#sure the majority of Australia are no voters but is changing the hate going to fix things

[fazcinatingblog]

Omfg it's funny because it's true, damn we needed that 3 game member.

[beta-lactam-allergic]

Unfortunately, I think @germiyahu is correct.

The neo-Nazis don't moderate even though the rest of society hates them. The LNP in Australia & the GOP in the USA are both filled with openly transphobic nutters who either want to (in Australia) enact or already have (in the USA) enacted anti-trans legislation despite every opinion poll since 2020 in both countries showing most voters, even a good chunk of their rusted-on voters disagreeing with them on this issue (in the case of the rusted-on voters, they usually don't care enough to change their vote, but it's notable that even they ask "Why the fuck do you care what they identify as?")

I see no reason to believe that most of these Arab Supremacists (even the ones who aren't Arab themselves) are going to change their minds & stop engaging in Judenhass. They will just communicate about it amongst themselves on private Discord/Telegram/WeChat/etc servers rather than in easily seen public social media (FB/Tumblr/I don't know many social media sites).

A minority will re-examine their beliefs on their own & realise they were propagandised to by the Qatari/Iranian/Russian alliance. They will be others we can successfully reach & de-program. We should encourage every effort at deprogramming as every individual that's successfully deprogrammed is one less potential hate crime.

But we have to accept the the majority of them are lost. All we can do is make sure that Gen Alpha doesn't go down the path to many people in Gen Z went down.

Looks like the Pro Palestine movement shat the bed completely. There's definitely been a vibe shift ever since they turned on Black people. The DNC protests were a bust. And Palestinians tried to raise a big stink over not getting a speaking spot at the DNC and the vast majority of people were like, "Lol you called the nominee 'Killer Kamala' and her boss 'Genocide Joe', what did you expect?" Now "Muslim Women for Harris" gave her their endorsement because they've finally realized they have no leveraging power over the Democrats and decided maybe they should do something to prevent Trump from returning to office.

Free Palestine isn't attracting the same large crowds anymore. The college protests are a few dozen people. Not to say these lingering ones aren't dangerous (they're probably even more dangerous than the bigger crowds at the encampments last semester) but they're just not attracting the same energy they used to.

It's going to be very interesting to see how the leftists who went full Jew-hater and jumped on the Free Palestine bandwagon react to the engine running out of gas. Do they think they can just go back to trying to cancel each other over microaggressions after spewing Nazi shit for the past 10 months? Do they think they can quietly delete their 10/7 tweets and people are just going to forget? I want to know if it's sunk in for them that they have completely destroyed credibility in mainstream leftism. Because I know I'm never trusting any activist movement again unless they can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're normal about Jews.

I know there will be no apologies, no self-reflection, no accountability from these people. I expect nothing but a bunch of gaslighting. People who pretended they didn't pass around lists of "Zionists", pretending they didn't romanticize self-immolation, pretending they weren't regurgitating slurs from David Duke. No, they'll all pretend they were totally calling out the antisemitism this whole time, for real. They totally weren't an active member in an Arab/white supremacist death cult.

Going forward, it's like how whenever you meet someone with a certain vibe, you ask them who they voted for in 2016/2020? Whenever I meet someone who's a self-proclaimed "activist", it's gonna like, "What were you posting about on 10/7?"

Oh I loovvvveee it. They came crawling right back. This should only be a lesson to the campus crowd about how politics works past the rhyming chant stage, maybe a few will even learn it.

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

June 1st has come and gone for me, and with it, the start of another Pride Month. As such, I’ve been contemplating queer issues both generally and those of which relate to myself personally and how I “fit in” to the queer community.

Pride Month is always an.... interesting time for me, as I imagine it is for a lot of people who identify as anything but straight. However, while I am not the only person who is in the situation I am in, the struggles I face definitely aren’t the norm from what I have seen, which ironically is partially while I��m making this post today because I definitely think that it’s probably more common than what I’ve seen. It’s just that it’s more common in particular places as opposed to in general.

If I had to describe my relationship with how sexuality dictates my life in one phrase, I’d probably label it as “Life changing but not a big deal”. And that probably sounds strange and ironic, and in some ways it is. I guess the best way to explain my situation is that I have been so incredibly lucky and privileged to be able to live in an environment where my personal bisexuality was not a big deal, but I am still super aware and impacted by the persecution other queer people have faced and the fact that I could one day be in that position. For example, my life drastically changed and I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Bipolar Disorder after I witnessed the suicide of a close friend as a result of homophobia when I was 15. That was not my sexuality based persecution and I have never reached even thoughts about doing the same due to my sexuality, but that doesn’t change that the persecution that is alive and kicking today drastically impacted my life in a way it shouldn’t have been able to as well as ending my friend’s life.

That was eight years ago, and admittedly a lot has changed since then. Queer marriage is not legal in Australia, my state and Victoria have banned conversion therapy, all states barring South Australia have gotten rid of the gay panic defence for murders, Tasmania has allowed parents to choose not to put a gender on the birth certificate of their children and the general public is slowly becoming more queer friendly, even in places like my state which were already pretty friendly in comparison to most. But there’s still a long way to go and sadly part of that involves fighting to not take steps backwards. As we speak and for the last year if not more, the Liberals (please note that the Liberals are the conservative party in Australia) have been doing all they can to strengthen religious (read: Christian/Catholic) freedoms purely in ways that allow them to discriminate against the queer community.... and sadly the Labor party has mostly had to receive large amounts of backlash before withdrawing support for these freedoms. Likewise, it feels a lot of the awareness my state Labor party gives is performative. Sure, having a rainbow public transport bus is nice, but when it’s still technically illegal in most states to give blood when you are someone who has had sex with either a) another man if you are a man or b) a man who has had sex with another man, a rainbow bus really doesn’t mean anything. Given this, while I hate the idea of donkey voting and refusing to vote because you don’t like either party, I get why the federal election we just had had the largest amount of disengagement from younger voters.

But that’s all very political, which leads to my next point. Since coming out, I’ve never really felt comfortable advocating and sharing my story within the community. I’m not pointing fingers here because it’s nobody’s fault, but we as a community are still in a position where the majority of us are still struggling with internal and external factors of our sexuality and feel the effects of that on a daily basis. However, as implied, I’m not one of these people. The only way I can talk about struggles in this community is through other people and legislation that I feel hasn’t personally affected me. While I don’t live in a safe haven, my struggles have felt so insignificant in comparison to those who have been physically attacked, disowned and killed either by themselves or others that I’ve always felt it’s not my place to speak on these matters and that if I did, I risked giving the wrong impression that we are in a post queerphobia era when that is far from the truth. 

And I think that’s really sad. I think it’s unfortunate that without meaning to, we’ve created an environment where those of us who are fortunate enough to barely have to consider our sexuality feel that can’t speak out. Because to me personally, these stories are just as vital as the ones of those struggling because it shows that even if we lose some battles, we are winning the war. The world those at Stonewall as well as previous and following eras fought for is coming to life and hopefully will be a reality for every single queer person who walks the Earth.

[amethystspaceprince]

What was that post about with someone writing "vote no" in the sky?? I'm not Australian so I'm probably missing something.

I don’t know every detail even as an Australian because my brain tends to forget names and I’m sorry I’m terrible at explaining, but I’ll do my best :)

In Australia we are currently having the debate about whether or not marriage law should be changed to include same sex coupes to be able to marry as you may know. And as I’m pretty sure we all guessed would happen all the homophobes began spewing their nonsense. They made ads campaigning against marriage equality which were shown on tv and also there have been disgusting posters placed around Australia that the no side has also put up, not to mention various other things like vandalism of people’s properties for having a rainbow flag on display.

