Mark McCormack

Didn’t want to believe this was true. It’s true.

This interesting and insightful re radicalisation

If you're going to send me something written by an LLM then save us all time and resources and just send me your prompt instead. I'll value a text that says "Heartfelt condolence message with reference to a list of events" more, because this way I at least actually know what you were thinking

Chart showing Estimated annual cost and reduction in the number of children in relative poverty after housing costs, various two-child limit options, 2029-30: UK

The most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty is to abolish the two-child limit, which would cost £7,480 per child lifted out of poverty.

If it is not scrapped then one-in-three children will be in poverty by 2029-39, including half of children in large families 👉 buff.ly/oiV5Re2

BBC Radio 6 news - only politician they quote on two bulletins is Nigel Farage re borders. No counter-point given.

Illicit consumption in the 1800s

Very excited to read the full book!

This is going around for some reason, just gonna point out that many studies have been done about porn addiction, held by researchers who believed in porn addiction, only to find that porn addiction is not real and never was. Turns out it was religion.

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wome...

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped? I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry. Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto. It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Sharp decline in students taking A-level exams in French and German % change in provisional A-level entries for the summer exam series in England, 2024 to 2025 French -8.3 German -6.8 Classical subjects -1.9 All modern languages -1.5 All A-level subjects Spanish 1.4 -8 -6 FINANCIAL TIMES -4 -2 Source: Ofqual

HEPI Director @nickhillman.bsky.social points to the 2004 decision to scrap the requirement for young people to study one language until the age of 16.

“It is, quite clearly in my view, the worst educational policy of this century.” he says.

We have an opening for a one-year Sociology Lectureship in Glasgow focused on teaching the sociology of class. Please share it with anyone interested. www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/lecturer...

Lessons for life, from the great Maeve Binchy, on the 13th anniversary of her death.

Great article and key quote: "the policy’s advocates won’t take failure as a sign that the approach is wrong. They will instead frame it as proof the policy doesn’t go far enough".

Good review of an important book - Born to Rule. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

"Some findings are stunning: not a single person from a family with negligible wealth made it into the British elite, ever"

Something that gets at the heart of many contentious policy issues in UK (eg drug regulation).
"Do you think banning this will be effective?"
"No."
"Should we do it anyway"
"Yes."
There is very little understanding of the harms of regulation, and these harms rarely feature in public debate.

Petition: Repeal the Online Safety Act We want the Government to repeal the Online Safety act.

The 'Repeal the Online Safety Act' petition on the UK Gov site has over 313,800 signatures, currently the 3rd largest petition hitting this parliament. And it's still growing fast!
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/72...

Enjoyment, Exploration and Education: Understanding the Consumption of Pornography among Young Men with Non-Exclusive Sexual Orientations - Mark McCormack, Liam Wignall, 2017 This qualitative research examines the influence of pornography consumption on young men with non-exclusive sexual orientations. Drawing on 35 in-depth intervie...

I'm writing about sexual commerce currently for my research, and my first article on the topic was about how young queer men access pornography for education, enjoyment and education. You can read it freely here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The debate: Will the new rules for pornography sites do more harm than good? - BBC News Age-verification checks on adult websites are introduced on 25 July - but could they lead to even darker consequences?

Unlike this piece in the BBC, where the harms of porn are debated by two people who both see it as very harmful! (And, as radical feminists regularly do, ignore any kind of queer or same-sex porn) www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

Porn websites now require age verification in the UK – the privacy and security risks are numerous Online age verification technology is not as mature and safe as government and regulators would like it to be.

A good piece on the problems of Age Verification as has now rolled out in the UK. It's not just about accessing porn - and while I appreciate some of the humour on here re verifying age, I don't think access to DMs is worth using the tech on BSky

theconversation.com/porn-website...

This is a good article, with an interesting perspective: a review of a sex work 'exit programme' in France found it was not effective and perpetuated many inequalities, not least related to migration policy

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....?

It's a good point to remember that 'free' things are rarely free and paying for a VPN is likely a better route. But my perception is that all the risks associated with the tech and process of Age Verification are markedly greater than the risks of VPN.

Someone once did a great side by side of Hugh Jackman male vs female gaze. No one would deny women find Jackman attractive but the shredded look isn't for women.

Northumbria Police participation in Newcastle pride 'unlawful' Lindsey Smith argues police marching in Newcastle Pride would have been unable to remain impartial.

For it to be unlawful for uniformed police to be part of Pride events seems like a significantly regressive step. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Uniformed police officers were wrong to march in Pride event, high court rules Ruling against Northumbria police could affect other forces’ attendance at Remembrance parades and religious events, sources fear

Good grief. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Fantastic article from @wonkhe.bsky.social about the importance of a harm reduction approach in keeping students safer. Thanks for the support!

In my article on advocacy research, some reports used the term "epidemic" when it clearly wasn't warranted. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

When a commissioned report describes a social issue as at an "epidemic scale", its advisable to consider the advocacy role of said report vs its quality as evidence.

Moral panics are almost always about instituting greater state surveillance — your sex life, your genitals, your reproductive history, your browser history.

None of the solutions the EU (or US) is proposing are particularly effective at keeping kids safe online. But they're great surveillance tools

Bonkers

Yes indeed. And as an acceptable if old fashioned view. Likewise the absence of gay characters / themes etc. The shift that came at the same time as New Labour was profound, although each TV/cultural "first" brought with it homophobic concerns and thus debate about progress.