Financial Review
Twitter move to Australia "imminent": Julie Bishop
PUBLISHED: 11 Jan 2013 11:35:00 | UPDATED: 15 Jan 2013 08:45:28
Negar Salek, James Hutchinson and AAP
Social networking giant Twitter is being tipped to open its first Australian corporate office “imminently” as part of plans to help combat cyber bullying and deepen ties with the federal and state governments.
Federal politicians have for months been lobbying the company to launch a full-time presence in Australia and make it easier for police officers to engage with the company.
Speaking after a visit to Twitter’s US headquarters on Friday, deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop said she understood the move was “imminent”. [Now Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party government - here.]
“That’s what they told us today - they’d be opening an office in Sydney,” she said.
“Facebook has a presence in Australia and it’s clear Twitter is about to establish one.”
Ms Bishop said it was “essential” for social networking companies to deepen ties with Australian governments and authorities.
Earlier, Ms Bishop tweeted that she was at Twitter headquarters in in San Francisco as part of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue.”There are 400 million tweets/day with most tweets posted in Jakarta!”. [AALD - NGO-charity]
Twitter did not immediately confirm the move.
Cooperation
Twitter has seven international offices with the latest being in Paris.
A new Australian corporate presence is likely to have a strong commercial motive, with Australians keenly embracing Twitter over the past six years and currently sending about 1.4 million tweets per day.
But it is also likely to ease cooperation on issues such as cyber bullying and online abuse as well as enhancing relationships with all levels of government.
It comes after a series of high-profile cases of cyber bullying, including rugby league star Robbie Farah being abused by a troll on Twitter. [SMH - September 10, 2012 - here.]
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy branded the company “arrogant” in September after he unsuccessfully tried to contact the company to discuss the Farah case and ways to combat cyber bullying.
“They just believe they don’t have to take any notice of the Australian public, any notice of the Australian laws, and they think they can behave this arrogantly,” he told Nine Network last year.
Facebook, too, has come under pressure to extend its relationship with Australian authorities. Victoria police chief Ken Lay this week met with a Facebook executive to discuss his concerns about hate pages, and Facebook’s threat to high profile prosecutions.
A spokesman for Senator Conroy told AAP on Friday that he would welcome a permanent Twitter presence in Australia. [Conroy - Labor Party - here.]
But Prime Minister Julia Gillard said an Australian office may not speed up negotiations over taking down offensive material. [Former PM]
“It hasn’t been so much a question of location of the organisation, as opposed to the will to address the issue,” she told reporters in Sydney on Friday.
“We will be urging the bodies that have some control over content to have policies, not to stop people from having a genuine conversation or anything like that, but some of the extremes that have caused real harm to try and deal with that conduct.”
Twitter has had no full-time offices in Australia since launching in 2006 despite launching an official Twitter handle, @TwitterAU, last October.
Senior Twitter executives visited Australia in late 2012 as part of a scoping study.
SOURCE - Financial Review - here.
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Replace keyboards with handcuffs: Police Minister
NSW Police Minister Michael Gallacher said at a press conference in Sydney this morning that Twitter trolls should have their keyboards replaced with handcuffs.
"Honestly, these clowns who hide behind their keyboards in their mothers' basements thinking that they can send offensive messages ... we've got to empower police with the ability to replace their keyboards with handcuffs, grab them by the ears from mummy's basement and take them down to the local police station and make them understand the offensive matters that they continue to raise on the internet [bear] a terrible price."
Mr Gallacher said NSW Police did have some powers to take action against online abusers, but there needed to be some support from the federal government in making the legislation tougher.
Source - SMH - September 10, 2012 - here.
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COMMENT
So if I have this straight, there are some people in the community who are offended by tweets (or content of facebook pages) and the Australian politicians and law enforcement were (and presumably still are) lobbying to find means to curtail freedom of expression on these internet mediums.
Of course, it's all in the name of defending from cyber 'bullying'.
Politicians on both sides of the fence are, of course, happy to do what they can to bring about controls.
Julie Bishop's remark is disturbing:
Ms Bishop said it was “essential” for social networking companies to deepen ties with Australian governments and authorities.
On the contrary, I believe it's essential for social networking companies -- and the internet -- to be independent of interference from the government and all its branches.
As for 'hate' sites, one man's hate site is another man's truth. Who is to determine what is, or is not, acceptable content? Once that door is ajar, it's wide open to government censorship of content. So good luck preserving freedom of expression and freedom of information.
Now the nanny state wants to step in and guard against online social media users being 'offended' by remarks, and this is all in aid of defending the thin skinned from cyber bullying and 'hate'?
No way.
Ultimately, this is about politicians and government seeking control of a communication medium and control of freedom of expression and freedom of information.
Twitter didn't take long to come around to the politicians' lobbying.
Nine months later Twitter Australia headquarters was born:
Twitter opens local headquarters
The Australian
September 02, 2013 12:00AM
TWITTER has appointed a country manager for Australia and will officially open its local headquarters in Sydney this week, as the US social media giant pushes to build its advertising business in more markets ahead of a rumoured public offering.
Recently, Twitter started offering its so-called "promoted products" in Australia, with businesses paying to have promoted tweets pushed into users' timelines, promoted accounts included in "who to follow" recommendations and "promoted trends" appearing on the popular topics list.
Twitter won't divulge how many Australian advertisers it has signed, although it said National Australia Bank and Qantas were among the brands that have used the platform for marketing.
...
However, the platform has at times proved problematic for brands. Qantas saw one promotional campaign became a PR fail when users hijacked its hashtag "#QantasLuxury" to make fun at the airline's expense.
"You always have episodes of bad behaviour, especially on open platforms," Mr Rao said.
"(One benefit) from having people on the ground ... is our teams can actively work with organisations in Australia to understand best practices so we can manage accounts on the platform in the best way possible."
...extracts only...full @...
SOURCE - The Australian - here. |
The Australian's article is all about the business/advertising side of things, save for revealing that the #QantasLuxury hashtag wound up being the butt of Twitter jokes.
Was Qantas offended? Was this a form of online bullying? Was it a form of cyber hate? And did the NSW police minister ensure all those responsible were held accountable? Did all those Twitter basement-dwellers bear a
terrible price? And has the police minister replaced their keyboards with handcuffs?
