Heather Burns

Is this like the integrated all-transport city-wide travelcard (you know, like basically every other city on the planet) that Glasgow has been promised since roughly 2004

From the Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam

I use The Old Reader for subscriptions and send it through the ReadKit app for syncing across all devices. 10/10 would recommend

Same. I get the two actual local news stories my local newspaper publishes each week through RSS, rather than having my intelligence insulted by THIS celebrity spotted at THIS city restaurant

nowt

Today we have a severe "danger to life" storm sweeping through Glasgow, as indicated by the terrified cat in a ball on my lap, and here is what a local news site's storm update page looks like to me, with javascript off to kill the adwall and and adblockers enabled to kill the celebrity clickbait.

A few years ago, I aggregated all my writing on the Online Safety Act into one post, based on fighting it at various jobs from 2019-2022. You’ll find the post here. I wrote it whilst living off of £430 a month in employment benefit after two layoffs in 12 months.
heatherburns.tech/2023/04/17/g...

FYI I don't have access to DMs on here while traveling bc my carrier switches to a UK one while roaming (?), and accessing DMs on here requires uploading my ID to an age verification service ... so I get locked out of messaging on this app due to temporarily having a UK IP address.

If you read one thing today, read Mr. Graff’s chapter with writings from German scientists and scholars in the 1930s. History matters and the parallels to today should not be ignored.

Splitters!

BBC One - Soft Border Patrol, What would happen if there was a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland? What could go wrong with building a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland?

We tend not to have stop-the-boats as a local village problem in central Scotland, due to the small matter of the Royal Navy dumping a million tonnes of unused explosive WWII munitions into the wee watery bit between Glasgow and Belfast. They go boom if you touch them.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

Having briefly glanced at Reform's flier before tossing it in the compost bin with some mushroom stumps and coffee grinds, I note that one of their electoral priorities is "stopping the boats".
This is their platform for a village by-election in a landlocked council in west central Scotland.

One of the unexpected joys of having a home composting bin is putting nasty things in it to rot and decay, like Reform leaflets.

Whereas my Labour MP had a lovely natter with me.

Up until now I’d never been snarled at before by someone putting a political party leaflet through my door ahead of a local council by-election, but Reform are rather unique in that regard.

(Hopefully it hasn’t necessitated his first eye exam in over 20 years, unlike me 🙁)

Give Graham a follow if you don’t already. AFAIK he’s the only person aside from me who actually reads every line of every 1000+ page Ofcom document drop and every government paper on the OSA, as opposed to merely opining on it. We’re probably 20,000 pages in after six years.

Meta violated privacy law, jury says in menstrual-data fight The jury got to decide how seriously Big Tech takes privacy, the attorney for a class of Flo users said in closing arguments.

A jury found Friday that Meta violated the California Invasion of Privacy Act when it intentionally recorded the sensitive health information of millions of women through the period tracking app Flo. @mhattridge.bsky.social www.courthousenews.com/meta-violate...

What's going on with the Met Tower? The tatty pink banner defines Glasgow's skyline. Will it ever see brighter days?

Was just walking past the abandoned Met Tower, the most painfully visible symbol of Glasgow’s decline. A plan to make it a tech innovation hub fell through, and now it’s derelict. And I’m thinking: who is going to want to start a tech business in the UK now?
www.glasgowbell.co.uk/whats-going-...:

Yes, enjoy the whiplash of one team of OSA supporters calling me a p***o and another team of OSA supporters calling me the “ideal candidate” to pivot to victimhood.

Here's another horror story: that time a London public affairs agency approached me to offer me the role of playing a composite character professional victim in a campaign against Big Tech, quite possibly as advocacy in support of the OSA. Funded by whom? heatherburns.tech/2022/02/13/a...

A quick post about this for my blog readers gave me the opportunity to tell yet another horror story from the six year journey to the OSA, in the comments. heatherburns.tech/2025/07/31/t...

Let's hope the VPN providers are a fraction as organised and aggressive as the age check providers

My Online Safety Act isn’t the problem, Labour is For this law to work, the Government must step up and defend free speech instead of hiding behind regulators

Oh to be a fly on the wall watching @cyberleagle.bsky.social reading this. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07...

My Online Safety Act isn’t the problem, Labour is For this law to work, the Government must step up and defend free speech instead of hiding behind regulators

@stokel.bsky.social seen this? www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07...

I never thought I'd agree with Farage on anything – until now We need a grown-up conversation about the Online Safety Act and child protection. The Government's Jimmy Savile jibe suggests it can't

The government is gaslighting us to try and hide the horrorshow of the Online Safety Act's collateral damage. My latest for the i paper inews.co.uk/opinion/neve...

“Please note that comments on this news article have been closed, as we’re currently unsure about the liability if anonymous posters start using it to promote VPNs.”

Collateral censorship is happening, one week in.

www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/20...

Had to go on an adventure quest to find a print copy, but there’s another addition to the box file holding six years of briefing notes and working papers and drafts and meeting agendas and and and

For a limited time only, our new magazine issue, Land of the Free? is free to access! In it, we explore how #Trump's administration is impacting free speech in the #US & beyond. Explore: journals.sagepub.com/toc/IOC/curr...

So you can't listen to Kneecap without either undergoing a facial scan or uploading ID documents. Please explain to me how this is not straightforward political censorship.

The NSPCC's Online Safety Act advocacy has been so unhinged that they manipulated an incest victim whose father got away with it - thanks to the good ol' Scottish boys club - into endorsing the law. Warning: this is the worst blog post I've ever had to write.
heatherburns.tech/2023/09/28/t...