Selling the Vote

Advertising, advertising everywhere we look. Research has fairly consistently proven that a word of mouth recommendation is much more effective than any other form of advertising such as television, radio or internet advertising. The link below from Nielsen’s gives a good overview of the efficacy of the various methods of advertising

 (1) http://digitalintelligencetoday.com/word-of-mouth-still-most-trusted-resource-says-nielsen-implications-for-social-commerce/

Another important aspect of marketing is the product itself. If the product is good and people find it useful they will tell other people about the product. If on the other hand the product itself is poor the consumer will not give a good word of mouth referral and they will tell people of their negative experience. 

Given that a word of mouth referral is so important, and having a good product is vital to getting a good word of mouth referral you’d think that there wouldn’t be too many poor products out there for sale or that those products would not sell. A quick search on many types of products will show that sadly this isn’t the case.

You would also think that if you have a good product, then you would need to advertise less. In my view this is true. As evidence I’d offer the following, think of your cities most popular restaurant and then consider, when did they last do a television, radio or even a Facebook advert? Having a hard time with that? They don’t have to advertise because word of mouth is all the promotion they ever need.

Now consider our political parties. How many good word of mouth referrals do they get? How much advertising do they engage in? Facebook in particular has become particularly painful for political advertising. The proliferation of Facebook pages containing political rants which in many cases are just obviously misleading has escalated over the past two or three years. The major parties are all as bad as each other.

What does all that say about their product? Pretty much speaks for itself I’d suggest. Once again though, all the major political parties are just as bad as each other. Worse still there are no easy answers. But their product and some of the irresponsible spruiking that major parties engage in are not the greatest concern to me.

Consider how these advertisements are paid for? There are two sources, public funds and private donations to the major parties. With regards to public funding there are arguments for and against. Public funding does somewhat level the playing field between candidates. Perhaps the strongest argument for is that it makes it less likely that our elected representatives will spend all their time fundraising instead of the doing what they were elected to do like developing policy. I’m strongly against public funding for just one simple reason. Public money should not be spent to support the views of a party which do not reflect my own, or other tax payers’ views.

As uncomfortable as public money being used for advertising makes me, the use of private money I find even more disturbing. This is for the very simple reason that we cannot be sure that this privately donated money is not influencing policy decisions. It almost certainly does. Lawrence Lessig’s book entitled ‘Republic, Lost’ outlines this very effectively. A Link to Lessig’s website is below.

 (1)   http://republic.lessig.org/

So we have a situation where our major political parties both advertise. They advertise because the ‘product’ they are ‘selling’ is of questionable value. One source of the funding of this advertising is from the taxpayer. The other almost certainly affects the Government’s ability to make unbiased policy decisions based on the greater good as opposed to policy decisions which support their major political donors.   

If the Government’s ability to make unbiased policy decisions (which is what we elect them to do) is affected in any way it hurts our democracy. Our government should be making decisions which they believe are in the best interests of the voting public, not the best interests of their donors. I’m not sure how we can reasonably tolerate a situation where the Governments motivations are in doubt. They clearly are.

This article (2) http://theaimn.com/trust-federal-parliament-sure-can/ sums up the situation quite nicely. A quick look at the latest polls for satisfaction with both the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition is also enlightening. Politicians are not trusted, and when their campaigns are heavily funded by individuals with a vested interest it’s not hard to understand why. 

Most private businesses have strong internal policies which prevent gifts and gratuities to be passed onto employees when those employees are involved in procurement. It’s widely acknowledged that even the smallest of gifts can influence the decision making process. This is why sales staff will often endeavour to take new clients out of their workplace for meetings and pay for their lunch, alcoholic beverages or at least a coffee.

To imply that private individuals, who are donating enough funds to buy a lot of coffee, are not trying to influence the major parties with large donations is absurd. It’s just as absurd that the political parties which support candidates, and the candidates themselves, are exempt from policies which a humble employee in a private organisation is subject to when receiving gifts. How are those donations not the same as gifts? Worse than even. 

