Short Message: My Apologies

Just a short note to inform you all that I believe that this website has been tampered with today. In modern parlance, I believe it has been hacked.

Several of my posts were tampered with. Some videos posted had either been changed or deleted altogether. One was a cookery demonstration, another was about ‘Hurricane Ida’ in Louisiana and surrounding area, another was a news broadcast–Democracy Now!–and yet another was a wonderful piano concerto by Daniil Trifonov! The concerto of his that I posted was replaced by a very short performance, something like a trailer. I decided to take them all down. I tried replacing them, but that didn’t work.

The other problem I have noticed is that the font color on many of my posts has been changed. Usually, that happens if I have made a very slight error in my HTML. But, upon close inspection of my posts, I found that I had made no such error at all. In fact, I re-posted two of my posts EXACTLY as I had posted them originally. They were exactly as they should be. But in the original position I posted them, they were not. Very odd, I must say.

Putting all these things together, it is difficult not to conclude that someone has been ‘playing around’ in the background. It is difficult not to conclude that homophobia has something to do with this problem.

I find this rather distressing, especially because a lot of work goes into this blog to ensure that the ‘end product’ is aesthetically-pleasing for you all. Then someone comes along and ‘upsets the apple cart’, so to speak. It also makes the posts difficult for some of my visitors to read, I dare say. Naturally, I am truly sorry about that.

In addition, it has become increasingly clear to me that my page views are being tampered with. That is particularly distressing. Just in the last few minutes, I have lost two thousand page views this month. That cannot possibly be the algorithm; rather, that has to be the result of tampering by human hands. This is most distressing. Whoever it is that is playing this silly game would be better served by getting a life and not being so childish and vacuous. In short: Grow up!

I have a fair idea of what and who could be behind this; but one can never be sure – unfortunately.

So please, accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience; and let us hope that it doesn’t happen again.

Warm wishes to all. – Mark