How do you solve a problem like Blunty?
So if you were the proposed News Standards Body, how would you regulate Blunty?
The News Standards Body, in case you didn’t notice, is the new organisation proposed by the Convergence Review this week to regulate news and commentary, regardless of platform.
Blunty, in case you didn’t notice, is the video blogger who this week went viral after he filmed a guerrilla marketing demo outside Apple’s Sydney store apparently as a coincidental bystander, but later admitted he’d been put up to it by BlackBerry.
The proposed new regime has three criteria for the sort of content that would be regulated: The content service enterprise (or media owner as we used to call such things) has to have control over the content; there have to be a large number of users of the content; and thirdly they receive a large amount of revenue from supplying that content to Australians. In addition, it has to be professional content.
Which agency is advising Blackberry? Or who failed to counsel them against this bad idea?
So he thinks people are idiots because of how they reacted to a deliberately odd marketing campaign that was encouraging people to speculate on it? OK, whatever. If he had been as in the dark as everyone else, I dare say he might have made some of the same speculation, too. Gotta love his holier-than-thou attitude about it all.
The Convergence Review basically decided that only certain organisations have influence and that influence is a function of reach and/or profitability.
Unfortunately this is complete nonsense and gets disproved regularly, as this Blunty incident has shown.
Their recommendations are politically expedient and practically implementable, however fail the most important test of all – they are not going to ever be effective.
Question for YouTube. You effectively employ Blunty, you make money from his content and you pay him. As the CEO of Energywatch showed, you can’t draw a line between their business and what they do in social media.
So YouTube, what is your position on endorsing Blunty when his latest Twitter entries are as below:
‘Nate Burr @BluntNate
But aside from women being crazy (yo), they’re also pretty much the awesomest thing to cuddle…. Except kittens. So yeah, whachagonnado?
Nate Burr @BluntNate
But yeah…. Women… Amiright!? … Chicks be nuts yo.
Nate Burr @BluntNate
“don’t you realize that word can be offensive?” – Indeed I do you stupid cunt, that’s why I’m using it… I mean to cause you offence. Retard.
14h Nate Burr @BluntNate
Dear every rectum clenching cunt who loves to run around telling folk which words they’re allowed to use… 1.Get a life 2.eat dicks fucktards’
Is YouTube going to end its association with Blunty before the mainstream media get a hold of this, or are they going to continue to provide a revenue stream to a misogynistic, vile human being? And YouTube, you may wish to have checked his background prior, a quick internet search provides some interesting reading.
Google search done. Wow, just… wow. I don’t want to say any more.
But what I can say in general is I just don’t understand the appeal. Why do people watch this? He seems to hate everything and conclude that everyone, but him, is stupid.
I wonder if he’d say half this stuff to people’s faces, rather than a video camera?
Some people out there thought Blunty’s video *wasn’t* part of the ad campaign?
I agree this is another good example of why the convergence review is so out of date. (Even the name convergence is out of date — it should have been the “divergence” review).
But I wouldn’t be overly worried if Blunty isn’t covered by the new standards body becos the Internet usually figures this stuff out pretty quickly and calls “bullshit”.
it’s amazing reading that feed.
i too am confused as to who watches it, reads it etc. ugly, hate filled ranting is easy to access simply by turning on AM radio.
The question about regulation is an interesting one, and I certainly don’t have any answers to that, especially since the platform it’s published on ‘YouTube’ is not Australian.
As for those surprised by Blunty’s following and why, it’s worth reviewing the who’s-who of online commentators. They range from Radio National style to late back radio talk back full of fruity language and controversy with audiences counted in the hundreds of thousands or millions.
Blackberry must be delighted. The reach and number of repetitions of ‘wake up’ have probably exceeded their wildest expectations.
When Scott Rhodie and I worked with Blunty on Paramount Pictures Australia’s “The Watchmen” movie campaign we achieved over 11 million views. He was thoroughly professional and always respected NDAs imposed, even when he was bursting to tell the world.
I’m amazed you’re evening bothering to give anything the Convergence Review says any credence whatsoever. Several of the initiatives proposed in it are impossible to implement because of the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement (which would take an act of war to repudiate). Several other ideas (allowing the umpire to amend the rules as they go) are impossible to make work in the context of retaining shareholder value in businesses (and then theres the little matter of who appoints *that* gatekeeper anyway).
The entire report is a half-assed piece of work by media insiders who don’t know enough about technology, foreign affairs, telecoms, privacy, or pretty much any of the important issues impacting on our screens today. They also clearly don’t actually spend much time online.
The Government called for the review to give the Murdochs et al a bit of a fright – not to actually *do* anything that would startle the horses. Now that’s done, can we just treat the review as it really is – a stupendous waste of time and money. I’ll be glad when the budget comes along so the media forget all about it.
As for the less-than-charming Mr Blunty. Y’all seem to be making the same philosophical mistake the Review made: you don’t have to subscribe, or watch. Who cares what this doofus does? Being outraged about it reminds me of the excellent XKCD cartoon: “Something is *wrong* on the Internet.”