The yes side has campaigned too. One thing they did was send random numbers texts saying to vote yes. This didn’t really go well because a bunch of people began complaining. Also I’m pretty sure I heard that some guy (I think he’s a politician of some kind or is the leader of the no campaign idk) who is on the no side said he was organising for there to be random calls to people to vote no. So I mean they’re hypocrites (although maybe they were just copying even though they got so mad about it) Note that no no voters that I have seen ever complained about the idea of random phone calls

Anyway so some guy wrote ‘vote no’ in the sky with his plane for Sydney to see (I think it happened again in Melbourne but I’m not sure). And it was obvious because it was a clear blue sky. The prime minister dismissed and allowed it because “freedom of speech” but it is obviously awful to look up in the sky and see writing that advocates for denying your rights or the rights of your community. If I have to hear “freedom of speech” as an excuse to be hateful one more time I swear to god…

The debate has been stressful and awful. It hasn’t been respectful and it has brought out a lot of homophobia as I think people predicted. Even some yes people have taken things a bit far which doesn’t help the yes campaign. We only have a few more dates of voting (don’t get me started on the fact it is technically like a survey that’s costing Australia $122 million and isn’t compulsory to do like voting is even though I’ve called it voting here. Also the result isn’t binding so we can go through all of this and the majority can be yes and the govt can go “no, we aren’t giving you marriage equality”).

((Extra note: Also I’m also mad because the group campaigning against marriage equality (they are called coalition for marriage) are using pink, purple and blue kinda colours for their logo. It might not look exactly like the bi flag but still makes me mad))

Sorry this was so long. I get carried away and I talk a lot sometimes. I hope this answered your question and maybe gave you some extra details on how we have been doing the past couple of months. On the positive side I have heard that the yes side has the most votes so far (although I only heard that from someone I know and I haven’t looked it up in fear it is wrong and it’s too stressful for me atm) I hope it was ok to post publicly but if you want I will delete this and maybe message you privately instead :)

[ladystylestores]

Beer With Bella: Malcolm Turnbull

You can learn a lot about someone from an interview. But can you learn more over a drink? The Australia Letter introduces “Beer With Bella,” in which one reporter who hates beer but loves chatting meets interesting Australians over a beverage.

Sign up to get the newsletter in your inbox.

________

First Impression

Earlier this month, I clicked into a Zoom call, drink in hand, with Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s 29th prime minister.

Malcolm was speaking from his Point Piper home in a crisp white shirt and blazer, looking unflappable. (My Zoom background was a scenic bamboo forest.)

A former investment banker known for his wealth, intellect and moderate conservative positions, Mr. Turnbull has written a book, “A Bigger Picture,” that is a meticulous, feud-by-feud accounting of his years in public life. It recounts his triumphs but also touches on the ideological factions among conservative lawmakers that ultimately led him to be the third leader ousted over climate change policy in recent years.

Over a lengthy call, we explored his thoughts on the relationship between Australia and China, the “terrorism” of the right wing and his exercise routine.

________

The Order

Mr. Turnbull favors Longjing tea from the Chinese city of Hangzhou — a taste, he notes in the book, that he shares with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, though he had forgotten his drink the day we chatted. Come on, Malcolm!

I made do with a green tea that I purchased from a cafe downstairs.

________

The Chat

In your early days, you read as relentlessly ambitious, from Rhodes scholar to barrister. Where does that ambition come from?

I’m not great at psychoanalyzing myself. I don’t think I was unusually ambitious, but I was possibly unusually persistent. I’ve never been afraid of failure. That’s probably the most important thing, because a lot of people are scared of falling at the first hurdle. They don’t even bother to start.

History is made by those who turn up. And unless you are prepared to have a go, you’ll never find out. You’ll never fail, but you’ll never try to do anything.

Let’s dive right into something recent: Australia’s relationship with China. How have you seen China’s diplomacy changing? And what’s the path forward for Australia to manage frictions that are emerging?

China has become more assertive, aggressive in its regional foreign policy.

We came under a lot of pressure at different times, but I took the view that you have to be courteous, obviously. But don’t be bullied — by anyone, frankly, certainly not by China.

Australians have got to recognize that China does not trade with us because they want to do us a favor. They’re trading with us because it’s in their interests. And we should have the confidence to believe in ourselves.

Our region in particular is not a series of spokes going into hubs in Beijing and Washington — more like a mesh. A key part of my foreign policy was to build stronger relations, in particular, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan. Just being mesmerized by the two superpowers, I think, is a very risky approach.

That’s right. We had a very rowdy call over the Obama refugee deal. He wasn’t happy about doing that. But he agreed not to put tariffs on our steel or aluminum.

I have decided to give him credit for having listened thoughtfully to the case that I put. If you want to have fair trade, from his point of view, you cannot get a better trade deal than you have with Australia, where you have low tariffs, no quota.

I’ve dealt with big bullying billionaires all my life. Sycophancy and sucking up to people, it won’t get you what you want. The way to deal with those big personalities is to be respectful and persuasive.

Do you see the relationship between Australia and the U.S. continuing forward as it has for much of this century as allies?

The Australian-American relationship goes well beyond the president and the prime minister. It’s millions of people, it’s families, it’s businesses, shared culture.

Trump’s deliberate unpredictability generates fear rather than respect, anxiety rather than certainty. America may be stronger in economic and military terms, but its influence is diminished. In fact, under Trump, America seeks less influence, not least by rejecting many of the global institutions created after the Second World War.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And China will gladly fill that vacuum.

What I wanted to do, and still do, is ensure that the countries in the region take up the mantle and build greater trust between each other.

If you look at East Asia, you’ve got the third-largest national economy in Japan and G-20 members South Korea, Indonesia, Australia. Vietnam is a growing powerhouse. The idea that China has got some right to dominate our hemisphere is simply wrong.

You positioned yourself as a socially progressive Liberal leader, with some of your voters looking for faster movement on climate change. Could you have been stronger on it?

The problem is that for the populist right of politics, climate change has become an ideological issue.

There remains this denial of the science. It is supported here by essentially the right-wing media, mostly belonging to Rupert Murdoch and obviously the vested interests of the fossil fuel lobby.

The right in the Liberal party no longer accept the fundamental premise of being in a political party.

The premise is that you get your members in a room, you debate issues, you come to a consensus.

What the right says is that on issues that matter to them, like climate policy and energy policy, they will not go along with the majority and they will blow the joint up if they don’t get what they want.

This is essentially the tactics of terrorism. I hasten to add, they’re not using guns and bombs. But a terrorist says to society, I will keep blowing things up until you give in, and if you want me to stop blowing people up, you do what I want.

That’s the tactic that they used against me in August 2018. And it was backed ferociously by the right-wing media, particularly Murdoch. It was a corrupt and degrading parody of democracy.

The only thing that will make them change is if they feel that the policies they have will result in electoral defeat.

You wrote that there are some people in government that would never vote for a female prime minister.

It’s getting better, but it’s got a long way to go. The culture in Parliament is still very blokey. It reminds me of the corporate culture of the 1980s. There are many men there who are very uncomfortable about women in positions of authority.

The ideal would be to have a Parliament that was half men and half women.

How do you think Prime Minister Morrison is going right now?

I think he’s going pretty well, actually. The hardest part is yet to come dealing with the economic consequences. It’s been a collective effort. Overall, they have managed better than many other countries, in particular the U.S. and the U.K.

Australian media is one of the most concentrated in the world. What do you think of the polarized landscape?

The media’s problems are much bigger than Rupert Murdoch. The media space has become much more competitive. Much of what we used to call the mainstream media is now utterly partisan and has very little regard for the facts.

Sky News in Australia, particularly in the evenings — total propaganda. That’s why I think it is fair to describe Murdoch’s news empire now as a political organization.

You can now make a living with an audience that is very narrow. You can make stuff up. You can use the media to defend your friends and attack their enemies.

A Fox News relationship with Trump is like the relationship of state-owned media in an authoritarian regime. Fox will defend the president, attack his enemies. I mean, what’s the difference between Fox News and the Global Times?

Have you achieved what you set out to do?

I would have loved Australia to have become a republic. I wished we could have had an integrated energy and climate policy, but no one can say I didn’t give that my best shot on several occasions at a great cost. Same-sex marriage, I wanted to legalize that. I had to go about it a rather unusual way. It was Bismarck who said the public should not be able to see the way sausages or laws are made. At the end of the day, we’ve got the sausage.

So what keeps you up at night these days?

I’ve always slept pretty well. When you’ve got a big job like being prime minister of Australia, it’s important to sleep and exercise.

What’s your preferred exercise?

Well, living on Sydney Harbour, as I do, I like kayaking. I walk most often with Lucy. I try to do 100 push-ups a day — I was quite religious about that when I was prime minister — not all in one hit, I hasten to add.

