Andrew Bolt and the Streisand Effect. ( aka #boltgate )
Poor Andrew Bolt… he really has been kept in the dark. You’d think that someone in the last nearly two years would have told him that there was a fake twitter account. Surely. But no, no one did. This also shows that people like Bolt and even those around him in News Limited have no idea about brand management either. People like Bolt are a brand unto themselves.
Of course I try very hard to avoid anything he says on the grounds that I might need to have my gall bladder removed, I am still well aware of him and his views.
The @andrewbolt account was started on February 11, 2009 or 538 days ago and he is only just writing about it now!
@jason_a_w managed to find and write a very detailed interview with the person behind the account in August last year! (faking-on-twitter-fake-andrew-bolt/)
And yet 12 months after this post was written he has only just found out, or at least has only just started complaining. Of course like most right wing commentariat he is demanding justice and claiming this is the worst crime in history.
From his own blog:
“This is only a small instance, but as I’ve so often noted among Leftist activists from the French Revolution to the Internet revolution , many have a curious belief that their moral cause entitles them to act as barbarians. It’s this loss of conscience in the collective that makes them such a menace.”
“For at least a year, it’s been guilty of identity theft and defamation. And I would expect that the employer of this person might have something to say about that,” he said.” Source : Source: News Ltd
From his own blog
“I’ve been given names, and at some stage may use them. Parody is perfectly fine, but identity theft is low.”
Seriously WTF. Either he knows who it is or he doesn’t. I suspect he doesn’t, that is why he is using these bully boy techniques which work very well in old media, not so well in these new and rapidly changing social platforms. And of course the readers of his blog coming running to his defence with 183 comments, most of which seem to blame the ABC for reasons that totally escape me.
So when twitter discovers that Andrew Bolt has finally discovered that there is a fake twitter account, he encounters the Streisand effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)
Now we have @LordAndrewBolt @AndrewBolt_PR @AndrewBlotMP @andrew__bolt @andrew_bolt_irl @mrsandrewbolt @lordandrewbolt @IamAndrewBolt @andrewbolt @AndrewBoltMP @MrAndrewBolt @anandrewbolt @andrew_bolt @anbrewdolt @fakeandrewbolt @TheAndrewBolt
And I am sure I have missed some, and all the while the account that started it all has gained over 800 followers in one day.
The more he complains the more he adds fuel to the Streisand Effect. Sit back and enjoy the ride people… this will only get funnier I promise.