In 2011 Daryl Melham, commenting on the report into the funding of political parties and election campaigns, said the following;

‘Australia can be proud of its democratic system, but there is scope for improvement. In terms of political financing arrangements, the funding and disclosure system that was introduced in 1984 was a leader in its field. However, more than a quarter of a century later, Australia’s political financing arrangements are in need of review and revitalizing.’

Melham is right. That review should be fairly brutal. I believe there is no reason why political parties and or candidates should receive any private donations of any kind at any time. Furthermore public funding should be limited to enough funds for just one website, where all the major parties can describe their policies and their position on other candidate’s policies.  

This might force the major parties, and their candidates, to focus more on their product and less on the increasingly purile banter that sometimes passes for serious political discussion in this country. I’m not so naïve as to suggest that it is some game changing solution to public’s dissatisfaction with its leaders. But reviewing the financing of political parties is a start.

The kind of leader I want to vote for is the kind that doesn’t take donations which may compromise their judgement. A leader who doesn’t need advertising to convince people they are worthy of our vote. Their actions should do that.    

Worth Being Offended

Nobody likes to hear criticism. That’s a fairly well known maxim although it is perhaps less true for some. Similarly people often do not like to hear views which conflict with their own. We’ve all been to that gathering, often with our much loved relatives, where two people have argued at length about politics or religion. Tempers fray, people say things they regret.

Most if not all of us are guilty of saying something stupid that we regret at some time in our lives. I once told a close friend that I’d lose all respect for him if he didn’t agree with me about how his son should have played a certain hand during a poker match. It was a ridiculous thing to say upon reflection and a good example of how emotion can so easily shift us to the most illogical of views from time to time.

Whilst sometimes a person’s views can offend us, those of us in Australia like to think that we highly value freedom of speech. I’d suggest that on balance this is true. Australians value freedom of speech and in the main we are able to exercise it. I’m exercising it now. Compare us to say Saudi Arabia where blogger Raif Badawi was recently convicted of insulting Islam in an online forum. He has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes.

However the right to free speech is something which can be subtly undermined over time. Sometimes this can be purposeful and sometimes it’s the by-product of something unrelated. I feel my right to speak freely has diminished in my lifetime. The recent actions of a few extremists who attacked the Charlie Hebdo office highlighted this for me in an unexpected way. Jeff Sparrow recently published a piece entitled “We can defend Charlie Habdo without endorsing it". A link to the piece is below.

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-09/sparrow-we-should-support-charlie-hebdo-not-endorse-it/6007836  

As soon as I saw the headline I swore but I forced myself the read the article. After some more swearing I managed to finish it. The article made me very angry. You see I am one of those ‘you have the right to say anything’ types. The idea that my freedom to express myself should be impinged upon because someone else lacks the ability to accept my right to hold a view that differs from their own is utterly abhorrent to me.

I actively seek out views that differ from my own. That’s why I forced myself to read the article. I do this for a number of reasons but perhaps the most important of these is that it forces me to continuously examine my own views and ensure that I can still qualify them. This is not to say that I never read anything that broadly supports a view which I already hold, merely that I strive to at least examine as many sides of a debate as I can.

So after reading Sparrow’s piece it was a couple of days later that I realised that as unpalatable as I might find his views personally he had managed to highlight something that should have already been obvious. We in the west who so champion the right to free speech do not apply that right equally to all people and across all issues.

No one in Australia was criticising Charlie Hebdo prior to the attack on their offices and very few people are criticising their content now. Would people be so supportive of Charlie Hebdo if their cartoons were lampooning feminism, or perhaps homosexuals? Many of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons are caricatures that could be interpreted as racist, yet they face no public censure for those – why not?

Consider the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975. This act makes it “unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person, or of some or all of the people in the group”.

In Western Australia the criminal code was amended in 1998 to criminalise the possession, publication and display of written or pictorial material that is threatening or abusive with the intention of inciting racial hatred or of harassing a racial group. The penalties range from between six months to two years imprisonment.

