When a wannabe politician’s social media goes wrong

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, April 27th, 2017 - 10 comments
Categories: australian politics, International, Politics, social media lolz, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up, youtube - Tags: ,

Over in Australia a wanna be politician who is a member of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party was recently seeking election to their Parliament.  His name is Mark Ellis and he had a couple of dark secrets which he wanted to keep hidden.

He was one of the infamous ‘Pinkenba Six‘ police officers who in May 1994 drove three Aboriginal boys to remote bushland, took their shoes from them, and made them walk 14 kilometres home. Somehow he was acquitted of kidnapping, probably because he relied on a defence that he was being a dickhead rather than intentionally wanting to deprive the kids of their freedom. Or maybe a tepid investigation and prosecution and a jury full of Queensland’s version of good old boys meant that the presumption of innocence was given the fullest most literal interpretation.  Who knows.

He was also accused of threatening to kill a former employee via social media.  Threats to kill should always be treated with the utmost concern.  Threats to kill via social media should be treated with the extra concern that whoever delivered the threat is especially stupid.  Because unfortunately social media essentially lives forever and is available to everyone if preserved properly.  Such an accusation should mean that the perpetrator should not be trusted with any job of responsibility, let alone one that involves making important decisions about the running of the country.

Ellis has been advertising his candidacy via the compulsory Facebook page.  It appears that he did not open a twitter account, and some wag decided to open one for him.  They then wrecked havoc on his campaign by responding to tweets using publicly available statements made by him to suggest that he was replying himself.  It seemed real.  Given the immediacy of twitter it showed how asinine his PR designed responses were.

I screen grabbed a few because they were so funny and I was afraid they would eventually disappear.  Regrettably this is the case.  But here they are …

And this one …

As well as this one …

And this one …

The beauty of the responses is that the language used were things that Mark had said time and time again.

Mark Ellis had some other problems.  His personal Facebook page has, as noted by the Guardian, a picture of him standing on a lawn with a swasticker mowed on it giving a sieg heil salute.  Crosby Textor would struggle to explain this away …

But bowing to the inevitable he has withdrawn from being a candidate.  One Nation staffers are engaged in a scrubbing exercise as we speak.

There has been a lot of comment about how the left has lost its way because it (collectively somehow) has refused to agree not to punch Nazis.  I think that Mark Ellis provides context about how difficult an issue this is.  Maybe progressives should be happy with the opportunity to mock him mercilessly on social media even through a proxy rather than face the ethical difficulty of whether or not to punch him or someone like him if you meet them in real life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFG8kK3l09o

Or. If you are feeling more frenetic …

10 comments on “When a wannabe politician’s social media goes wrong ”

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  1. Tony Veitch (not the partner-bashing 3rd rate broadcaster 1
    27 April 2017 at 9:12 am

    I’m being pedantic – but ‘swastika’!

    [Oops now corrected thanks – MS]

    • Bill 1.1
      27 April 2017 at 9:26 am

      I quite liked swasticker 🙂

      Kind of made me think of corn flakes (maybe that should be Frostie) packets and kids excitedly asking one another ‘S’wasticker you get?’

      [Lucky no one noticed “siege heil” 😀 – MS]

  2. greywarshark 2
    27 April 2017 at 10:12 am

    Cripes another nail in democracy’s far reach allowing y’all to participate. Teach them to read, and then you get trouble!

  3. TeWhareWhero 3
    27 April 2017 at 1:34 pm

    Thank you for saving the Tweets for posterity – they made me chuckle.

  4. mac1 4
    27 April 2017 at 3:52 pm

    What’s with the left-armed salute? The poor fool can’t even get his protocols right.

    Mind you, a man armed with a broom handle is unable to make even a sweeping statement.

  5. james 5
    27 April 2017 at 3:58 pm

    “it wasn’t technically kidnapping” has got to be one of the worse lines ever muttered by a politician.

  6. tc 6
    28 April 2017 at 7:10 am

    one nation has burnt through their ‘plausible’ candidates I.e. The ones smart enough to not leave such overt material in the public domain whilst still being committed racists and climate denialists.

    Checkout Malcom Roberts.

  7. Tanz 7
    29 April 2017 at 2:39 am

    lets kick em when they’re down…sigh…social media, just a sad forum anyway.
    Winston will win this year, he is our only strong voice.

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