Well, there we have it.

I’ve never done 100 push-ups in one hit.

We will make sure to clarify that.

I don’t want people challenging me to push-ups.

___

The Drink Verdict

“I’ve had nothing to drink here. This has been very abstemious,” Malcolm said, promising to do the real thing with me one of these days. “So now I’ll go and have a cup of tea.”

My green tea was pretty good but I wondered: What does Longjing tea taste like?

Enjoying the Australia Letter? Sign up here or forward to a friend.

For more Australia coverage and discussion, start your day with your local Morning Briefing and join us in our Facebook group.

Source link

قالب وردپرس

from World Wide News https://ift.tt/2ZqwBW1

[endenogatai]

Voter manipulation on social media now a global problem, report finds

New research by the Oxford Internet Institute has found that social media manipulation is getting worse, with rising numbers of governments and political parties making cynical use of social media algorithms, automation and big data to manipulate public opinion at scale — with hugely worrying implications for democracy.

The report found that computational propaganda and social media manipulation have proliferated massively in recently years — now prevalent in more than double the number of countries (70) vs two years ago (28). An increase of 150%.

The research suggests that the spreading of fake news and toxic narratives has become the dysfunctional new ‘normal’ for political actors across the globe, thanks to social media’s global reach.

“Although propaganda has always been a part of political discourse, the deep and wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raise critical public interest concerns,” the report warns.

The researchers go on to dub the global uptake of computational propaganda tools and techniques a “critical threat” to democracies.

“The use of computational propaganda to shape public attitudes via social media has become mainstream, extending far beyond the actions of a few bad actors,” they add. “In an information environment characterized by high volumes of information and limited levels of user attention and trust, the tools and techniques of computational propaganda are becoming a common – and arguably essential – part of digital campaigning and public diplomacy.”

Organised social media manipulation campaigns are now prevalent in 70 countries around world, (more than doubling from 28 in 2017) finds latest @oiioxford @polbots report #cypbertroops2019 https://t.co/pZ7TgAo73t pic.twitter.com/L0er8bKpfK

— Oxford Internet Institute (@oiioxford) September 26, 2019

Techniques the researchers found being deployed by governments and political parties to spread political propaganda include the use of bots to amplify hate speech or other forms of manipulated content; the illegal harvesting of data or micro-targeting; and the use of armies of ‘trolls’ to bully or harass political dissidents or journalists online.

The researchers looked at computational propaganda activity in 70 countries around the world — including the US, the UK, Germany, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and Australia (see the end of this article for the full list) — finding organized social media manipulation in all of them.

So next time Facebook puts out another press release detailing a bit of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” it claims to have found and removed from its platform, it’s important to put it in context of the bigger picture. And the picture painted by this report suggests that such small-scale, selective discloses of propaganda-quashing successes sum to misleading Facebook PR vs the sheer scale of the problem.

The problem is massive, global and largely taking place through Facebook’s funnel, per the report.

Facebook remains the platform of choice for social media manipulation — with researchers finding evidence of formally organised political disops campaigns on its platform taking place in 56 countries.

We reached out to Facebook for a response to the report and the company sent us a laundry list of steps it says it’s been taking to combat election interference and coordinated inauthentic activity — including in areas such as voter suppression, political ad transparency and industry-civil society partnerships.

But it did not offer any explanation why all this apparent effort (just its summary of what it’s been doing exceeds 1,600 words) has so spectacularly failed to stem the rising tide of political fakes being amplified via Facebook.

Instead it sent us this statement: “Helping show people accurate information and protecting against harm is a major priority for us. We’ve developed smarter tools, greater transparency, and stronger partnerships to better identify emerging threats, stop bad actors, and reduce the spread of misinformation on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. We also know that this work is never finished and we can’t do this alone. That’s why we are working with policymakers, academics, and outside experts to make sure we continue to improve.”

We followed up to ask why all its efforts have so far failed to reduce fake activity on its platform and will update this report with any response.

Returning to the report, the researchers say China has entered the global disinformation fray in a big way — using social media platforms to target international audiences with disinformation, something the country has long directed at its domestic population of course.

The report describes China as “a major player in the global disinformation order”.

It also warns that the use of computational propaganda techniques combined with tech-enabled surveillance is providing authoritarian regimes around the world with the means to extend their control of citizens’ lives.

“The co-option of social media technologies provides authoritarian regimes with a powerful tool to shape public discussions and spread propaganda online, while simultaneously surveilling, censoring, and restricting digital public spaces,” the researchers write.

Other key findings from the report include that both democracies and authoritarian states are making (il)liberal use of computational propaganda tools and techniques.

Per the report:

In 45 democracies, politicians and political parties “have used computational propaganda tools by amassing fake followers or spreading manipulated media to garner voter support”

In 26 authoritarian states, government entities “have used computational propaganda as a tool of information control to suppress public opinion and press freedom, discredit criticism and oppositional voices, and drown out political dissent”

The report also identifies seven “sophisticated state actors” — China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — using what it calls “cyber troops” (aka dedicated online workers whose job is to use computational propaganda tools to manipulate public opinion) to run foreign influence campaigns.

Foreign influence operations — which includes election interference — were found by the researchers to primarily be taking place on Facebook and Twitter.

We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment and will update this article with any response. Update: A spokesperson told us: “Platform manipulation, including spam and other attempts to undermine the integrity of our service, is a violation of the Twitter Rules. We’ve significantly stepped up our efforts — investing in people, policies, and tech — to catch this behavior at scale. Additionally, we’re the only company to disclose every account and piece of content that we can reliably link to state-backed activity on the service. Research like this is the reason we’ve made this choice. We believe that full transparency empowers public understanding of these critical issues.”

A year ago, when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, he said it was considering labelling bot accounts on its platform — agreeing that “more context” around tweets and accounts would be a good thing, while also arguing that identifying automation that’s scripted to look like a human is difficult.

Instead of adding a ‘bot or not’ label, Twitter has just launched a ‘hide replies’ feature — which lets users screen individual replies to their tweets (requiring an affirmative action from viewers to unhide and be able to view any hidden replies). Twitter says this is intended at increasing civility on the platform. But there have been concerns the feature could be abused to help propaganda spreaders — i.e. by allowing them to suppress replies that debunk their junk.

The Oxford Internet Institute researchers found bot accounts are very widely used to spread political propaganda (80% of countries studied used them). However the use of human agents was even more prevalent (87% of countries).

Bot-human blended accounts, which combine automation with human curation in an attempt to fly under the BS detector radar, were much rarer: Identified in 11% of countries.

While hacked or stolen accounts were found being used in just 7% of countries.

In another key finding from the report, the researchers identified 25 countries working with private companies or strategic communications firms offering a computational propaganda as a service, noting that: “In some cases, like in Azerbaijan, Israel, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, student or youth groups are hired by government agencies to use computational propaganda.”

Commenting on the report in a statement, professor Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “The manipulation of public opinion over social media remains a critical threat to democracy, as computational propaganda becomes a pervasive part of everyday life. Government agencies and political parties around the world are using social media to spread disinformation and other forms of manipulated media. Although propaganda has always been a part of politics, the wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raises critical concerns for modern democracy.”

Samantha Bradshaw, researcher and lead author of the report, added: “The affordances of social networking technologies — algorithms, automation and big data — vastly changes the scale, scope, and precision of how information is transmitted in the digital age. Although social media was once heralded as a force for freedom and democracy, it has increasingly come under scrutiny for its role in amplifying disinformation, inciting violence, and lowering trust in the media and democratic institutions.”

Other findings from the report include that:

52 countries used “disinformation and media manipulation” to mislead users

47 countries used state sponsored trolls to attack political opponents or activists, up from 27 last year

Which backs up the widespread sense in some Western democracies that political discourse has been getting less truthful and more toxic for a number of years — given tactics that amplify disinformation and target harassment at political opponents are indeed thriving on social media, per the report.

. @facebook hard at work 'Connecting people' https://t.co/GtIOXa1X2q

— Natasha (@riptari) September 24, 2019

Despite finding an alarming rise in the number of government actors across the globe who are misappropriating powerful social media platforms and other tech tools to influence public attitudes and try to disrupt elections, Howard said the researchers remain optimistic that social media can be “a force for good” — by “creating a space for public deliberation and democracy to flourish”.