Now go and google offensive images by Carlie Hebdo. I’m not sure how you could argue that some of them are not “reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people” with those people being radical Muslims. As completely unacceptable as the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices was, clearly members of that racial group felt harassed. If those cartoons were published in Australia it’s hard to see how the person or persons publishing them would avoid a criminal conviction. 

It’s a fairly obvious inequity in my view and I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t acknowledge it before. On reflection though, it’s once again the kind of thing which we all do from time to time. Despite all our best efforts, subtle inequality can sneak up on you. Now having said all that the law, both at a Federal, and at a State level in most cases, can result in;

A criminal conviction and jail time.

Because of a cartoon.

Which offends someone who believes in an imaginary being whose existence they are unable to prove?

I won’t agree with that.

A society which prizes free speech is not perfect. To champion free speech you need to accept that some people’s views are offensive and that this is acceptable. Quite frankly everyone should be offended every now and then. It reminds us that as a society we are not perfect because people are not perfect. We show poor judgement at times. We sometimes hold illogical views.  

Furthermore those with extreme views should be encouraged to speak them. In this way the more reasonable of us are able to engage with these people and perhaps help them to see how unreasonable views such as racism and sexism are.

Those with extreme views are often so easily debunked. There is no science that supports the view of one race being ‘better’ than the others. There is no science which proves that men are inherently better than women. Yet if we do not hear these views, debate them in public, debunk them where appropriate, then where do kids go to find balance when their father tells their mother she is worthless? What stops the child of white supremacists from becoming like their parents? 

What’s not ok is to use violence to physically impose your views on other people. For that reason, whilst I concede the cartoons published by Carlie Hebdo are offensive, I find it very difficult to sympathise with someone who is ready to kill because of a cartoon.

But I’m almost as unsympathetic to those who think that we should limit free speech for any reason. Jail someone just for speaking their mind however misguided they might be. In order to discover the middle of a line you need to know where both ends of the line are. To find the centre of a circle you need to know where the edges are. How can we as a society find the middle ground on any issue if we cannot hear the extremes of the debate because we have forbidden people to express their view?

Yet it is so important to be able to find that middle ground on an issue. It provides context for your own views and can allow a person to transition from one view to another should the known facts around an issue change. Whilst reading something we find offensive is uncomfortable, surely the discomfort of being offended from time to time is worth the benefit which the occasional offensive view can provide.

The Inequity Conduit

Much has been said recently about the increase of inequity in the world. Thomas Piketty’s recent book entitled Capital in the Twenty First Century seems to have kick-started additional debate on the subject but even before the release of that book it seemed to me that wealth inequality was being spoken about more frequently. 

I have not yet read Piketty’s book so I’m not in a position to comment on it. I would instead like to ramble on a bit about my own views on the banking and finance industries and their possible role in the growing level of wealth inequality which seems to have occurred particularly since the nineteen eighties.

To begin with, there seems to be little doubt that the gap between the rich and the poor is rising in Australia. When a conservative bastion such as the Australian is publishing articles like the one below, you can be reasonably confident that there is a consensus on the issue. A Link to the article is below.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/aussies-trapped-by-disadvantage/story-fn3dxiwe-1226445744314

 What is the role of the finance industry and in particular the banks in all this? I’m not suggesting that the banks are at fault here. I’m not suggesting that they are the part of some global conspiracy to usher in a new world order. I think rather that as our financial system has evolved the banks have become a kind of inequity conduit. This conduit facilitates the transfer of wealth from those people who are relatively poorer to people that are relatively richer.

Consider who funds the banks. Who profits when banks profit? The answer of course is the banks shareholders. The people in a position to become shareholders of a banking institution are already wealthy. They are wealthy enough to be able to divert some of their income towards investment.

Then consider the borrowers. The person who has borrowed money is often not wealthy. This is why they have had to borrow the money in the first place. Furthermore they are often borrowing it to buy a house which is a fairly basic living requirement for everyone.

Of course when money is borrowed interest is paid on it. However that interest, which when borrowed over long terms often outweighs the amount which is originally borrowed. It is that interest which allows the banks to operate and to be profitable. Of course the profits in effect take money straight from the relatively poor to and pass it to those relatively richer.

