MySpace: Politicians and Controlling Your Identity

Federal Member for Corangamite Stewart McArthur.
Photo: Everard Himmelreich

Golly:

MP Lashes out at fake MySpace profile:

A federal MP has hit out at MySpace for allowing a “offensive, vulgar and inflammatory” fake site to be set up in his name.

MySpace is a social networking website that allows people to set up free personalised web pages.

Stewart McArthur, the government’s deputy whip, said the fake page – which has since been taken down – had included his photograph.

The unauthorised website portrayed Mr McArthur as a vicious homophobe who wanted to become prime minister, according to local media.

Yep it would be offensive, vulgar and inflammatory to portrayed as a “Prime Minister”. heh. *shrugs* it’s the wiki thing all over again. The cat’s out of the bag, Pandora’s opened the box and the babies been chucked out with the bath water. No, wait, wrong metaphor. I meant, the horse has bolted, with the cat and Pandora, slamming the stable door behind ’em. Satire or defamation, the courts are going to be full for the next few years until we change our laws to catch up.

I’ve added it to Bloggerati Australia (the Web 2.0 social bookmarking site) if you feel like voting on it.

Poodling around Facebook I found that “Paul Keating” has a profile. It’s actually laugh out loud stuff:

Personal Info

Activities:	Looking at the Big Picture, tending to the true believers, polishing my clocks, polishing my legacy.
Interests:	Bagging John Howard (“The little desiccated coconut is under pressure and he is attacking anything he can get his hands on” ), looking snappy in my Ermenegildo Zegna suits, Greco-Roman clocks, pig farming – but not too close to the porkies –, Art Deco, Mahler (1-5), worrying about banana republics, using colourful language, telling the Labor Party how to organise itself.
Favorite Music:	Mahler, oh Mahler!
Favorite TV Shows:	Lateline (when I am on it), the news (when I am on it), any current affairs show (when I am on it).
Favorite Books:	Edna Carew – Paul Keating Prime Minister Paul Keating – Advancing Australia, Big Picture John Edwards – Keating: The Inside Story Don Watson – Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating
Favorite Quotes:	“For Mr Howard to get to the high moral ground, he would first need to climb out of the volcanic hole he had dug for himself over the last decade. It is like one of those diamond mine holes in South Africa. They are about a mile underground. He would have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd.” — that’s me at my best.
About Me:	Well, it’s always about me.

The groups he belongs to:

Twiddling your thumbs is a legitimate pastime.
▪ “Just Fucking Google It, you Stupid Cunt”
▪ Boony for Governor General
▪ Yeah, no, mate, um…..
▪ Anderson Cooper Is My Lover
▪ Sydney, get over yourself. Be international for once. Embrace APEC!
▪ The ABC is a front for communist gay leftist conspiracy theorists.
▪ Shane Warne for Prime Minister
▪ Bindi Irwin gives me the shits!!!!
▪ James Dibble International Fan Club
▪ If only Keating was PM

Hmm … my point was….? Ah yes. Two things.

One – politicians expect satire. Think cartoons and puppets and whatnot. The ridicule must get pretty intense but they get used to it. And so will you. Whaaaat? Well think about it – you are now a brand of one. Everything you do can be monitored, read, commented upon. At least one person from now on will disagree or ridicule something you say online. At least one person will step over the line of heated debate into flame war territory and defame/outrage you. What will you do? Sue? Fight back? Ignore? I find crying works for me – disarms the opponent and gets the rest of the readership/members on your side. Try it. 😛

The second thing is that you may think you have created a gated community whereby only your friends will see you badmouthing people, complaining about staff, dissing clients – but ONE screenshot, ONE copy-and-paste, ONE unthinking friend repeating you online in some God-but-not-Google-forsaken corner of the ‘net and it’s all over, Red Rover. Career-limiting-move-orama is gonna happen. Bid a fond farewell to that boyfriend/girlfriend, boss, client or friend. (More on the gated communities/walled gardens podcast with me, and Mike Seyfang and David N Wallace. ) So if you are worried about privacy… “put the mouse DOWN and back AWAY from the keyboard. NOW!” It was as easy as me copy-and-pasting the stuff from “paul keating’s” profile.

Of course you could always tell ’em it was identity theft, an impersonator, and not the sort of thing you would ever even think, let alone say. Good luck with that! 🙂 In the meantime, I started a Facebook Group called something like Facebook Status Updates, Speaking the Unspeakable. Read and Learn. heh.

EDIT: I forgot to say – Kevin Rudd (real one) is friends with Paul Keating (fake one) on Facebook. But don’t bother trying to join Kevvy:

Hi from the Rudd team.

We appologise to the pending friend requests. We have reached the current cap of facebook friends and are in consultation with facebook to increase it. We hope to resolve this issue soon.

We wish to thank everyone for becoming facebook friends with Kevin. Recently we reached over 5000 friends. Kevin and his staff sincerely appreciate the emails of support and the gifts that have been sent.

If you wish to contact Kevin, his email is kevin.rudd.mp@aph.gov.au.

5000 is the limit and Facebook staff call ’em Facebook Whales. Probably some Jonah reference?