“A strong democracy requires access to high quality information and an ability for citizens to come together to debate, discuss, deliberate, empathise and make concessions,” he said.

Clearly, though, there’s a stark risk of high quality information being drowned out by the tsunami of BS that’s being paid for by self-interested political actors. It’s also of course much cheaper to produce BS political propaganda than carry out investigative journalism.

Democracy needs a free press to function but the press itself is also under assault from online ad giants that have disrupted its business model by being able to spread and monetize any old junk content. If you want a perfect storm hammering democracy this most certainly is it.

It’s therefore imperative for democratic states to arm their citizens with education and awareness to enable them to think critically about the junk being pushed at them online. But as we’ve said before, there are no shortcuts to universal education.

Meanwhile regulation of social media platforms and/or the use of powerful computational tools and techniques for political purposes simply isn’t there. So there’s no hard check on voter manipulation.

Lawmakers have failed to keep up with the tech-fuelled times. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given how many political parties have their own hands in the data and ad-targeting cookie jar, as well as pushing fakes. (Concerned citizens are advised to practise good digital privacy hygiene to fight back against undemocratic attempts to hack public opinion. More privacy tips here.)

The researchers say their 2019 report, which is based on research work carried out between 2018 and 2019, draws upon a four-step methodology to identify evidence of globally organised manipulation campaigns — including a systematic content analysis of news articles on cyber troop activity and a secondary literature review of public archives and scientific reports, generating country specific case studies and expert consultations.

Here’s the full list of countries studied:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Myanmar, Netherlands, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/2nwcCED via IFTTT

[sheminecrafts]

Voter manipulation on social media now a global problem, report finds

New research by the Oxford Internet Institute has found that social media manipulation is getting worse, with rising numbers of governments and political parties making cynical use of social media algorithms, automation and big data to manipulate public opinion at scale — with hugely worrying implications for democracy.

The report found that computational propaganda and social media manipulation have proliferated massively in recently years — now prevalent in more than double the number of countries (70) vs two years ago (28). An increase of 150%.

The research suggests that the spreading of fake news and toxic narratives has become the dysfunctional new ‘normal’ for political actors across the globe, thanks to social media’s global reach.

“Although propaganda has always been a part of political discourse, the deep and wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raise critical public interest concerns,” the report warns.

The researchers go on to dub the global uptake of computational propaganda tools and techniques a “critical threat” to democracies.

“The use of computational propaganda to shape public attitudes via social media has become mainstream, extending far beyond the actions of a few bad actors,” they add. “In an information environment characterized by high volumes of information and limited levels of user attention and trust, the tools and techniques of computational propaganda are becoming a common – and arguably essential – part of digital campaigning and public diplomacy.”

Organised social media manipulation campaigns are now prevalent in 70 countries around world, (more than doubling from 28 in 2017) finds latest @oiioxford @polbots report #cypbertroops2019 https://t.co/pZ7TgAo73t pic.twitter.com/L0er8bKpfK

— Oxford Internet Institute (@oiioxford) September 26, 2019

Techniques the researchers found being deployed by governments and political parties to spread political propaganda include the use of bots to amplify hate speech or other forms of manipulated content; the illegal harvesting of data or micro-targeting; and the use of armies of ‘trolls’ to bully or harass political dissidents or journalists online.

The researchers looked at computational propaganda activity in 70 countries around the world — including the US, the UK, Germany, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and Australia (see the end of this article for the full list) — finding organized social media manipulation in all of them.

So next time Facebook puts out another press release detailing a bit of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” it claims to have found and removed from its platform, it’s important to put it in context of the bigger picture. And the picture painted by this report suggests that such small-scale, selective discloses of propaganda-quashing successes sum to misleading Facebook PR vs the sheer scale of the problem.

The problem is massive, global and largely taking place through Facebook’s funnel, per the report.

Facebook remains the platform of choice for social media manipulation — with researchers finding evidence of formally organised political disops campaigns on its platform taking place in 56 countries.

We reached out to Facebook for a response to the report and the company sent us a laundry list of steps it says it’s been taking to combat election interference and coordinated inauthentic activity — including in areas such as voter suppression, political ad transparency and industry-civil society partnerships.

But it did not offer any explanation why all this apparent effort (just its summary of what it’s been doing exceeds 1,600 words) has so spectacularly failed to stem the rising tide of political fakes being amplified via Facebook.

Instead it sent us this statement: “Helping show people accurate information and protecting against harm is a major priority for us. We’ve developed smarter tools, greater transparency, and stronger partnerships to better identify emerging threats, stop bad actors, and reduce the spread of misinformation on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. We also know that this work is never finished and we can’t do this alone. That’s why we are working with policymakers, academics, and outside experts to make sure we continue to improve.”

We followed up to ask why all its efforts have so far failed to reduce fake activity on its platform and will update this report with any response.

Returning to the report, the researchers say China has entered the global disinformation fray in a big way — using social media platforms to target international audiences with disinformation, something the country has long directed at its domestic population of course.

The report describes China as “a major player in the global disinformation order”.

It also warns that the use of computational propaganda techniques combined with tech-enabled surveillance is providing authoritarian regimes around the world with the means to extend their control of citizens’ lives.

“The co-option of social media technologies provides authoritarian regimes with a powerful tool to shape public discussions and spread propaganda online, while simultaneously surveilling, censoring, and restricting digital public spaces,” the researchers write.

Other key findings from the report include that both democracies and authoritarian states are making (il)liberal use of computational propaganda tools and techniques.

Per the report:

In 45 democracies, politicians and political parties “have used computational propaganda tools by amassing fake followers or spreading manipulated media to garner voter support”

In 26 authoritarian states, government entities “have used computational propaganda as a tool of information control to suppress public opinion and press freedom, discredit criticism and oppositional voices, and drown out political dissent”

The report also identifies seven “sophisticated state actors” — China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — using what it calls “cyber troops” (aka dedicated online workers whose job is to use computational propaganda tools to manipulate public opinion) to run foreign influence campaigns.

Foreign influence operations — which includes election interference — were found by the researchers to primarily be taking place on Facebook and Twitter.

We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment and will update this article with any response.

A year ago, when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, he said it was considering labelling bot accounts on its platform — agreeing that “more context” around tweets and accounts would be a good thing, while also arguing that identifying automation that’s scripted to look like a human is difficult.

Instead of adding a ‘bot or not’ label, Twitter has just launched a ‘hide replies’ feature — which lets users screen individual replies to their tweets (requiring an affirmative action from viewers to unhide and be able to view any hidden replies). Twitter says this is intended at increasing civility on the platform. But there have been concerns the feature could be abused to help propaganda spreaders — i.e. by allowing them to suppress replies that debunk their junk.

The Oxford Internet Institute researchers found bot accounts are very widely used to spread political propaganda (80% of countries studied used them). However the use of human agents was even more prevalent (87% of countries).

Bot-human blended accounts, which combine automation with human curation in an attempt to fly under the BS detector radar, were much rarer: Identified in 11% of countries.

While hacked or stolen accounts were found being used in just 7% of countries.

In another key finding from the report, the researchers identified 25 countries working with private companies or strategic communications firms offering a computational propaganda as a service, noting that: “In some cases, like in Azerbaijan, Israel, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, student or youth groups are hired by government agencies to use computational propaganda.”

Commenting on the report in a statement, professor Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “The manipulation of public opinion over social media remains a critical threat to democracy, as computational propaganda becomes a pervasive part of everyday life. Government agencies and political parties around the world are using social media to spread disinformation and other forms of manipulated media. Although propaganda has always been a part of politics, the wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raises critical concerns for modern democracy.”

Samantha Bradshaw, researcher and lead author of the report, added: “The affordances of social networking technologies — algorithms, automation and big data — vastly changes the scale, scope, and precision of how information is transmitted in the digital age. Although social media was once heralded as a force for freedom and democracy, it has increasingly come under scrutiny for its role in amplifying disinformation, inciting violence, and lowering trust in the media and democratic institutions.”