Thus the banking and finance industries facilitate the transference of wealth from those who are not wealthy, and thus have to borrow money, to those who are already wealthy and thus can afford to divert money towards investment. This is funnelling money directly from the poorer people in our society to those in a stronger financial position.

Given that so many people in Australia rely on credit just to buy a house and that this reliance on credit so obviously transfers wealth from those with less money to those who have more, it is really so surprising that the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing? Given the current system what other outcome could we reasonably expect?

 It’s also worth further clarifying that this situation isn’t really the banks fault. They can hardly be blamed for operating a service which so many people demand. I strongly believe that people should have access to finance to pursue their dreams, whether that dream is a business venture or owning a humble home. The finance industry also provides employment for many Australians. It’s not all bad.

Yet the system we currently have is doing damage in my view. Money should not be transferred from the poor to those already rich simply because those poorer people want to live in a house instead of renting. Just think what would happen to the economy if the money those poorer people spent on interest was instead used for discretional spending? How much economic benefit would that generate for us all? How many more small businesses could flourish?

Yet for this outcome to occur the ‘profit’ would have to be taken out of the finance industry. I’m not sure how you go about that. To me though, it just seems so very important that as a society we find an alternative to the existing system. Whatever solution adopted could hardly be worse than the existing system. Consider the current risks inherent in the banking system and the consequences to us if a bank were to fail.

The banking industry, we are repeatedly told, is too big to fail. Whilst Australia avoided any big tax payer funded bail outs during the GFC, the Government still stepped in to secure deposits. There is little doubt in my mind that if one of the ‘big four’ Australian banks failed the government would have to step in and bail it out with taxpayer funds. Whilst that would hurt Australians, not bailing out the bank would hurt Australians more.

So if one of the many risks, which the finance industry says they manage appropriately, is realised by one of the big four banks and it fails who pays? The banks and their shareholders do not carry all the costs of this failure. It is the tax payer who funds the almost inevitable bail out. Yet we as tax payers have no real say over the conduct of the big banks. Some taxpayers who are shareholders in a bank may have some small portion of control. Most tax payers however are utterly powerless.

I’m deeply uncomfortable with this situation. Something so important to society in general, important enough for the government to bail it out with tax payer funds, should in some way be beholden to the taxpayer. If the government can bail out an organisation with taxpayer funds then the taxpayer should have a say in how these organisations are managed. I’m not sure how you could sensibly argue against that.

I’d also add that perhaps large financial organisations should have wider goals than simple revenue generation. Surely an organisation which is so important to communities and business, where the quality of their service and their risk management is so important to the wider community, should not be driven by profit alone. Ultimately though, the banks primary goal is to generate profit for their shareholders. Despite their fluffy advertising this is the reality of the situation.

This leads me to suggest something which I am also deeply uncomfortable with. For most of my life I’ve been strongly in favour of privatising government organisations as on balance I believe private organisations are more efficient. Yet as I’ve matured I’ve come to realise that while efficiency is important so is quality of service. Where quality is paramount organisations whose prime motivation is to maximise profit should not be entrusted with delivery of service.

In my view the quality of the risk management within banks and financial institutions is paramount to their survival and the services they provide are vital to the community. For these reasons, I would suggest that perhaps financial services would be better delivered by government instead of private enterprise. In this way the profit motive which drives most banks would be removed or at least reduced.  If the government made money that ‘profit’ could be diverted back into the community, as opposed to being delivered to the hands of those who are already relatively wealthy.

It’s far from a perfect solution and as history has consistently shown, organisations managed by government are less efficient. But given the choice between an efficient yet more inequitable model and a less efficient but fairer one, I know which one I’d prefer to have. Which would you prefer?

Anonymous Adventures

When I was in high school I remember a guy who publically admitted to masturbating. He was fifteen or sixteen I think. That guy got verbally crucified by much of the school for the rest of his student life. Of course it’s amusing to consider that practically all of the people giving him a hard time for being a wanker were – themselves - wankers.

 In a way, advocating online anonymity is a little like those oh so cruel teenagers teasing the only honest person in the class. Most people like to think that when we head online we are more or less anonymous. The less ignorant among us realise this simply isn’t the case.

