Facebook’s about-face
There will be no face off against Facebook this Friday. The social network has refused to front a federal parliamentary inquiry into foreign influence on social media.
The social network has refused to front a federal parliamentary inquiry into foreign influence on social media.
How curious!
After pushing back their evidence from August to September, Mark Zuckerberg’s Aussie office has now asked to answer questions after Americans head to the polls in November, to pick whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be President.
Could the about-face have anything to do with Russia’s meddling or Cambridge Analytica’s data harvesting, both used to influence the 2016 election result?
The last-minute decision has been described as “disappointing” by committee chair, NSW Labor senator Jenny McAllister. About 85 per cent of Australians are on Facebook and yet McAllister claims the company appears “unwilling to participate in our processes of democratic accountability”.
Adding: “Facebook’s platform has been used by malicious actors to run sophisticated disinformation campaigns in elections around the globe.”
And: “The Australian public deserves to know how Facebook manages the risks their platform presents to our democracy and public discourse.”
But TikTok’s senior staff will be virtually front and centre in the Canberra Bubble™ on Friday at 2pm.
Director of public policy Brent Thomas, general manager Lee Hunter and chief security officer Roland Cloutier will be grilled at the public hearing.
Some Coalition MPs want Australia to follow America’s lead and ban the video app — owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and beloved by teens — down under.
TikTok counts 1.6 million Aussies among its 800m-plus global users. Its local branch has been on an advertising blitz and Hunter has personally written to every single federal MP to fend off safety, security and censorship concerns.
TikTok fears it will be used as a “political football”, like banned Chinese telco Huawei.
In a hint of what’s to come on Friday, Liberal deputy chair Jim Molan has previously labelled the app a “data collection service disguised as social media”. And we hear senators are keen to find out if there’s a secret CCP unit within the company.
My Corona
Unfortunately for fans of public probes, TikTok’s time clashes with the hotly anticipated 2:15pm appearance of Daniel Andrews at Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry.
At which politicians and public servants have so far managed to achieve herd immunity to accountability.
I Pickett you
These unprecedented times call for unprecedented phone calls.
Let us explain.
Journalist Ben Collins lost his job at AFL Media last week, after 19½ yearsat AFL HQ.
“A casualty of a major COVID-drive restructure,” Collins tweeted. “Looking for work for the 1st time since I was 21. Love to continue in media or a related field but open to all possibilities. Thanks in advance for any leads”.
A few hours later, Collins’s mobile phone rang; it was an unknown number.
His wife, Rebecca, answered and the vivacious voice at the other end boomed: “Hello, my name is Michael McCormack, I’m the Deputy Prime Minister; could I speak to Ben?”
Collins assumed it was a mate taking the piss, and told the caller: “You’re having me on.”
After a minute, he realised it was the real Big Mac.
The Nationals leader had seen Collins’s tweet and decided to ring to share his own tale of reinvention after being made redundant 18 years ago as the editor of the Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga.
He invited the pair for a personal tour of Parliament House (if they ever make it out of Danistan) and told Collins to keep his number in case he ever needed to chat.
“And send me your resume,” McCormack added.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister a secret one-man JobSeeker (Lover) Keeper machine? Get him on the phones for Centrelink, stat!
Let’s get fiscal
Paul Keating issued a rare press release on Wednesday.
“In my office during the latter part of the 1980s and the early 90s, we had a nickname for the Reserve Bank — the Reverse Bank,” the former prime minister roasted.
“And what earned the bank that nickname was that the bank was too slow lifting interest rates in the face of the commercial bank credit bubble of the late 1980s and too slow in getting rates down in the early 1990s.”
Stork naked
How refreshing to see a senior male politician grilled about babies! Albeit, not in a “how does he juggle his career and family” way but about the Canberra Bubble™’s political baby boom (Strewth, Monday).
ABC host Steve Austin: “Jim Chalmers, I’m a bit disappointed. I believe you’re letting the side down a little bit. I understand that federal parliament has a record number of pregnant politicians, but you haven’t added to that number in your family. True?”
Jim Chalmers: “I’ve been in the parliament for seven years, Steve, and we’ve added three to that number in that time. I feel like I have done my bit.”
Austin: “Alright.”
Chalmers: “But seriously, it is quite remarkable and it’s fantastic. So many of my colleagues in the parliament are young mums and young dads. There is a bit of an esprit de corps amongst the young parents in the group, and even when the kids are really little …”
Austin: “ ‘Esprit de corps!’ Someone must have Barry White on the in-house PA system!”
Chalmers: “You would talk to a lot of people who call in, and they think that the parliament is full of identical people …”
Austin: “Heartless automatons that aren’t human?”
Chalmers: “Yeah and when you think about it, it really is quite terrific, particularly in terms of the young mums. There are a lot of kids around our team. People help each other out in Parliament House. From time to time, you’ll notice somebody’s kids being looked after by another colleague. It’s terrific, it really is.”
Austin: “Who asked you to babysit their kids?”
Chalmers: “I don’t know about babysitting. I have a colleague, Lisa Chesters, and I hang around with her little Daisy a bit. Anika Wells, who you probably know has got twins on the way any day now, but she’s got another daughter, Celeste, already who is down in parliament from time to time. There are kids everywhere and that’s a good thing.”
It’s science!
Finally, some over-whale-ming satirical news from the rascals at The Betoota Advocate.
“Japan asks nation if we’re gunna eat that: Japan has sent Canberra a message this morning to ask what our plans are with 80 beached whales on Tasmania’s wild western fringe.”
We hope they get whale soon.
strewth@theaustralian.com.au
Libs should be-Ware what they say about JWH
Could things get any worse for the Liberals in Hughes? Well, strap in. Diary can reveal that Liberal candidate Jenny Ware once called John Winston Howard ‘out of touch’.
Believe in your selfie, Andrew
Kevin Rudd appears to have met his selfie match in Andrew Charlton.
There will be no face off against Facebook this Friday.