https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-keeps-feeding-tabloid-news
"Did you know that pigs eat humans (opens in new tab) “far more often than
people expect?” If not, surely you must have heard the important, breaking news
that a priest “died” in 2016, went to Hell (opens in new tab) briefly and
returned to inform the rest of us that demons like to play Rhianna’s
Umbrella
song over and over again. If you aren’t aware of these important news stories
then maybe you haven’t been spending enough time using Windows’ search box and
widgets section, which at least for me, are filled to the brim with tabloid
trash headlines.
The stories come courtesy of Microsoft’s MSN content network, which syndicates
content from hundreds of web publishers: some reputable, some less so. Full
disclosure: Our parent company, Future Plc, has a syndication agreement with
MSN and many of its sites, including
Tom’s Hardware, occasionally have
articles appear on the network. What’s problematic here, though, is not that
MSN syndicates content but that it often pushes the equivalent of the
Weekly
World News table of contents right into the Windows operating system where it
can be hard to avoid.
If you go to the search box in Windows 11 or 10 and click on it, likely with
the intent of searching for an app or document on your local drive(s), you are
presented with a slew of news headlines. Depending on who you are (and perhaps
what you’ve clicked before), it can feel like you’re looking at the magazine
rack in a supermarket checkout line.
You get even more headlines, with larger photos and more details, if you choose
to click on (or possibly just hover over) the weather icon which lives on the
left or right side of your taskbar. I just wanted the full forecast today when
I clicked, but instead I was presented with this key headline: “Horror as Man
Reveals Father-in-Law's Browser History at Family Gathering.”
Don’t get me wrong: I love reading about the 26 year old who spent $50K to look
like an alien (in 2017, but covered as news last week) or the 9-foot
“man-eating” alligator who came to someone’s door as much as the next person.
But that kind of information shouldn’t be delivered as part of my operating
system; I can get it on a website or on social media."
Via
Garbage Day: Pope in a coat
https://www.garbageday.email/p/pope-in-a-coat
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
