Trust the source

THE Mayor wants to be all over social media. We’ve seen this movie before.

The last directly-elected mayor was touted as a major social media player. He had over a million followers!

This was going to be huge for the city. The ultimate man from marketing was the mouthpiece for Geelong.

A few months in and it was clear to all sober observers that a million followers and real game-changing influence are very different things.

Twitter was a playground for his opponents. It became a toxic dumpster fire where he was baited and belittled and he fought back and took no prisoners and the Commission of Inquiry was not impressed.

In their report they identified one situation where a councillor “re-tweeted” an “egregious, racist comment” about a private local citizen. When the State Government sacked the councillors, social media policy was re-written to stop this ugly culture of “pile on” from happening again.

Now the current Mayor wants to re-write them again. This is a mistake.

Rewriting policy and protocol does not just impact current councillors. It sets a huge precedent for interventionist political animals in the future.

Policy should not be changed to protect councillors’ feelings. If they’re not happy with the messaging, that is an internal discussion with staff.

Say what you like as a private citizen, but once you’re a paid office holder, you have a code of conduct to uphold. Personal access to official social media is a foolhardy precedent to set.

Donald Trump uses his personal account on Twitter on an hourly basis. He uses it to belittle opponents and abuse media he dislikes. Trump is easily baited by legacy media and he “angry tweets” at all hours of the night. He also pumps out the odd mind-boggling typo.

Back in 2017 Donald Trump tweeted to the world:

“Despite the constant negative press covfefe”...

It was posted at midnight. If this had come from an official government social media account, somebody would have been fired.

Republican mouthpieces are constantly trying to re-frame his social media unsociability.

“I think what the President was trying to say was...”

This is why he does not have control of the official White House account; taxpayers pay people to be considered and articulate. The White House account is still partisan but just not quite so abusive.

This Mayor has justified her desire to be an administrator of city social media by saying: “It’s just sometimes that Chinese whispers get going and people put incorrect information into comments that needs to be corrected... ”

I’m pretty sure you won’t find that descriptor for “rumours” employed in the city social media style guide.

Now, more than ever, social media messaging is a very big deal.

The new coronavirus is the biggest threat to our community and our economy in living memory.

In February 2020 this virus was given a name by the World Health Organisation — “COVID-19”.

This name is scientific and postlanguage. It stands for Corona Virus Disease 19. This naming of viruses follows a protocol that deliberately references the science for a reason.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said having a name mattered “to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatising”.

Donald Trump regularly ignored this directive. He leant into his penchant for stigmatisation by describing COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus”. Unsurprisingly this has resulted in an increase in racial abuse and acts of violence against Chinese-Americans.

If you want to get the message right, be articulate. Listen to opposition and don’t rush to belittle. Create a media relationship, instead of an opponent who needs to be corrected.

But most importantly, don’t go trolling every little user and monitor every little word written about you. Get on with the job you were elected to do and don’t be distracted by the mutterings.

Being the mayor is a full-time job. If this Mayor wants to continue to use her personal social media account while in public office, so be it. That is a matter for the CEO and the councillors.

But it is a mistake for councillors to permit a local politician to have personal control over the civic mouthpiece. Re-writing policy to prioritise the person over the organisation is the next step towards back to the future.

Ross Mueller is a freelance writer and director.