue: https://scramnews.com/jacob-rees-mogg-claims-boris-johnson-never-lies/
Johnson has not only created a career out of lying, but we should never forget that it was the untruths that he published as a journalist which helped to stoke anti-EU sentiment, which contributed, at least in part, to Brexit: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-lies-conservative-leader-candidate-list-times-banana-brexit-bus-a8929076.html
So yes, every time you see a politician doing something odd, ask yourself why they are doing that, and what the implications might be. It could be that they’re using edge ranking to change the information people find when they search for key phrases.
Big thanks to my friend (who wishes to remain nameless) for pointing this out. Stay safe, and stay alert, especially to this Government and what they’re up to next!
