Wednesday, May 11, 2011

I saw it online. It must be true!

Darryl Mason can't believe that the:
Australian Citizenship Test website uses a photo from the very unAustralian Cronulla Riots of 2005 to illustrate a story about the importance of Australian values.


Except it doesn't.

The photo actually appears on a privately owned website - http://www.australiantest.com which seems to be nothing more than an attempt to make money off would-be immigrants to this country by selling them a 'training kit'.

There should have been a few subtle hints that this wasn't an 'official' website.
1) The presence of a photo featuring a man's t-shirt stating "No Lebs". I mean, sure, the PM's office has done some stupid things online lately, but this?

2) The URL - Australiantest.com and the Wordpress website which follows, don't exactly scream "Australian Government". Certainly not like, say, www.citizenship.gov.au/learn/cit_test/ located with a 2 second Google search for "Australia immigration test".

How could any sensible person reach the conclusion that Mason did?

Mason previously wrote:
Fact-checking, like spell-checking, has never been a priority for Bolt in his rush to get out his latest conspiracy soaked rantings
Right...

This goes beyond gullibility. Are the Left really that stupid?

Update: Yes. Yes they are. Darryl sends the following message:
Nowhere in that blog post did I say it was an 'official' or Gillard gov. website. I don't expect an apology, just a correction.
How about neither?

You don't need to specify "The Official, genuine 100 percent Julia Gillard approved Citizenship test website". The inference was quite clear.

In an update to his own post, Darryl claims:
Where above do I claim that photo was posted on an 'official' site? Nowhere. I called it the Australian Citizenship Test website, which is what it calls itself
So if I set up a website, maybe on Blogger, and called it the Australian Immigration Department, I guess you'd have to refer to it as that. You know, because that's what it calls itself.

Sorry. It was a worthless website and a non-story. The only way you could possibly think otherwise, is if you were... What's that word?

Labels:

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Did you see the list on mason's website of "things you should be reading" .. what a depressing list!

7:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous Righty said...

Dan,

Totally off topic, but...

I notice today that Crikey has declared itself not to blame for an offensive comment on its website referring to the death of Frank Devine:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/05/11/new-media-v-old-media-a-question-of-moderation/

Funny they should now be so forgiving about offensive comments on the web.

For a couple of years at least Crikey (mostly through its Pure Piffle blog) has been on a crusade about comments on Andrew Bolt's blog, e.g.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/02/25/everything-in-moderation-even-for-andrew-bolt/

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/10/16/andrew-bolts-dilemma-the-rhetoric/

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/02/24/compare-and-contrast/

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/03/22/what-does-alp-stand-for/

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/03/01/moderation-par-excellence/

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/02/20/poison-comment-of-the-month-february/

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2009/03/23/more-deafening-silence/

7:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's pretty clear that he neither said nor implied that it is an official government site. He was simply making the observation that it used a racist pic.

Is this the best you can come up with Lewis? Better hope Beck doesn't fall off his bike 'cause there isn't much waiting in the wings.

7:20 PM  
Blogger Boy on a bike said...

"twat". Is that the word you're looking for?

7:48 PM  
Anonymous Dan Lewis said...

Is that you Darryl?

Let's see. In my first week doing this, I've had links from two of the biggest blogs in the country and you're reading it too. Not too shabby I'd say.

11:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why do we care what a bloke who's avitar is a drunk in an alley thinks?

7:25 AM  
Anonymous Lattecat said...

Nice work Dan, enjoying your work.

7:36 AM  
Anonymous Dan Lewis said...

Why do we care what a bloke who's avitar is a drunk in an alley thinks?

Who are you talking about?

10:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's Darryls'a twitter avatar, of course.

BoaB I think lamer is another good word for him.

11:14 AM  

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