Other findings from the report include that:

52 countries used “disinformation and media manipulation” to mislead users

47 countries used state sponsored trolls to attack political opponents or activists, up from 27 last year

Which backs up the widespread sense in some Western democracies that political discourse has been getting less truthful and more toxic for a number of years — given tactics that amplify disinformation and target harassment at political opponents are indeed thriving on social media, per the report.

. @facebook hard at work 'Connecting people' https://t.co/GtIOXa1X2q

— Natasha (@riptari) September 24, 2019

Despite finding an alarming rise in the number of government actors across the globe who are misappropriating powerful social media platforms and other tech tools to influence public attitudes and try to disrupt elections, Howard said the researchers remain optimistic that social media can be “a force for good” — by “creating a space for public deliberation and democracy to flourish”.

“A strong democracy requires access to high quality information and an ability for citizens to come together to debate, discuss, deliberate, empathise and make concessions,” he said.

Clearly, though, there’s a stark risk of high quality information being drowned out by the tsunami of BS that’s being paid for by self-interested political actors. It’s also of course much cheaper to produce BS political propaganda than carry out investigative journalism.

Democracy needs a free press to function but the press itself is also under assault from online ad giants that have disrupted its business model by being able to spread and monetize any old junk content. If you want a perfect storm hammering democracy this most certainly is it.

It’s therefore imperative for democratic states to arm their citizens with education and awareness to enable them to think critically about the junk being pushed at them online. But as we’ve said before, there are no shortcuts to universal education.

Meanwhile regulation of social media platforms and/or the use of powerful computational tools and techniques for political purposes simply isn’t there. So there’s no hard check on voter manipulation.

Lawmakers have failed to keep up with the tech-fuelled times. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given how many political parties have their own hands in the data and ad-targeting cookie jar, as well as pushing fakes. (Concerned citizens are advised to practise good digital privacy hygiene to fight back against undemocratic attempts to hack public opinion. More privacy tips here.)

The researchers say their 2019 report, which is based on research work carried out between 2018 and 2019, draws upon a four-step methodology to identify evidence of globally organised manipulation campaigns — including a systematic content analysis of news articles on cyber troop activity and a secondary literature review of public archives and scientific reports, generating country specific case studies and expert consultations.

Here’s the full list of countries studied:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Myanmar, Netherlands, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2nwcCED via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

New research by the Oxford Internet Institute has found that social media manipulation is getting worse, with rising numbers of governments and political parties making cynical use of social media algorithms, automation and big data to manipulate public opinion at scale — with hugely worrying implications for democracy.

The report found that computational propaganda and social media manipulation have proliferated massively in recently years — now prevalent in more than double the number of countries (70) vs two years ago (28). An increase of 150%.

The research suggests that the spreading of fake news and toxic narratives has become the dysfunctional new ‘normal’ for political actors across the globe, thanks to social media’s global reach.

“Although propaganda has always been a part of political discourse, the deep and wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raise critical public interest concerns,” the report warns.

The researchers go on to dub the global uptake of computational propaganda tools and techniques a “critical threat” to democracies.

“The use of computational propaganda to shape public attitudes via social media has become mainstream, extending far beyond the actions of a few bad actors,” they add. “In an information environment characterized by high volumes of information and limited levels of user attention and trust, the tools and techniques of computational propaganda are becoming a common – and arguably essential – part of digital campaigning and public diplomacy.”

Organised social media manipulation campaigns are now prevalent in 70 countries around world, (more than doubling from 28 in 2017) finds latest @oiioxford @polbots report #cypbertroops2019 https://t.co/pZ7TgAo73t pic.twitter.com/L0er8bKpfK

— Oxford Internet Institute (@oiioxford) September 26, 2019

Techniques the researchers found being deployed by governments and political parties to spread political propaganda include the use of bots to amplify hate speech or other forms of manipulated content; the illegal harvesting of data or micro-targeting; and the use of armies of ‘trolls’ to bully or harass political dissidents or journalists online.

The researchers looked at computational propaganda activity in 70 countries around the world — including the US, the UK, Germany, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and Australia (see the end of this article for the full list) — finding organized social media manipulation in all of them.

So next time Facebook puts out another press release detailing a bit of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” it claims to have found and removed from its platform, it’s important to put it in context of the bigger picture. And the picture painted by this report suggests that such small-scale, selective discloses of propaganda-quashing successes sum to misleading Facebook PR vs the sheer scale of the problem.

The problem is massive, global and largely taking place through Facebook’s funnel, per the report.

Facebook remains the platform of choice for social media manipulation — with researchers finding evidence of formally organised political disops campaigns on its platform taking place in 56 countries.

We reached out to Facebook for a response to the report and the company sent us a laundry list of steps it says it’s been taking to combat election interference and coordinated inauthentic activity — including in areas such as voter suppression, political ad transparency and industry-civil society partnerships.

But it did not offer any explanation why all this apparent effort (just its summary of what it’s been doing exceeds 1,600 words) has so spectacularly failed to stem the rising tide of political fakes being amplified via Facebook.

Instead it sent us this statement: “Helping show people accurate information and protecting against harm is a major priority for us. We’ve developed smarter tools, greater transparency, and stronger partnerships to better identify emerging threats, stop bad actors, and reduce the spread of misinformation on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. We also know that this work is never finished and we can’t do this alone. That’s why we are working with policymakers, academics, and outside experts to make sure we continue to improve.”

We followed up to ask why all its efforts have so far failed to reduce fake activity on its platform and will update this report with any response.

Returning to the report, the researchers say China has entered the global disinformation fray in a big way — using social media platforms to target international audiences with disinformation, something the country has long directed at its domestic population of course.

The report describes China as “a major player in the global disinformation order”.

It also warns that the use of computational propaganda techniques combined with tech-enabled surveillance is providing authoritarian regimes around the world with the means to extend their control of citizens’ lives.

“The co-option of social media technologies provides authoritarian regimes with a powerful tool to shape public discussions and spread propaganda online, while simultaneously surveilling, censoring, and restricting digital public spaces,” the researchers write.

Other key findings from the report include that both democracies and authoritarian states are making (il)liberal use of computational propaganda tools and techniques.

Per the report:

In 45 democracies, politicians and political parties “have used computational propaganda tools by amassing fake followers or spreading manipulated media to garner voter support”

In 26 authoritarian states, government entities “have used computational propaganda as a tool of information control to suppress public opinion and press freedom, discredit criticism and oppositional voices, and drown out political dissent”

The report also identifies seven “sophisticated state actors” — China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — using what it calls “cyber troops” (aka dedicated online workers whose job is to use computational propaganda tools to manipulate public opinion) to run foreign influence campaigns.

Foreign influence operations — which includes election interference — were found by the researchers to primarily be taking place on Facebook and Twitter.

We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment and will update this article with any response.

A year ago, when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, he said it was considering labelling bot accounts on its platform — agreeing that “more context” around tweets and accounts would be a good thing, while also arguing that identifying automation that’s scripted to look like a human is difficult.

Instead of adding a ‘bot or not’ label, Twitter has just launched a ‘hide replies’ feature — which lets users screen individual replies to their tweets (requiring an affirmative action from viewers to unhide and be able to view any hidden replies). Twitter says this is intended at increasing civility on the platform. But there have been concerns the feature could be abused to help propaganda spreaders — i.e. by allowing them to suppress replies that debunk their junk.

The Oxford Internet Institute researchers found bot accounts are very widely used to spread political propaganda (80% of countries studied used them). However the use of human agents was even more prevalent (87% of countries).

Bot-human blended accounts, which combine automation with human curation in an attempt to fly under the BS detector radar, were much rarer: Identified in 11% of countries.

While hacked or stolen accounts were found being used in just 7% of countries.

In another key finding from the report, the researchers identified 25 countries working with private companies or strategic communications firms offering a computational propaganda as a service, noting that: “In some cases, like in Azerbaijan, Israel, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, student or youth groups are hired by government agencies to use computational propaganda.”

Commenting on the report in a statement, professor Philip Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “The manipulation of public opinion over social media remains a critical threat to democracy, as computational propaganda becomes a pervasive part of everyday life. Government agencies and political parties around the world are using social media to spread disinformation and other forms of manipulated media. Although propaganda has always been a part of politics, the wide-ranging scope of these campaigns raises critical concerns for modern democracy.”

