4 ms·

Interesting since the government is in the pocket of the Murdoch empire. Since the blood letting of news and media started well over a decade ago, it's never fo

Interesting since the government is in the pocket of the Murdoch empire. Since the blood letting of news and media started well over a decade ago, it's never found a way to catch up to the new world of tech giants controlling what people see. And to control what people see is to control how they think and who to vote for, and before you know it you run nations who have convinced themselves they are democratic and free thinking. It's a mistake to think the Australian government is doing this just for the good of its people. This is the same government that wants a sovereign backdoor into every system under the guise of anti-terrorism. The same govenrment who raided journalists from the national broadcaster to stop whistles being blown at the government and also to put the broadcaster back in its place. So good luck legislating it. Perhaps try untangling some of your own hypocrisy first.

threeseed 7y ago
If you want support from Murdoch papers during election cycles you need to give them what they want. Which is for their businesses to be free from competition. The National Broadband Network was crippled because it was a threat to Foxtel. And now Facebook and Google will need to be crippled because they are a threat to the Murdoch mastheads.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  They think they can, but their time is over. Playing political games and being well-connected means jack all when large majority of the population doesn't buy or feed into your shit any more. Google and Facebook has way more power than the Australian government at this point. Should just have some intern transcribe thousands of loc into pseudo code and then release the gibberish to Australia who can then proceed to do fuck all with it.
  - redact207 7y ago
    But the large majority doesn't know any better. I'd argue very few voters understand what's going on, or even what the policies of their chosen party had to offer. I mean, liberals had barely any policies and they won off a fear and smear campaign against labor. Unfortunately it seems that all this taught labor is that they should push whatever the libs are in order to slow their fall. Facebook and Google should absolutely tell the government to FO and block their services here. Our bratty government will then hopefully see that there are limits to their power and stupidity
friendlybus 7y ago
If you were from Australia I'd let your whole post go. Murdoch isn't that powerful. When the media tells people what they want to hear, it's very difficult from the outside to figure out who's the one pulling the shots. The AFP raided the ABC to ensure accuracy of a report about military action that was released under the reign of a far left management. Now that Ita Buttrose is in charge, you won't see that again. The Australian people trust their own government several orders of magnitude more than the foreign SV tech companies that put people out of jobs and push around politics which America can barely reign in.
- rswail 7y ago
  As an Australian, describing what the AFP did when raiding the ABC was intended as intimidation and nothing else. The report on the actions of the Australian military forces that may constitute war crimes. They know who leaked the information, he is already indicted for trial. Similarly, and in the same week, raids by the AFP on a reporter from News Corporation, shows that your slur of ABC management as being "far left" is complete rubbish. The management of the ABC has not changed. Ita Buttrose is the chair of the ABC board, which specifically does not involve itself in editorial decisions. So Australians do not "trust" their own government, particularly after the various "anti terrorist" legislation that has creeped and allows ASIO etc to detain people for increasing periods of time without charge, or even notification that they are held (ie no habeas corpus). The ACCC is one of the few Australian regulators that actually act on behalf of their stakeholders, ie the consumers of Australia. Other regulators and law enforcement have either suffered extensive "regulatory capture" (particularly APRA and ASIC) or mission creep (AFP, "Border Force" etc).
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    If it were a slur of the ABC that it was far left, I would be happy. https://youtu.be/kxgeevlRElw?t=445 https://youtu.be/kxgeevlRElw?t=445 It was the managing director, Michelle Guthrie that was very quickly sacked and replaced. Turnbull in his Oxford Union address spoke about maintaining the ABC's accuracy. edit: Just to expand on Turnbull's point of view a bit here, because it applies with the social media angle. Turnbull's election run was plagued with fake phone sms's saying that he would privatize Medicare (gov health provider, loss making, impossible to run as private business). It scared some people to the point of voting the other way. He also struggled with social media stories about the way the world was run. The old thinking was to not dignify the stories with airtime. But that didn't work, so later on in his ministership, his party did what they could to get ahead of the stories and squash them, because social media gave them an infinite platform. Turnbull defended the ABC's accuracy as a virtue, even though it speaks the other side of the political table to him, precisely because having an accurate ABC was key to having a verifiably true source for stories. This is relevant to the discussion about the government wanting access to social media platforms that do not adequately restrict fake content. I also share a belief that the ACCC works well. >Other regulators and law enforcement have either suffered extensive "regulatory capture" (particularly APRA and ASIC) or mission creep (AFP, "Border Force" etc). I have family that have worked in the banking sector. The regulations in Australia (up until recently at least) are strict to the point of boring. Maybe things have changed in the last 10 years, but the cases of fraud that are being dragged through the royal commission at the moment pale in comparison to the recession that was prevented by having sane regulations pre-2008.
qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
> tech giants controlling what people see. This has been going on since the beginning of time. If it's not tech, it's a newspaper or magazine, spinning words around in print to elicit a response, a very specific one. Matt Druge, drudgereport, did this today and it's exactly the problem: Headline read BCP agents helped across the border, with hands out, 5 illegals. That's not how it went down and he left out a lot of important details. It did not stop the barrage of the right-wing internet news article commenters.

threeseed 7y ago

If you want support from Murdoch papers during election cycles you need to give them what they want. Which is for their businesses to be free from competition. The National Broadband Network was crippled because it was a threat to Foxtel. And now Facebook and Google will need to be crippled because they are a threat to the Murdoch mastheads.

