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There are larger and unchanging questions about why we communicate and about the effect of our communications on the way we live. World Communications Day is an opportunity to think about these basic questions.
We don’t want to admit the truth of who we are as a nation: there are Australians who are violent toward the people they say they love the most. Living among us are those who take what they want, out of entitlement, privilege and the naked use of power.
Social media companies are adopting a strategy that may go down in history as among the worst corporate mistakes ever. Google and Facebook are now monopolies and, like all monopolies, they no longer see their main interest as serving customers but rather to capture governments in order to protect their market dominance.
We need to encourage parents to have these conversations with their children, and earlier, around Years 8 and 9, rather than later. And I suspect we need to encourage boys to talk more with sisters, girlfriends, friends who are girls and good mates about consent.
Instead of retaining its control of a fruit market, or preserving an oil monopoly, Facebook harnesses another resource: data. Any regulator or sovereign state keen to challenge the way the Silicon Valley giant gathers, monetises and uses that data will face their ire.
Last Thursday, Facebook blocked news content in Australia. Many of us had been expecting this in response to the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. But the breadth and severity of what occurred was brutal. The content blocked was not only that of large media companies. Public interest, not-for-profit, and religious media — many of whom rely heavily on Facebook to share messages with their readers — were blocked as well.
It’s a tradition of mine to undertake my own “media watch” experiment following the annual Invasion Day rallies. I ended up being pleasantly surprised.
It’s usually January that white blindfold think pieces around Invasion Day start, but this year they’re getting in early. I cannot help but think this has a lot to do with the right in Victoria feeling completely dishevelled and disempowered at this point in time and lashing out.
I have stared at this photograph of me and Dad for more than five months. The picture was found in Mum’s drawer. After some calculations and contemplations, Mum said I was three years old in the photo. How much can I remember from age three? How far back in time can I go? What I could only do was stare, imagine, and ask questions.
So in the long journey of nearly five years since the Australian federal government's renewed search for a national radioactive waste facility, it seems a new stage has been reached.
It would be really easy to ‘both-sides’ these debates, but that would present a false equivalence. Surely, if we have learned anything from this year’s lockdowns, we should have gained a far greater appreciation of the importance of community access to outdoor space — and, therefore, of spatial justice?
The Buhler arrest stirred a range of responses from across the political divide, many troubled. Legal representatives and human rights advocates were similarly disturbed by what they regarded as a lack of proportion and restraint in police action.