Samantha Bradshaw, researcher and lead author of the report, added: “The affordances of social networking technologies — algorithms, automation and big data — vastly changes the scale, scope, and precision of how information is transmitted in the digital age. Although social media was once heralded as a force for freedom and democracy, it has increasingly come under scrutiny for its role in amplifying disinformation, inciting violence, and lowering trust in the media and democratic institutions.”

Other findings from the report include that:

52 countries used “disinformation and media manipulation” to mislead users

47 countries used state sponsored trolls to attack political opponents or activists, up from 27 last year

Which backs up the widespread sense in some Western democracies that political discourse has been getting less truthful and more toxic for a number of years — given tactics that amplify disinformation and target harassment at political opponents are indeed thriving on social media, per the report.

. @facebook hard at work 'Connecting people' https://t.co/GtIOXa1X2q

— Natasha (@riptari) September 24, 2019

Despite finding an alarming rise in the number of government actors across the globe who are misappropriating powerful social media platforms and other tech tools to influence public attitudes and try to disrupt elections, Howard said the researchers remain optimistic that social media can be “a force for good” — by “creating a space for public deliberation and democracy to flourish”.

“A strong democracy requires access to high quality information and an ability for citizens to come together to debate, discuss, deliberate, empathise and make concessions,” he said.

Clearly, though, there’s a stark risk of high quality information being drowned out by the tsunami of BS that’s being paid for by self-interested political actors. It’s also of course much cheaper to produce BS political propaganda than carry out investigative journalism.

Democracy needs a free press to function but the press itself is also under assault from online ad giants that have disrupted its business model by being able to spread and monetize any old junk content. If you want a perfect storm hammering democracy this most certainly is it.

It’s therefore imperative for democratic states to arm their citizens with education and awareness to enable them to think critically about the junk being pushed at them online. But as we’ve said before, there are no shortcuts to universal education.

Meanwhile regulation of social media platforms and/or the use of powerful computational tools and techniques for political purposes simply isn’t there. So there’s no hard check on voter manipulation.

Lawmakers have failed to keep up with the tech-fuelled times. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given how many political parties have their own hands in the data and ad-targeting cookie jar, as well as pushing fakes. (Concerned citizens are advised to practise good digital privacy hygiene to fight back against undemocratic attempts to hack public opinion. More privacy tips here.)

The researchers say their 2019 report, which is based on research work carried out between 2018 and 2019, draws upon a four-step methodology to identify evidence of globally organised manipulation campaigns — including a systematic content analysis of news articles on cyber troop activity and a secondary literature review of public archives and scientific reports, generating country specific case studies and expert consultations.

Here’s the full list of countries studied:

Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Myanmar, Netherlands, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2nwcCED Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com

[nirah10]

From Brian,

Did you know Australia legit may be cursed?

This is not really a political post. I don't talk about policiy or about what Prime Minister or party is good or bad.  I am more talking about the history, which leads me to believe the job of being PM in Australia is cursed. Legit. 

As this isn't about the politics itself, rather the very bizarre thing that has happened on Australia on the LAST week.

I'm British, but am currently in Australia and it is bemusing and I thought I would share this quirky history.

Australia has not had a sitting Prime Minister fulfill his or her full three year term since 2007. No Prime Minister has made it from one election to the next.

Kevin Rudd, elected in 2007.

Next election in 2010, five months before that election he was cut from his party for being a bully and replaced with Julia Gillard.

Julia Gillard then won the 2010 election, but didn't make it to the next one in 2013. She tried to introduce a carbon tax that was very unpopular and so thinking they wouldn't win the 2013 election with her, they replaced her with Kevin Rudd, his second shot at being leader.

Rudd led them into the 2013 election, but the party lost very, very badly to the opposition. Lost 45 seats. 

Tony Abbott was now prime minister. Very unpopular man though. 

He pretty much wom because voters were confused by the whole Rudd/Gillard/Rudd thing in the Labor party. Then once they for Tony Abbott they realisied he was a bit of a dickhead.

He lost about 50 ''preferred PM " leadership polls in a row, in which the opposition leader Bill Shirten was ranked higher, so the Liberal party decides to knife him..... Despite seeing how badly that went for the Labor party. 

2015, Abbott is replaced with Malcolm Turnbull. A new, fresh face for the Liberal party who is a moderate. Abbott was a conservative and Malcolm promises to bring the party back to the centre.

2016 election, Liberal very, very narrowly wins.

One seat majority. But Malcolm Turnbull is in!

Fast forward to 2018:

Turnbull still hated by the conservatives in the party for overthrowing their right-wing golden boy.

Turnbull tries to introduce a new environmental policies, which would set carbon emissions reduction rates into law. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back. I'm not kidding. They can't get rid of Trump no matter what he does, and in Australia they don't out a Prime Minister for trying to do something about the environment.

The conservatives in the Liberal party are furious. Caring about the environment in Labor's job, not there's! 

They urge conservative Peter Dutton to challenge Turnbull for leadership.

He does. Dutton loses to Turnbull by seven votes in the party room. 

Three days later there is another challenge (rumours of bullying in the party rooms, with MPs apparently manipulated and harrassed into signing a petition claiming they support Dutton- a female MP has just quit over the bullying.)

Malcolm goes 'fuck this' and decides that if Dutton is going to drown him, he's going to drag Dutton into the water with him.

Turnbull refuses to stand for the party from ballot. He knows in the second challenge he will lose to Dutton. Turnbull's plan know is just to make sure Dutton doesn't get his job either.  

Turnbull gets his loyal treasurer Scott Morrison (Sco-Mo) to challenge Dutton instead, thinking Sco-Mo has a better chance. Dutton is hard conservative, Turnbull is a moderate, Sco-Mo is somewhere in between. Turnbull knows the Moderates in the party would pick Sco-Mo over Dutton, and also knew some conservatives might also switch.

It narrowly worked. Dutton was left five votes short. And Sco-Mo, the dude who never really indicated leadership ambitions is now Australia's Prime Minister.

Also, because the last election was in 2016, Australia is due for another one in about 9 months, so might get a shiny new Prime Minister, probably Bill Shorten. Bill Shorten is lucky. Turnbull was always beating Shotten in the polls, but Shorten is smashing Sco-Mo.

Turnbull has quite parliament altogether, causing his seat to be up for bi-election and has fucked off to New York, with the Liberal party in tatters. Turnbull's son is urging people to vote Labor in the next election.

Peter Dutton, the conservative challenger who outed Turnbull and caused this mess, is now in legal trouble over seperate issues. One, his family owns private day cares that may have gotten government funding, two while immigration minister, when denying legitimate refugees entry into Australia, did a favour for a rich friend of his who donates to the Liberal party, and allowed his French Nanny entry into Australia, despite the fact she applied for a tourist visa when the immigration department pointed out it was obvious she was planning to work. At the same time, a returned Australian soldier tried lobbying Dutton as well, as his Afghan translator who worked for the Australian soliders was on a ISIS hit list because he helped said Australian soldiers. Dutton wouldn't hear this soldier's case for his friend, but was more than willing to let the white nanny of a rich dude in. This has come out in the week since Dutton challenges for leadership. Sco-Mo has literally been Prime Minister for a week.

Australia has an election early next year, I'll be back in England by then. But what is funny about this Prime Minister curse, is about this whole 'no prime minister for more than two years thing', this dude John Howard was Prime Minister for like 12 years. 

He was PM for 12 years, lost in 2007, and since then Australia has had a revolving door of leaders. Sounds like this dude left a curse to me right? 'No one who wins am election will take their party to the next election after I leave.' bet it is a curse. 

And I did not know any of this until I came to Australia last year for work. Like some who knows Australia is on a different level of crazy until they are in Australia. 😂 As the media back home never covers Australian politics. Most because back home in England probably have no idea Australia has basically has 5 PMS in 5 years. 

Bit scary when you think about it, as Australia provides a lot of the world with its natural resources. Large amounts of oil, coal and iron ore all come from Australia. They are one of the largest raw material exporters in the world. Not to mention Australia has the largest sheep population in the world and is a huge meat and wool supplier to many, many places. Huge mining and huge farming states. Being close to Asia, Australia''s produce feeds so many people other than Australia, fruit and veg too. So when a country as globally significant as Australia is in this unstable, it is not a great sign for all its allies.