Aperocky 7y ago
They think they can, but their time is over. Playing political games and being well-connected means jack all when large majority of the population doesn't buy or feed into your shit any more. Google and Facebook has way more power than the Australian government at this point. Should just have some intern transcribe thousands of loc into pseudo code and then release the gibberish to Australia who can then proceed to do fuck all with it.
- redact207 7y ago
  But the large majority doesn't know any better. I'd argue very few voters understand what's going on, or even what the policies of their chosen party had to offer. I mean, liberals had barely any policies and they won off a fear and smear campaign against labor. Unfortunately it seems that all this taught labor is that they should push whatever the libs are in order to slow their fall. Facebook and Google should absolutely tell the government to FO and block their services here. Our bratty government will then hopefully see that there are limits to their power and stupidity

friendlybus 7y ago

If you were from Australia I'd let your whole post go. Murdoch isn't that powerful. When the media tells people what they want to hear, it's very difficult from the outside to figure out who's the one pulling the shots. The AFP raided the ABC to ensure accuracy of a report about military action that was released under the reign of a far left management. Now that Ita Buttrose is in charge, you won't see that again. The Australian people trust their own government several orders of magnitude more than the foreign SV tech companies that put people out of jobs and push around politics which America can barely reign in.

rswail 7y ago
As an Australian, describing what the AFP did when raiding the ABC was intended as intimidation and nothing else. The report on the actions of the Australian military forces that may constitute war crimes. They know who leaked the information, he is already indicted for trial. Similarly, and in the same week, raids by the AFP on a reporter from News Corporation, shows that your slur of ABC management as being "far left" is complete rubbish. The management of the ABC has not changed. Ita Buttrose is the chair of the ABC board, which specifically does not involve itself in editorial decisions. So Australians do not "trust" their own government, particularly after the various "anti terrorist" legislation that has creeped and allows ASIO etc to detain people for increasing periods of time without charge, or even notification that they are held (ie no habeas corpus). The ACCC is one of the few Australian regulators that actually act on behalf of their stakeholders, ie the consumers of Australia. Other regulators and law enforcement have either suffered extensive "regulatory capture" (particularly APRA and ASIC) or mission creep (AFP, "Border Force" etc).
- friendlybus 7y ago
  If it were a slur of the ABC that it was far left, I would be happy. https://youtu.be/kxgeevlRElw?t=445 https://youtu.be/kxgeevlRElw?t=445 It was the managing director, Michelle Guthrie that was very quickly sacked and replaced. Turnbull in his Oxford Union address spoke about maintaining the ABC's accuracy. edit: Just to expand on Turnbull's point of view a bit here, because it applies with the social media angle. Turnbull's election run was plagued with fake phone sms's saying that he would privatize Medicare (gov health provider, loss making, impossible to run as private business). It scared some people to the point of voting the other way. He also struggled with social media stories about the way the world was run. The old thinking was to not dignify the stories with airtime. But that didn't work, so later on in his ministership, his party did what they could to get ahead of the stories and squash them, because social media gave them an infinite platform. Turnbull defended the ABC's accuracy as a virtue, even though it speaks the other side of the political table to him, precisely because having an accurate ABC was key to having a verifiably true source for stories. This is relevant to the discussion about the government wanting access to social media platforms that do not adequately restrict fake content. I also share a belief that the ACCC works well. >Other regulators and law enforcement have either suffered extensive "regulatory capture" (particularly APRA and ASIC) or mission creep (AFP, "Border Force" etc). I have family that have worked in the banking sector. The regulations in Australia (up until recently at least) are strict to the point of boring. Maybe things have changed in the last 10 years, but the cases of fraud that are being dragged through the royal commission at the moment pale in comparison to the recession that was prevented by having sane regulations pre-2008.

qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago

> tech giants controlling what people see. This has been going on since the beginning of time. If it's not tech, it's a newspaper or magazine, spinning words around in print to elicit a response, a very specific one. Matt Druge, drudgereport, did this today and it's exactly the problem: Headline read BCP agents helped across the border, with hands out, 5 illegals. That's not how it went down and he left out a lot of important details. It did not stop the barrage of the right-wing internet news article commenters.