The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has attacked the social networking site Facebook and its former college student founder for what he says is its ''complete disregard'' for privacy.
Senator Conroy is under fire from many in the internet industry for his proposed mandatory net filter. He has previously attacked Google, a key critic of the filtering plan, but last night in a Senate estimates hearing turned his attention to Facebook.
''Facebook has also shown a complete disregard for users' privacy lately,'' Senator Conroy said in response to a question from a government senator.
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This has to be a joke. Conroy has personified the invasion of privacy. He wants to determine what goes on in every bedroom in the country. Today it's no normal porn via computers. Recently the government introduced a "are you carrying porn" question onto the Australian visa applications. Tomorrow he'll be checking that sex is performed in Opus Dei approved missionary position.
His character attacks rolled forward in this session. Now he's after Google over their gathering of wireless network data while photographing for google maps. Again, unlike Conroy, Google stopped when the public objected. See this important step that you are missing, Conroy? It's the "listen to the public" step of democracy. Very important. You don't have the power to make laws and decisions, you have temporary permission. Fuck it up (like now) and you get voted out.
Ludlam says it best:
"The minister's on a bit of a hair trigger so anyone who's criticised the net filters becomes a target for character assasination, whether it be an advocacy group like EFA [Electronic Frontiers Australia] or one of the world's largest technology companies like Google," Senator Ludlam said.
"It comes across as really petulant - the guy's a minister of the Crown, you don't need to be bawling out technology companies just because they've taken a critical stand on his filter."
"I just think the minister's being a little bit oversensitive to criticism - it would be helpful sometimes if rather than shooting the messenger he listens to what he's being told."
Senator Ludlam and Colin Jacobs, chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia, both agreed that the Google Wi-Fi bungle was a serious matter but said Senator Conroy appeared to be beating it up for political gain.
"The Minister's hyberbole, bordering on hysterical, is counter-productive," said Jacobs.
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