Australia, being smack bang in Asia, is so important to the Asian trade market and political discourse, not only trade but as military allies, seeing that Australia provides quite a few miltary bases on its land for both UK and Amercian troops, because Australia is closer to the region.

Australia are much friendlier with China than Amercia is, because they live in the same area and therefore are in more political discussions and meetings on that side of the world. So if Australia is losing its shit, it might have wider consequences than people would expect. 

I didn't know how important Australia was to the Asian political landscape (they are on so many boards) until I came here last year. I did now know how much farming they do here or the fact their fruit and vegetables and meat go all over the world. Or how much natural raw material they export to China. Or how weird their Government is. I lost my shit when I came here and found all that out. I was like WTF. 

Part of me with miss it here, as I'm going home soon. Things are quite different. 

Did Canada's media cover the fact Australia got a brand new Prime Minister less than a week ago?

Dear Brian,

I will be honest, I only read about a third of this and then skimmed the rest. It's just really not in my wheelhouse of knowledge or interests and that is a heck of a lot of information for someone who's not really into it, so sorry. I do remember seeing something on the news about the change but I was at work at the time so I didn't pay much attention and I'm not sure how in-depth the coverage was. I haven't heard anybody talking about it though, so it doesn't seem to be big news here for the average person.

[newssplashy]

World: Scott Morrison, a pragmatic conservative, is set to be Australia's new leader

The vote was the second challenge this week to the leadership of Turnbull — who himself assumed office by leading a party revolt in 2015.

A relative moderate in Australia’s conservative party and an ally of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is poised to succeed him after a vote Friday that capped days of chaos in the capital and underscored just how turbulent Australian politics have become.

Scott Morrison, who has been serving as the country’s treasurer, is set to become the sixth prime minister in 11 years after defeating Peter Dutton, a former home affairs minister, and Julie Bishop, the country’s foreign minister.

His deputy will be Josh Frydenberg, who had been energy minister under Turnbull.

The vote was the second challenge this week to the leadership of Turnbull — who himself assumed office by leading a party revolt in 2015.

But Morrison, 50, did not initiate the challenge. Rather, he backed Turnbull earlier in the week, then emerged as a more unifying alternative to Dutton, known for his hard-line stance on immigration.

Dutton mounted the earlier, unsuccessful leadership challenge on Tuesday. After a week of turbulence that he ignited, he sought Friday to bolster the now-damaged Liberal Party as it moves closer to a general election expected in the coming months.

“My course from here is to provide absolute loyalty to Scott Morrison to make sure we win the election,” he said.

For Turnbull, the end came quickly. After months of negotiations, a rift within the party escalated last weekend over an energy proposal from the prime minister, which was meant to reduce electricity prices and address climate change by cutting emissions.

Dutton rallied the party’s conservative wing against him, only to fail when the votes were counted.

“Australians will be just dumbstruck and so appalled by the conduct of the past week,” Turnbull said at a news conference following the vote, adding that the campaign mounted by Dutton was a “deliberate insurgency.”

“Disunity is death in Australian politics,” Turnbull said, warning in a parting shot that politicians need to put country ahead of party or personal desires. “That’s why this week has been so dispiriting. It’s been vengeance, personal ambition and factional feuding.”

Experts said it was still unclear whether Morrison would tilt toward conservatives or party moderates.

Jill Sheppard, a lecturer in politics at the Australian National University in Canberra, the capital, said Morrison was among the most conservative members of the Liberals’ moderate wing. “He has managed to straddle factions in the Liberal Party really nicely in the last couple of decades,” she said.

Other analysts said the fact that Morrison was regarded as a moderate only showed how dramatically conservative politics have shifted to the right in Australia.

“It’s just extraordinary that Scott Morrison is the moderate candidate,” said Susan Harris-Rimmer, a law professor at Griffith University. “He is an extremely conservative law-and-order person.”

Like Dutton, Morrison rose to prominence over his tough stance on immigration. After a boat carrying dozens of asylum-seekers sank in 2011, Morrison courted outrage by calling it a waste of taxpayer money for the Australian government to help pay for relatives to attend funerals.

“Any other Australian who wanted to attend a funeral of someone who died in tragic circumstances would have to put their hand in their own pocket,” he said.

In 2013, he became minister of immigration and border protection under then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott. In that post, he worked aggressively to stop asylum-seekers from reaching Australia by boat, continuing the country’s contentious zero-tolerance policy toward such migration. One of Australia’s tactics, offshore detention, has been roundly condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations.

Morrison became treasurer in 2015, after a brief stint as minister of social services. Faced with a revenue shortfall, he preferred cutting spending to raising taxes, analysts said.

“That’s a straight-down-the-line conservative approach.” said Richard Holden, a professor of economics at the University of New South Wales. “He’s been OK in a difficult set of circumstances without showing real vision.”

Sheppard said Morrison was unlikely to be a visionary leader. “He won’t probably set out any kind of expansive view for Australia,” she said.

An observant Pentecostal Christian and the son of a police officer, Morrison grew up in a beachside suburb of Sydney. Before being elected to Parliament in 2007, he oversaw tourism campaigns, including a contentious one for Australia with the slogan “Where the bloody hell are you?” It was banned from British television.

The frequent upheavals in government, experts said, have left foreign allies uncertain and voters angry when elected leaders are ousted in backroom coups. And compared to previous “spills,” as they are known, this week’s contest was especially messy and unpredictable.

“The leadership churn is unprecedented. No prime minister since John Howard, who lost office in 2007, has served a full term in office,” said Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization. “Governments seem incapable of exercising their authority. They spend most of their time in survival mode.”

For his part, Turnbull suggested he would resign from Parliament if he was deposed. If he follows through, his vacant seat will be contested in a special election that could threaten the Liberal Party’s majority in Parliament when it reconvenes Sept. 10.

“The public hate what is going on at the moment,” Turnbull said, referring to Australia’s frequent leadership changes. “They want everyone here to be focused on them.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ISABELLA KWAI and DAMIEN CAVE © 2018 The New York Times

source http://www.newssplashy.com/2018/08/world-scott-morrison-pragmatic.html

[aboringsoul]

I’m mad

I have many, many things to say about this postal vote on gay marriage in Australia. I could literally go on forever about this but for I’m gonna try to keep this short. (also not sure if the links I provided are accessible outside of Australia but I hope so – if not just google for yourselves and see how bullshit this entire ordeal is)

For those of you who don’t know, the Australian government has settled on a postal plebiscite for us citizens to vote on whether we agree or disagree that gay marriage should be legal. This alone is enough to make me screech - like at this rate we’re going to be the last fucking country.... So the government is going to send out a little letter to everyone enrolled to vote and we have to tick our response and send it back (or we can chuck it out and the government wouldn’t give a fuck because they’re all wankdildos who don’t care about the people).

Anyways to my bitchin:

1(the classic) marriage is a LEGAL document that binds two people together emotionally and financially. In this day and age it is most definitely NOT a spiritual thing of religion - if it were for religion then why do you allow non religious people to marry? Really, marriage is more about being recognised for your partnership with another person. Story time!  I know someone who is the daughter of two women (both over 70 years of age and have been together for around 40). One of her mothers fell severely ill and was put in hospital completely incompetent. As she was unable to sign her own paperwork it is the hospital’s duty to contact the next of kin of the patient to sign in their place. In most cases it is a spouse that is contacted if the patient is married. Well, what do you know? This woman’s partner of 40+ years was refused the right to sign in her name because they were not legally married and hence were not recognised as each other’s next of kin. The love of this woman’s life was on her deathbed and she was unable to have a say in anything to do with the process of her dying and what came after. 

That is disgusting.

This woman’s partner was not considered close enough to her girlfriend (of 40 years!) to be involved in the death process. This ignorance of the government broke the entire family’s hearts and caused more stress in a situation that is already emotionally draining.

