If it wasn’t so laughable, the lengths to which the EU will go to in an attempt to drown out voices of dissent would be very sinister.
Key to a new strategy will be “public opinion monitoring tools” to “identify at an early stage whether debates of political nature among followers in social media and blogs have the potential to attract media and citizens’ interest”.
Spending on “qualitative media analysis” is to be increased by £1.7 million and while most of the money is to be found in existing budgets an additional £787,000 will be need to be raised next year despite calls for EU spending to reflect national austerity.
“Particular attention needs to be paid to the countries that have experienced a surge in Euroscepticism,” said a confidential document agreed last year.
“Parliament’s institutional communicators must have the ability to monitor public conversation and sentiment on the ground and in real time, to understand ‘trending topics’ and have the capacity to react quickly, in a targeted and relevant manner, to join in and influence the conversation, for example, by providing facts and figures to deconstructing myths.”
It is navel gazing on an industrial scale, and speaks volumes about the attitude that pervades the corridors of the EU’s buildings. The whole line about ‘deconstructing myths’. Let us not forget, this is an organisation that hasn’t had its accounts signed off since the last sacking of Lindisfarne, and they seem to think people will just accept any figure that is thrown at them as undeniable evidence.
Look, you morons, the reason there is a surge in scepticism against your hateful little project is because people neither believe nor trust you, do you really, honestly think that trawling twitter, facebook and the blogosphere and posting fatuous little stat-attacks is going to make us love you? Especially when we are paying for it.
I DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY.
I am not alone in this.
I DO NOT TRUST YOU OR YOUR MOTIVES.
Why? Well, the very fact that you feel it necessary to monitor what people are saying and writing for fear that they may be saying or typing something that is contrary to your agenda is one pretty good reason why.
It is all so. . . East German.
Really, it conjures up scenes from The Lives of Others (a superb film if you’ve not seen it). What’s next? Well, I can see a time when people are prosecuted for expressing a contrary opinion, because it would be against the ‘interests of the people’ or some such similar guff.
But this is just hors d’oeuvres. If they are going to throw all this effort behind the election of people to their irrelevant little rubber stamping chamber, imagine what they’ll do if Cameron gets re-elected and if (unlikely as I think it is) he lives up to his word and gives us the biggie. This is a training exercise for them.
It won’t work. Even with all the money the EU has to throw at the problem it will have little effect. The world has changed, and all the money in the world will just not allow a centralised rigid system of control to compete with an organic and chaotic system. The problem with the lad sticking his finger in the dike (stop sniggering at the back) is that it just moves the pressure on to the next weak spot, and pretty soon you run out of fingers.
There will be strategy meetings, reviews, lots of little diagrams and analytical charts, but it won’t matter, someone is going to have to co-ordinate. Social media, blogs and so forth need no co-ordination, no blueprint or over-arching strategy, this is one of the reasons why the Left have traditionally struggled with blogs; independent thought and action are discouraged. You see when I write this, I just sit and write. This is the world according to Wolfers, I have no source I have to refer to, no higher power I have to be on message with, nothing but me, my thoughts and my opinions.
The debate will suck in millions of people, many for, many against. But, EU, you are control freaks, you just won’t trust your drones to do it right. How many different lines will you be able to put out? Do you think the organic mass won’t notice? Won’t compare notes? Won’t mock?
There is no head on this gorgon to cut off. All it takes is a few posts, comments, Facebook statuses or tweets to go viral. You are only going to be reactive, the people will be proactive. As soon as you make yourself visible, you’ll be swamped. You’ll be laughed at. Nothing destroys credibility more than laughter, ask the bully who ends up humiliated in front of a large crowd how it hurts his rep.
This, along with the aforementioned fact that people will just not believe you or those who appear to support you independently means you will only serve to undermine your own arguments.
And when push comes to shove, comments which come on here that I consider to be coming from some EU machine (unlikely given my modest traffic) will simply be deleted.
That’s the other thing; I can delete you. You can’t delete me. I have the power, not you. Sucks doesn’t it?
Hopefully my little corner of the ‘net will do its bit to ensure your eventual and complete deletion.
It will only be a little bit though. For starters most people couldn’t give a pair of dingo’s kidneys about political blogging and tweeting – a fact most of us forget from time to time. Most people who do partake the intermong political thing are unlikely to be persuaded too far from their convictions.
If the EU thinks Twitter is responsible for Euroscepticism then they’re even more deluded than I thought. Not for one moment does it occur to them that it is their actions and attitudes that is turning people away from them in droves.
