You may have noticed via TV or on billboards around the traps the Federal Government’s Net Alert campaign. If you haven’t then you can have a look at the ads on the DCITA website.
The focus of the campaign is scary statistics and statements such as “Almost half of 11 to 14 year olds surveyed view websites their parents would find alarming” and “Over half of 11 to 15 year olds surveyed who chat online are contacted by strangers”. The figures come from a report by the Wallis consulting group. Of course, with government transparency and public interest in mind, it is a tad difficult to get a hold of the report.
Peter Mares of RN’s The National Interest had a go. Last Sunday he grilled Senator Coonan about the research on which the statistics are based. Under scrutiny, Senator Coonan danced the obfuscationist jig as Mares questioned Coonan’s excuses for not releasing the report. Mares, from the limited information he could gather, also pointed out how the statistics in the report have been alarmingly twisted by the government (the interview starts about 4:55 and goes to 17:10).
The timing of the campaign is interesting given the looming election. The Net Alert campaign is not so much about protecting the kiddies from cyberstalkers but finding a way to wedge Labor as soft on Internet child molesters. It is a manufactured issue. Invoking the badlands of the Internet in an attempt to foster moral outrage.
The wedge hasn’t worked. Instead of creating some good old fashioned vote grabbing moral panic, the government in their Helen Lovejoy moment has spent $189 million dollars on some dodgy stats, a call centre where the employees sit around and play computer games all day (as reported in Crikey last week) and an internet filter that can be cracked in 30 minutes.
The government’s fear of electoral oblivion is making for strange days.
That they have politicised an issue as serious as child sexual abuse (with this ad campaign and the NT invasion) just to wedge Labor shows how absolutely morally bankrupt they all are.
Be gone, the lot of them.
I guess if you count spam, then anyone with an email address is regularly contacted by strangers…
Isn’t it the whole point of chatting online – you talk to people you may not know? They are not necessarily dangerous and its probably safer than talking to strangers in “real life”. Perhaps the government will try to protect the kids by banning all internet use (with troops sent in to police the ban)?
I found the constant references to newsgroups in the booklet somewhat amusing. Who knew they were so popular with teh kiddies these days?
And last night’s City Homicide on Ch 7 had a similar plotline which involved young girls being kidnapped and raped and one murdered while they were “broadcasting” their images on a webcam.
Every Cliche that Coonan and others were sprouting were in it.
Synopsis here
Mares did as good a job as possible on Sen Coonan. You could almost feel the facial make-up cracking and running which isn’t bad for radio. All the privacy rubbish she responded with as to why the study data could not be revealed says a lot about this Government’s rule by fear campaigns.
Even Michael Duffy, not usually known for anti-Liberal sentiment, had a go at the government in his weekly Sydney Morning Herald over this campaign:
Ministry’s web of deception needs a virtual reality check
I heard Peter Mares by chance last sunday and yes, it was a sterling attempt to get at the truth, while Coonan tied herself in knots.
I must say I am struck by the emphasis on matters sexual in the government’s year-long campaign against anything Rudd. Gives us an unwelcome peek into the dark recesses of the (mostly) male conservative mind.
We have had the frenetic drive to inspect the genitals of children in the NT, the Scores sex scandal, internet sex, the Qld shredding incident 16 years ago, Julia’s fruit bowl, gay marriage, and on it goes. Take these issues collectively and they look more like some kind of unhealthy obsession festering in the tiny minds of Howard, Downer, Abbott, Brough, Heffernan et al, than real policy initiatives.
Presumably an obsession with clean sex within marriage is a fundamental expression of conservative family values that the government thinks will win voterland over. All I see is people turning away in disgust, particularly women.
I’m agreeing with you everywhere today grace
I think part of the explanation is that Howard’s mob have simply run out of reasons to justify being in government, apart from the fact that they like being there. Moral panic is as good a way as any to kid the population that they’re still serving a useful purpose.
I can offer one anecdote of girlchild being contacted by some twentysomething guy from France (so he said) when she was only twelve. A brief email identifying myself as mum and the cheese-eater disappeared tout de suite. Merde alors!
Apart from that, I don’t think we’ve had a problem. I agree we don’t always know who our kids are talking to, but that applies to the outside world, too.
For the record, my kids’ internet patterns, unlike mine, seem to be that the internet is used primarily for contacting people they already know. girlchild chats constantly on msn messenger to the people she sees everyday.
Funny coincidence, we just a had a lecture on this today from the university, featuring NetAlert, and pointing out the importance of teachers helping kids to construct healthy boundaries in their online and offline behaviours.