Now let me tell you all a lil something about Centrelink. Centrelink is a government program that funds people who are unemployed or not earning enough to pay rent etc etc. Depending on your circumstances (income, student etc) this program will essentially pay enough for you to live (barely) comfortably. One of the requirements for Centrelink documentation is to state whether you are living with a partner (spouse, girl/boyfriend - this does not include friends/roommates). For people who are in a relationship and are living together, the funding from this program is decreased (two incomes = more money to the house). This is a lot cheaper for the government. Lo and behold: gay couples are recognised. Ay ay you see!!?! Because the government BENEFITS from this they decide that they’ll let homosexual relationships slide in this case. What the actually flying kangaroo arse fuckery is this shit?

The government uses homosexual relationships to SAVE money.

To put it in a sentence: The Australian government will recognise your partnership with someone of the same gender if, and only if, it benefits them FINANCIALLY and not for the well-being and respect of the people.

Do you see why I hate the government?

Now moving on to my second point.

2- This postal plebiscite shit is OPTIONAL.

More background info for you international pals: in Australia voting on political matters is part of your duty as a citizen and it is in fact ILLEGAL to not vote. People who fail to vote are fined up to $180 ($141USD). This is pretty much voting for prime ministers, any major political changes (ie. the law) because in Australia the public’s opinions MATTER.

However, for some reason, this plebiscite for gay marriage is OPTIONAL. What?!? An optional (and let me say costly: costing $122 million - (side note: did you know that our government refuses to fund for extra beds in hospitals? I am currently studying in a hospital and I learnt that one of the many wards alone was $3.1 million in debt as of this last financial year because the government wouldn’t fund for their excess beds and materials) vote that we don’t have to respond to if we don’t want to or can’t be arsed.

Let me explain why this vote being optional is a big deal. The people who are going to vote will be the radicals. So obviously, gay people and active allies of the LGBT community will vote yes (as I will definitely be doing) but it also works on the other end; people who actively despise the gay community for whatever reason (religion, or they’re just pure dickheads) will also vote. You know who won’t vote? The people who are ‘ambivalent’ to gay marriage, people who won’t vote out of spite towards this stupid move by the government. These are the millions of people that would turn the tables for the better in this vote. If you don’t care about something you would usually vote yes (eg you don’t care whether you go to this particular restaurant with someone so you’ll most likely end up saying yes).

I can guarantee you that every single person that slightly disagrees with the idea of gay marriage will vote, but not everyone who is for it will. This will result in the plebiscite being against gay marriage. It’s not even the vote of all the citizens like the rest of our political interventions are! Do you understand why this is upsetting me so much? The fact that the government is making this optional isn’t because they don’t give a fuck about the outcome it’s because the probability of receiving a negative response to the matter is increased! It’s disgusting!

To even further upset everyone the outcome of this vote doesn’t mean anything. The choice to legalise gay marriage still lies with the government . We vote and they make a decision based off the stats.

So this is how the results will play out:

If the voters say YES to gay marriage the government will have an ‘in depth discussion and consideration” on the matter but come up with some bullshit excuse (“oh there were still a large number of negative voters” “this is something we can’t stress about now – we’re so in debt!!!111!”) and gay marriage will NOT be legalised.

If the voters say NO to gay marriage the government will pull the “the public’s word is our policy” and gay marriage will NOT be legalised.

 In other words this government is fucked and I’m moving to New Zealand bye.

Also here is a video I found that made me laugh.

Double also if you are an Australian 18 or older PLEASE enrol ASAP to vote! it’s the best we can do in this shitty situation.

[newssplashy]

The vote was the second challenge this week to the leadership of Turnbull — who himself assumed office by leading a party revolt in 2015.

A relative moderate in Australia’s conservative party and an ally of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is poised to succeed him after a vote Friday that capped days of chaos in the capital and underscored just how turbulent Australian politics have become.

Scott Morrison, who has been serving as the country’s treasurer, is set to become the sixth prime minister in 11 years after defeating Peter Dutton, a former home affairs minister, and Julie Bishop, the country’s foreign minister.

His deputy will be Josh Frydenberg, who had been energy minister under Turnbull.

The vote was the second challenge this week to the leadership of Turnbull — who himself assumed office by leading a party revolt in 2015.

But Morrison, 50, did not initiate the challenge. Rather, he backed Turnbull earlier in the week, then emerged as a more unifying alternative to Dutton, known for his hard-line stance on immigration.

Dutton mounted the earlier, unsuccessful leadership challenge on Tuesday. After a week of turbulence that he ignited, he sought Friday to bolster the now-damaged Liberal Party as it moves closer to a general election expected in the coming months.

“My course from here is to provide absolute loyalty to Scott Morrison to make sure we win the election,” he said.

For Turnbull, the end came quickly. After months of negotiations, a rift within the party escalated last weekend over an energy proposal from the prime minister, which was meant to reduce electricity prices and address climate change by cutting emissions.

Dutton rallied the party’s conservative wing against him, only to fail when the votes were counted.

“Australians will be just dumbstruck and so appalled by the conduct of the past week,” Turnbull said at a news conference following the vote, adding that the campaign mounted by Dutton was a “deliberate insurgency.”

“Disunity is death in Australian politics,” Turnbull said, warning in a parting shot that politicians need to put country ahead of party or personal desires. “That’s why this week has been so dispiriting. It’s been vengeance, personal ambition and factional feuding.”

Experts said it was still unclear whether Morrison would tilt toward conservatives or party moderates.

Jill Sheppard, a lecturer in politics at the Australian National University in Canberra, the capital, said Morrison was among the most conservative members of the Liberals’ moderate wing. “He has managed to straddle factions in the Liberal Party really nicely in the last couple of decades,” she said.

Other analysts said the fact that Morrison was regarded as a moderate only showed how dramatically conservative politics have shifted to the right in Australia.

“It’s just extraordinary that Scott Morrison is the moderate candidate,” said Susan Harris-Rimmer, a law professor at Griffith University. “He is an extremely conservative law-and-order person.”

Like Dutton, Morrison rose to prominence over his tough stance on immigration. After a boat carrying dozens of asylum-seekers sank in 2011, Morrison courted outrage by calling it a waste of taxpayer money for the Australian government to help pay for relatives to attend funerals.

“Any other Australian who wanted to attend a funeral of someone who died in tragic circumstances would have to put their hand in their own pocket,” he said.

In 2013, he became minister of immigration and border protection under then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott. In that post, he worked aggressively to stop asylum-seekers from reaching Australia by boat, continuing the country’s contentious zero-tolerance policy toward such migration. One of Australia’s tactics, offshore detention, has been roundly condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations.

Morrison became treasurer in 2015, after a brief stint as minister of social services. Faced with a revenue shortfall, he preferred cutting spending to raising taxes, analysts said.

“That’s a straight-down-the-line conservative approach.” said Richard Holden, a professor of economics at the University of New South Wales. “He’s been OK in a difficult set of circumstances without showing real vision.”

Sheppard said Morrison was unlikely to be a visionary leader. “He won’t probably set out any kind of expansive view for Australia,” she said.

An observant Pentecostal Christian and the son of a police officer, Morrison grew up in a beachside suburb of Sydney. Before being elected to Parliament in 2007, he oversaw tourism campaigns, including a contentious one for Australia with the slogan “Where the bloody hell are you?” It was banned from British television.

The frequent upheavals in government, experts said, have left foreign allies uncertain and voters angry when elected leaders are ousted in backroom coups. And compared to previous “spills,” as they are known, this week’s contest was especially messy and unpredictable.

“The leadership churn is unprecedented. No prime minister since John Howard, who lost office in 2007, has served a full term in office,” said Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization. “Governments seem incapable of exercising their authority. They spend most of their time in survival mode.”

For his part, Turnbull suggested he would resign from Parliament if he was deposed. If he follows through, his vacant seat will be contested in a special election that could threaten the Liberal Party’s majority in Parliament when it reconvenes Sept. 10.

“The public hate what is going on at the moment,” Turnbull said, referring to Australia’s frequent leadership changes. “They want everyone here to be focused on them.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

ISABELLA KWAI and DAMIEN CAVE © 2018 The New York Times

via Nigerian News ➨☆LATEST NIGERIAN NEWS ☆➨GHANA NEWS➨☆ENTERTAINMENT ☆➨Hot Posts ➨☆World News ☆➨News Sp