Source : Perth Now news
Politicians are increasingly acting like online streamers – and it’s making people angrier.
That’s what one extremism expert told a panel of senators examining what’s driving radicalisation in Australia, adding that elected representatives were not heeding their own advice about polite disagreement.
“Why are politicians not acting like they tell us they do?” Deakin University political sociologist Joshua Roose said during the hearings in Canberra on Monday.
“Unfortunately, because of the online environment where everyone’s a publisher, very often parliament is used now more and more by politicians of every persuasion to spread their material and hopefully go viral online.”
Social media is awash with footage of ministers and public servants being grilled at the most recent round of Senate estimates hearings held in late October.
TikTok, Instagram and YouTube have made the usually dull proceedings a goldmine for politicians, much like live-streamers who “clip” hours-long feeds to post elsewhere and lure new fans.
Top bureaucrats have pleaded for better protection from a torrent of abuse they say has accompanied the videos, which often comprise heated exchanges.
Associate Professor Roose said lacklustre civics education meant young people already had little defence against polarising online content.
As social media played a larger role in how people learnt about democracy, he said politicians’ clip-farming exacerbated the poor example they set for the public.
“What (schools) are not teaching you is … what are the core underpinnings of political liberalism, including respect and recognition of difference, respect for others?” he told the senators.
“It’s very difficult when that’s not necessarily being modelled in our parliaments or in our mainstream political discourse.”
Civility in politics claimed centre stage after the alleged attack on independent MP Helen Haines on October 19, although police have yet to reveal the possible motivation for the incident.
Senators on Monday heard the non-ideology of nihilism was looming larger among the radicalised.
“It just means the destruction of everything … and that’s very difficult from a counterterrorism perspective to argue that could constitute an ideology or political or religious cause,” Assoc Prof Roose said.
“(It) encourages – particularly men in their late teens, girls in their early teens – self-harm, the sharing of material, harming of pets … and there’s a coercive chain effect.”
He suggested child exploitation laws, rather than counterterrorism laws, were better for tackling that particular new danger, because who these people were harming and why was more complex.
Artificial intelligence, which radicals are using to automate the dissemination of propaganda, is also complicating counter-terrorism efforts.
“Generally, terrorist organisations would actually have to have ongoing communication with somebody, but they no longer need to,” Charles Sturt University criminology expert Samantha Jones said.
“It actually frees up money, it frees up time, it frees up resources for organisations so they can instead use chatbots … and keep that person and the belief development ongoing.
“This is something that isn’t accounted for … and it’s happened so rapidly that we are now seeing the major impacts.”