The NetAlert data also found that 100% of the 16-17 year olds rejected unwanted advances by either closing the chat screen or telling the perpetrator to, erm, “get lost”. Of course, that evidence of sensible level-headed teenage behaviour is ignored by the moral panic brigade.
14-15 year olds were a little more vulnerable to ‘grooming’, but they mostly knew to be cautious.
When you take all the conservative moral panic out of the issue, it’s just commonsense precautionary measures, like teaching kids not to accept lifts from strangers.
Of course, some (adult) people get off on being scared of everything they don’t understand, which is why stories like this will never die.
Moral panics over internet chat rooms, moral panics over pre-teen models etc, etc, All rather low level stuff compared to Tampas, terrorists and APEC demonstrators, don’t you think. Look out for moral panics over the ALP winning govt, Iran, Syria, North Korea, etc. etc. on the basis they got to get lucky sometime or other cause if they son’t find the right button to hit they’ll lose the election by 30 seats.
Moral Panic Away!
So it took seven minutes for Coonan to appreciate Mares’ charge: that the summary of research provided to Mares does not support the claims made by the government, but because the full research document is not available to the public, the government’s claims can not be verified. And when she does finally appreciate the point, she just stomps her foot and says “If I say the research supports our claims, then it does, damnit!”
Some of the numbers she quotes are uproarious. 37% of children who chat online report being contacted by strangers – but of course, as Mares points out, a stranger might be a fellow gamer, or someone to share music with, and so on. 39% of children report putting a photo online – I don’t understand what the problem is with this. More than half of teenagers report visiting sites their parents would not want them to visit – big deal, so they looked up a bit of porn. 18% of teenagers had been asked to meet “in real life” – I would think that the more important number is how many actually take up this offer, and even so it’s only a concern if they don’t take any appropriate precautions. It would have been nice to hear Mares press Coonan further on these statistics and point out that they aren’t, in themselves, all that alarming. By often saying that he, as a parent, found the statistics alarming, it seems that the point Mares was making was something like “If these statistics are true, then we should be concerned; the problem is whether the statistics are true.” But I think we should also doubt the truth of the whole conditional, not just its antecedent.
Here is a quote from Alexander Downer from yesterday (source: ABC News website):
“In fact, in a hypothetical situation – I don’t want any other implications – I’m hoping that people might now start to apply the same introspection to their choice of government as they would to inviting a stranger into their home to babysit the kids.”
Is this part of the beware of strangers campaign or is it just Lord Downer reasserting his position of the governor/protector of the lost and vulnerable children, AKA the Australia electorate?
What ever it is, it ir pretty shabby.
I think that was Wilson Tuckey.
The thought of either Billy Bunter or Wilson Tuckey babysitting children is a horrifying one.
Kiddies, when you’re looking through threads where people are using filthy language and posting pictures of women with not much on, you should accept any offers of free long lunches made by pseudonymous commenters. Seriously, do it.
To set the record straight as Mark said , Graham , it was actually Wilson Tuckey that made those creepy comments. See..
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/18/2036164.htm?section=justin
There is a pattern here, though. It is the portrayal of John Howard as the protector of the little children. From aboriginal boogy men, drug crazed junkies and the sneaky on line predators. The Holden Caulfield of Australian Politics.
Yet, he was the one that was ‘caught out’, claiming that small children were thrown overboard, when they weren’t. And we are the ones paying for the propaganda.
Does anyone know which show on Nine flogged this “story”:
“Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has denied claims he is physically unfit to lead Australia following major heart surgery 14 years ago. The Nine Network on Wednesday aired claims from unnamed anti-Labor sources outside federal parliament, who had circulated rumours about Mr Rudd’s health,”
Outside federal parliament indeed … they must be rattled to pull this sort of thing.
OOPS! This was originally posted on wrong thread.
The more things change….
“Gold medal liars
After observing the Coalition Federal Government since 1996 and reading or listening to a great
many of its political statements, the following is my sincere opinion.
This Federal Government lies.
It tells small, medium and large lies. It tells whopper, gob-stopping lies. It even tells lies
about telling lies.
It lies on the floor of Parliament, it lies in the media, it lies to the Australian people and, it lies to other sovereign nations.
Of all the federal governments installed since I reached my majority, this Federal Government
publicly lies the most frequently and consistently.
If there was a Commonwealth Games event for liars, then the current Federal Government would win gold, silver and bronze.
JUDITH M. MELVILLE” [Published letter to the editor,23 March 2006,p.6]
Laurie Oakes on the news.
You know my impression was that heart story kind of lessened the impact of the Rudd’s slip up on taxation. It may not have been a bad thing. It may even appeal to people who like “against the odds” stories.