Browse mode: We're not goofing off on the Sidebar of Shame and online shopping sites, says UK's Ministry of Defence
- Reference: 1588349409
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/01/ministry_defence_mail_online_amazon_traffic/
- Source link:
In a recent Freedom of Information response, the MoD 'fessed up that the top two most-visited web domains across its networks are those for the Daily Mail website and Amazon.
For the years 2016 to 2019 inclusive, Mail Online and Amazon.com were the most common websites accessed from the ministry's IT networks, excluding search engines and departmental intranet pages.
Third place was variously occupied by the Daily Telegraph, the Independent and "msm.com", which appears to be a typo for Microsoft's news website, msn.com.
Embarrassed civil servants insisted that the methodology didn't prove that gossip-driven celeb news and Jeff Bezos' online souk were the MoD's main online focus, insisting that "larger, more complex home pages will have inflated figures when measured by HTTP request".
"So it therefore cannot be concluded from this data alone that the Daily Mail website is the most visited site at the Ministry of Defence," a valiant, if rather forlorn, spokesman insisted in the FoI response letter, which the government department published this week.
Taxpayers might wonder why they're paying for MoD people to goof off looking at the Sidebar of Shame while filling their homes with cheap consumer tat. In fairness, even the most dedicated and conscientious servant of his country sometimes needs a break from things like [1]ultra-dense academic reports about the level of public understanding of Britain's global strategic partnerships.
Especially when the latter gets reduced to "calls to [2]bring back national service" instead of its core point that folk have all but given up paying attention to defence and foreign policy because central government fears the effects of public opinion.
You can't begrudge the poor souls wanting to read about the woes of Z-listers on the world's biggest English-language news website as an antidote to that sort of thing. Desperate times call for desperate measures: even Amazon has pledged to put the majority of [3]its latest quarterly profits into COVID-19 mitigation measures . ®
Sponsored: [4]How to Build Your Digital Experience Portfolio
[1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA213-1.html
[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8260229/Call-bring-national-service-boost-publics-understanding-defence.html
[3] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/30/amazon_q1_2020/
[4] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8578/how-to-build-your-digital-experience-portfolio?td=wptl1936
Re: world's biggest English-language news website
Yes, but once you remove the words "immigrants" "scroungers" "lefties" "BBC" and "Eurocrats" it becomes one of the smallest.
Re: world's biggest English-language news website
The interesting question is why don't they simply block it (at least for most of the working day)? It's not as if the site actually contains anything of value, after all.
Amazing.
When I worked there, one accountant assigned to us was permanently on the Mail website. They put her by the door, I think in an attempt to get her to stop, but every time we'd walk through she'd be on it. She'd look round, see it wasn't anyone important, and carry on reading.
All my previous banter time at the office is now spent on youtube and ebay (obviously poorer than a civil servant) now im WFH.
Why is this? Have they never heard of the Register?
Amazon
Well, you have to visit Amazon to buy the tech tat you need to do your job. I'm a bit more inclined to The Economist than lesser rags; and being word dense, it looks like work. OK, for most people it is too much like work to read The Economist, so they read the Daily Mail. To really look busy, read late breaking news in arxiv-- impress your boss with all those charts and graphs, not only are they fascinating but they look like you are working!!
Never confuse Incompatibility with Incompetence
As an ex-MoD mivvi, I feel the reason is simple: legacy enterprise-wide software meant retaining old versions of browsers and the DM website was the mainstream media site that worked best with legacy browsers
The Register will also be on the list somewhere - I spent many a lunchtime trying hard to get it up the MoD website of shame listings.
world's biggest English-language news website
Really...!?! Daily Mail is the world's biggest English-language news website? Well if that's not a damning indictment of the world we live in, I don't know what is.