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Because a link takes the user off the platform, and platforms are optimised to keep people on it — so outbound links are ranked down, whether or not anyone says so explicitly. The incentive, stated
Context collapse is what happens when audiences that would normally be separate are flattened into one, so a single message reaches your colleagues, your family, your school friends and strangers
Generally no — and that asymmetry is the central economic fact of being a creator on someone else's platform. What you can usually export. Most large platforms provide a data download containing your
They are escalating enforcement actions with different targets: a takedown hits content, a strike hits your standing, and a ban hits your account. Content removal (takedown). A specific post, video
Partially, and the evidence points to a consistent pattern: they are reasonably accurate but too slow, and their weakest point is exactly where misinformation does most of its damage. How the
A model where many independently operated servers interconnect, so users on different servers can follow and reply to each other — like email, where a Gmail user and an Outlook user communicate
Gradually, to small randomised slices of users, measured against a control group — which is why your feed can differ from a friend's on the same day, and why "they changed the algorithm" is
They are three different settings that get muddled because platforms name them inconsistently — and the distinction between visibility and account type is the one that actually matters. Public vs
To record real human movement and apply it to a digital character — and modern productions capture body, face and voice, frequently at the same time, which is why game acting has become a distinct
The terms describe budget, team size and risk posture — not quality, though they are constantly used as though they did. AAA (triple-A). The largest productions. Teams of hundreds to well over a
A game jam is an event where people make a complete game in a severely limited time — typically 48 hours to a week — usually around a theme announced at the start. How one works. The theme is
They are a secondary goal system layered over a game, and they serve players and platforms in quite different ways — which is why they range from genuinely enriching to plainly manipulative. What
Usually because a licence expired — and the result is that a game can become genuinely unavailable to buy legally anywhere, which is the core of the games preservation problem. Why games get
The meta is the prevailing set of strategies, characters, weapons or builds that are considered strongest at a given moment — the community's evolving answer to "what actually wins". Where the word
A system that changes a game's difficulty in response to how you are playing, usually without telling you — and it is far more widespread than most players realise. What it adjusts. Enemy health,
A hitbox is the invisible shape the game uses to decide whether something was hit — and it is almost never identical to the character model you can see, which is the root of most "that should have
Releasing a game fully, publicly, but only in selected countries before a global launch — a live test with real players spending real money, in a market small enough that failure is survivable. Why
Because games are among the most complex consumer software produced, the number of possible states is effectively unbounded, and testing has to stop at some point that is decided commercially rather
Sometimes, and rather more than cynics assume — but the mechanism by which it works is not the one most people imagine. It is not a vote. The common misconception. People assume the side with more
In England and Wales, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decides in most cases — not the police, and not the victim. That separation is deliberate and is the point of the arrangement. Why the CPS
A duty is something a public body must do. A power is something it may do. The distinction determines whether you can compel action — and it is why so many complaints about councils and public bodies
No. They are entirely separate institutions belonging to different organisations, and conflating them is among the most persistent confusions in British public discussion. The European Court of Human
They are three different things with very different consequences — and the most important distinction is whether you have admitted an offence. Conviction. A finding of guilt by a court, after a trial
A byelaw is a local law made by a council or other authorised body, and it is far more limited than people assume — a council cannot simply invent rules and enforce them. The essential constraint: a
One enforces the rules impartially; the other enforces party discipline ruthlessly. They are the two figures most visible in Commons procedure and they work in opposite directions. The Speaker. The
A select committee is a cross-party group of backbench MPs or peers appointed to scrutinise a department, a subject or an issue — and its power is almost entirely about exposure rather than
Contempt of court covers conduct that interferes with the administration of justice — and reporting restrictions exist because a jury must decide on the evidence it hears in court, not on what it
They are the two standards of proof in English law, and the gap between them explains how the same events can produce an acquittal in a criminal court and a finding of liability in a civil one.
A build-over agreement is permission from the water and sewerage undertaker to construct over or close to a public sewer — and it is needed far more often than homeowners expect, because a great many
An ancient and genuinely surprising legal obligation under which the owner of certain land can be required to contribute to repairing the chancel — the part of a parish church around the altar. It is
An early repayment charge (ERC) is a fee for repaying more of your mortgage than the lender permits, or repaying it entirely, during a fixed or discounted deal period. Why it exists. When a lender
A conservation area is a designated area whose character or appearance is worth preserving. An Article 4 direction is a tool that removes permitted development rights within a defined area — and the
A listed building is one included on a statutory list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest — and listing protects the entire building, inside and out, not just the frontage
Substantially — the offer becomes binding much earlier, the survey is done by the seller, and the tax is a different tax entirely. Advice written for England and Wales can be actively misleading. The
A one-off insurance policy bought during conveyancing to cover the financial consequences of a legal defect, instead of fixing the defect — and it is a workaround, not a solution. What it does. It
They occupy different positions: one owns, one is employed, and one is a vehicle leaseholders create to take control. Confusing them is why complaints frequently go to the wrong place. Freeholder
A lease extension adds years to a leasehold term, and marriage value is an extra payment that becomes due once the lease is short — which is why extending early is dramatically cheaper than extending
Ground rent is a payment a leaseholder makes to the freeholder simply for the land the building stands on. Historically it was a token sum — a few pounds a year, sometimes a peppercorn — and it
A dividend is a payment a company makes to its shareholders out of profits. Yield expresses that payment as a percentage of the share price — and because the price is the denominator, a high yield
A central bank digital currency (CBDC) is digital money issued by a central bank — a direct claim on the central bank in electronic form, rather than a claim on a commercial bank. The distinction
A recession is a significant, widespread and sustained decline in economic activity — and the widely quoted definition is a rule of thumb rather than the real one. The common shorthand: two
A tax code tells your employer or pension provider how much tax-free income to give you before deducting tax. It is issued by HMRC, applied by your employer, and it is wrong more often than people
Capital gains tax (CGT) is tax on the profit made when you dispose of an asset that has risen in value — not on the amount you receive, and not on the asset itself. The core idea. Gain equals
A UK system requiring employers to automatically put eligible staff into a workplace pension and contribute to it — with the employee opted in by default and free to leave. Why it exists. Voluntary
Both are ways of turning a pension pot into retirement income, and they trade off certainty against flexibility in opposite directions. Annuity. You exchange some or all of your pension pot for a
An index fund holds the constituents of a market index in the same proportions, aiming to match the index's return rather than beat it. That is what "passive" means: no one is choosing what to buy.
A share is ownership, a bond is a loan, and a fund is a container holding many of either — which is why the third is a different kind of thing from the first two and gets confused with them
Because there is no single global payment system — money does not move between countries so much as a chain of banks update each other's records, and each link adds time. What actually happens.
The insurer pays them — and understanding that, without overstating it, is the key to dealing with one sensibly. What a loss adjuster does. They are appointed by the insurer to investigate a claim,
Key person insurance is a policy a business takes out on the life — and sometimes the critical illness — of an individual whose loss would cause the business serious financial damage. The business