If you do your shopping on Ocado and have a penchant for avocados, you’re probably fairly posh, right? In the worst-case scenario, you’re at least moderately middle-class, surely? Once upon a time, that was almost certainly true, but I’m afraid I’m here to burst your Boden-lined bubble and tell you that everything you know about class is outdated and irrelevant. Facebook is coding a whole new class system and, well, you’re going to have to adjust your self-worth and position on the social ladder accordingly.

It has recently been reported that Facebook has patented technology that uses artificial intelligence to determine its users’ social class without relying on anything as vulgar as their income. That Facebook is analysing its users’ data in nefarious ways is hardly news; it’s the company’s business model. However, this latest development is noteworthy for a couple of reasons.

First, it suggests that Facebook may add class as a targeting option in its advertising preferences. The patent application, Socioceonomic Group Classification based on User Features, says the technology is intended to be used by “third parties to increase awareness about products or services to online system users”. If you’re, say, an upscale supermarket placing ads on the social network, you might be able to specifically exclude working-class people from seeing those ads. Meanwhile, if you’re a predatory payday-loan company, you might be able to ensure only working-class people see your ads. This is crass, of course, but it’s not actually very remarkable. It is simply a more direct form of the sort of targeted advertising that already exists.

What is remarkable about Facebook’s patent application, however, is how it goes about classifying class. It is an approach that may say more about the social dynamics in Silicon Valley than it does about the rest of the world. According to the illustrations in the patent application, Facebook prioritises different class indicators according to your age. If you’re 20 to 30 years old, then the number of internet-connected devices you own is the predominant signifier of your social status; if you’re 30-40, whether you own a house is most important. I’m not entirely sure what happens when you’re over 40; presumably you cease to be of any relevance whatsoever.

Facebook’s focus on how many gadgets you own as a proxy for your place in the world isn’t exactly a nuanced approach to class dynamics. Nevertheless, it does reflect the fact that access to the internet and technological literacy have become important new class markers.

Facebook isn’t the first institution to attempt to rewrite the rules of social class. In 2013, working off the thesis that the traditional three-tiered class divisions of upper, middle and working class were out of date in the 21st century, the BBC teamed up with academics to create a contemporary class calculator. This new model classified people according to one of seven groups based on income and assets, social acquaintances and cultural activities. At the bottom of this new class pyramid was the “precariat”; at the very top was the “elite”. But you probably know this already: within a week of the calculator going live, about one in five Brits had clicked on it. While the definitions of class in a digital world may be shifting, Britain’s national obsession with it doesn’t seem to have changed at all.

The five-million-dollar question of the Oxford comma

For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of an Oxford comma five million dollars were lost. Last week, a US dairy company settled a dispute about overtime pay with its truck drivers for $5m (£3.6m), a payout that could have been avoided by more punctilious punctuation. The case hinged on whether a group of drivers qualified for overtime pay under a clause in Maine state law that was ambiguous due to the lack of a serial comma.

The case has made headlines all over the US thanks to a weird obsession Americans seem to have with the Oxford comma. Plenty of Brits have strong views on grammar, of course, but the Americans seem to have a special affinity with this particular punctuation mark. It is common to see people express their adoration for the Oxford comma on dating profiles, for example; your stance on the matter marks you out as an intellectually superior choice of mate. And the punctuation mark hasn’t just infiltrated Tinder; it has embedded itself in popular culture. The American rock band Vampire Weekend had a hit song called Oxford Comma in 2008 that sparked an internet meme about the punctuation mark – a phenomenon I’m not sure the editors of the Oxford University Press style guide could ever have predicted. In 2011, (inaccurate) rumours that Oxford University was killing its eponymous comma almost unleashed riots.

While I’m glad that the Oxford comma debate led to the truck drivers getting their overtime pay, I can’t help thinking that our obsession with the punctuation mark has lasted far too long. It’s time for the Oxford comma to fade out of popularity, so the much-maligned exclamation mark can have its time in the sun!

If Roald Dahl went to the Winter Olympics …

Anyone heard from the luge world recently? It has been a tumultuous time for them, apparently. According to an NBC announcer, some sort of ice-based error that took place during the Winter Olympics on Sunday “left the luge world speechless”. Evocative phrases such as this are the main reason I’m watching the Games. Ice skating is full of “swizzles”; skiing has “wongbangers”; curling has “kiggle-caggles”; snowboarding has McTwists. I still haven’t figured out what the luge actually is or why curling is a thing, but I’m definitely enthusiastic about the lingo.
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