We are all in Tom Watson’s debt for pursuing the corruption of the Murdoch press as vigorously as he has – and continues to. I have had some dealings with Tom arising from my involvement in the Government 2.0 Taskforce. In any event, in addition to continuing his pursuit of the Murdoch press he has just been caught up in a strange set of events. His intern, it seems took to his Twitter account when he was in a meeting and tweeted something which mentioned rape. If you mention rape this stirs up trouble. And what the hell was she doing on his Twitter account? Who knows, but it was a very stupid thing to do, which she very quickly admitted on Twitter.
This caused the predictable avalanche of nonsense in the media. Tom acted pretty kindly, didn’t sack the silly idiot who had tweeted on his account, and then published this account. It ends in these propositions.
8. The intern has not been sacked nor was she ever going to be. She’s young. We all make mistakes.
9. I know her well enough to know she’ll never do this sort of thing again.
10. And yes, I know I should have logged out. I really do. Thank you to the people who pointed that out.
11. For those that have asked – all my tweets, other than the two this morning, are my own.
12. Though my account wasn’t technically ‘hacked’, yes, I do understand the irony of what happened.
13. Once again, I am sorry.
Now the British are different to us. They’re more sticklers for form. So if Tom wants to apologise, then technically yes, the buck stops with him. He runs the office and ‘takes responsibility’ for what happens.
But beyond that? He’s in his own office and I don’t agree that he ‘really should’ have assumed that one of his staff would hijack his online ID, even for a joke, just as he shouldn’t assume that she would forge his signature, or (for that matter) video a visiting guest on the dunny. As for ‘irony’ – Tom’s role as a minister in the Blair Government was to promote these online tools and train others in them. Well OK, admit the irony, but strictly speaking there’s not much irony. Someone stuffed up.
I can’t help thinking that a right leaning politician wouldn’t be bowing and scraping. Enough of the apologies Tom. Leave them to Rupert Murdoch – even if he doesn’t mean them.
Isn’t the irony to do with his pursuing the Murdoch press for hacking people’s vm accounts?
Indeed it is. But he wasn’t ‘hacked’. And he showed no malevolence or recklessness towards others. Something that he was entitled to expect wouldn’t happen, happened. I guess if he has millions of credit card details on his PC he should have procedures to prevent others accessing it when he’s in a meeting. But assuming your staff won’t perform identity theft when you’re in a meeting seems reasonable enough to me.
Anyway, as I said there’s ‘irony’ in some sense, but nothing that should lead him to be in the least bit sheepish about what’s happened.
And just what is wrong with that language anyway? Lord knows I’ve been blog-raped often enough.
People are far too precious.
As far as I remember the UK voice mail accounts weren’t strictly “hacked” either. Makes it sound all too grand and as if they had magic skillz. Mostly they just bribed people to get access.
Weren’t they mostly just using the fact that most people don’t change passwords and use the default access to voice mail?
That is if you know my number and the carriers default remote access then you could do the same to my voice mail?? Not too bloody difficult.
Except that I usually remove any voice mail messages straight away.
I don’t know how many times I’ve left computers on and non password protected for days at various workplaces. Along with auto logins for stuff like library – hijack my library account? – online purchases – buy stuff and have it sent to my address and appear on my credit card with time and date accessed? – send nasty emails under my name ? NP I do that myself – my bank account – sure the account numbers and BSB are there but everything else is coded; access numbers and passwords/numbers.
However I’m not twitting to millions and trying to be high profile.
Nor am I currently a member of the UK Parliament or even the Oz Parliament. No I am not the Rev Slipper either.