Online anonymity is complete bullshit. Edward Snowden exposed some of the government surveillance conducted not just in America by the NSA but also by government agencies in all ‘five eyes’ countries. If you’re online and you’ve seen it or heard it, read it or typed it then your government already knows about it. Big Brother has been watching for some time now.    

On the surface it might seem that discussions about online anonymity are meaningless because the horse has so clearly bolted. I think that because the horse has bolted, it makes the discussion all the more important.

Those in favour of online anonymity cite a variety of valid arguments. Whistle-blowers dependent on an organization, or afraid of revenge, should be able to divulge serious misconduct and anonymity can allow this. The same should apply for anonymous tips to media outlets and law enforcement authorities.

Minority groups are often more comfortable expressing their opinions if they can do so anonymously. People in general are often more comfortable discussing personal issues when they are anonymous and people may get a more objective evaluation of their opinions when their gender, status and previous opinions are not available to the reader.

Online anonymity advocates also point out that people have always had the right and the ability to express themselves anonymously. Examples of this include anonymous letters sent or even a message as simple as graffiti. For this reason anonymity is a natural part of society and unavoidable. It’s a very persuasive argument.

On the other side of the coin those in favour of a more regulated internet usually point out that there is a darker side to online anonymity. Those engaging in criminal activities can be protected because they cannot be identified. 

This situation can and of course regularly does lead to all sorts of mischief. From fraud, and sexual abuse, to simple ‘trolling’ and other forms of abuse and harassment it all just becomes so much easier when people don’t know who you are. Like walking down a road where everyone is wearing a balaclava it’s difficult not to assume that everyone harbours ill intent.

What really frustrates me about those who advocate greater internet regulation is the blatant fear mongering that accompanies many of their arguments. We must have greater control or your grandparents will have their inheritance stolen, or your child’s innocence shattered. Oh the humanity!

I find it equally frustrating that those in favour of online anonymity being enshrined in law consistently conflate the right to free speech with the ability to exercise free speech anonymously. The two are not the same.

When the American founding fathers wrote the declaration of independence they were exercising their right to free speech, among other things. They did this, knowing that if the situation went badly for them they faced the noose. Those who perhaps fought hardest for the right to have a free and open society had the courage to pursue their goals with precious little anonymity.

In my view the online anonymity question should be handled in much the same way that we handle identification in the other areas of our society. If people want to remain anonymous, then they should be able to, but some activities should require identification. 

For a lot of things is life, you need the appropriate identification. If you want to buy alcohol you need ID. If you want to enter a nightclub you need ID. If you want a loan you need ID. Drivers licence, again ID. If you want to leave the country you won’t be doing so without ID and should you leave your chances of getting back in without ID are slight at best.

It is equally ridiculous to argue that all your conduct online should be anonymous or that all your conduct should logged and registered. The question is how to best manage the situation? I would suggest that rather than having the ‘default setting’ for the internet set to anonymous, it should instead be set to ‘regulated’ with the option for authorised parties to set their site to anonymous.

Sites where anonymity is beneficial, such as medical, law authority and whistle blowing sites can be anonymous. Their web pages programmed in such a way that user details are not recorded once the session is complete. It’s not perfect, user details could still be captured by a third party illegally accessing the site but at least user details are not always automatically recorded forever.

All other sites automatically display user’s details which are linked to the user’s actual identification. User identification is provided by the government and protected by the government in the same way as other important information (such as TFN’s) is protected. The government faces strict regulations regarding what content they can monitor with their conduct independently audited and reported on, just like any other government agency.

This proposal isn’t perfect, but systems rarely are. I believe it would allow users to make a more informed decision with regards to their online activities under the proposed system. Perhaps more importantly government is also regulated and audited with regards to what online activities they can monitor.

In the end I guess it all comes down to what we want our internet to be. Guaranteeing anonymity or preventing anonymity is a blanket solution to what is a complex issue. Providing people with options and regulating the use of those options is one way in which all people can be respected whilst also being protected.