Gotta love this. So you’re a Fianna Fáil councillor. You’re on Facebook, like we all are.
You install a Facebook application your mates sent which asks you what drug are you and it says you’re cocaine. Jesus, imagine if anyone saw your public profile and you left that there, they’d blog it or something. Fucking bloggers. And now we throw in the default joke about Fianna Fáil always loving their Charlie. You know, this may not be best time to do that quiz.
Above is what it looks like and below is the text.
I’m “Cocaine”!
You’re a smooth talker and a straight shooter and other cliches used by business men in the 1980s. You like the nightlife, and the morning life, and even the early afternoon life. You are upset your friends can’t party as long as you can. That’s okay – you can just buy new friends.
Saying that though, Malcolm’s mates say he is the most trustworthy of all of them. Oh and he drinks the most:
I suppose it’s better than smoking shit.
And like most councilors he probably talks more shit than he smokes.
I love that the last two Facebook gifts he received were 8-balls.
Classic.
Malcolm ‘8-ball’ Byrne.
You have to wonder who has all the time to spend trying to look up people’s facebook entries! Did you fill in any of the other bizarre or fun applications on facebook?
I think I’d be more interested to know what his political views are rather than what type of cheese he is!
He should have installed Nothing instead.
Profile has gone private now. There’s a shock.
Cheers for the screen grabs.
Apparently I’m ecstasy.
Eh… fab.
@Sinéad . Write about it rather than link your shitty blog’s frontpage.
@Rahood I was being sarcastic. Why so harsh?
I think his bigger problem was likely to be that his political views were Liberal, Fianna Fail are wary enough of the PDs (who are supposed to be Ireland’s Liberal party) as it is.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2007/1129/1196263124301.html
(subs required)
No mention of Damien in the piece – maybe John sourced it from somewhere else?
For god sake will ye just leave Malcolm alone. What he does in his personal time is his own business… it is facebook for god sake. Some of the comments above are so childesh and pathetic. I am ashamed to be looking on this site. If u know Malcolm u will know that he is one of the nicest people u could have the pleasure of meeting. For those of you who dont know him which I hope is all u no hopers above…. shame on ye and I hope no one writes anything as crued about people ye know!
Then why did you Google his name Sarah? Why would you be Googling his name if you think he should be left alone? Or is it ok for you because you know him?
If you are stupid enough to install an application that romanticises illegal drugs and do it on a PUBLIC website (Yes, 50 million people being able to read your full profile is public) then tough shit if it then gets discussed by people. It may come as a shock to you Sarah but being a moron in public does not carry some right to censor the opinions of others. Nothing cruel was actually written about him in the comments, get your facts straight.
Funny that a lot of people with the same surname are defending Malcolm.
When are people going to realise that the Internet is a PUBLIC domain? “it is facebook for god sake” is not a valid argument, it would be completely different if he had been sharing his profile with close friends etc., not, as Damien put it, 50 million people.
What we’re talking about Sarah is an error in judgement. Whether they like it or not, what politicians do in a publicly accessible social networking profile is up to scrutiny. With the present controversy, how anyone could define this as anything but a mistake is beyond me.
So, this guy runs an application for a bit of fun on Facebook, and this is hot news? We ‘have a right to know’?
And what now, whats the implications of this?
My god this Malcolm guy is not just an eejit but a total and utter eejit. He’s the same Malcolm Byrne that was using Gaydar a few years ago and got caught by one of those tabloids.
You’d think that when you already got lots of exposure from advertising yourself on a site mainly used to hook up with men for sex, that you’d have some kind of COP ON to not then use another public website and install a quiz that supported illegal drug use during a week where your own party is in the press almost eevry day for allegedly having a Minister that does cocaine.
I’m loving how people are saying this is not newsworthy yet they obviously Googled for details about this, like I did. This guy Byrne seems to monumentally mess up in public now and then and then whine about privacy invasions. Stop being a fool online then and maybe get out of politics?
It supports drug abuse?
And whats wrong with Gaydar?
Have to say – I don’t really think it’s newsworthy. I’m no fan of FF, but I applaud any politician who embraces the net, be that through blogging, bebo, facebook or any other medium. And I think it’s a shame that running this story has scared him into making his profile private.
I was going to remove this blog post but with the level of astroturfing going on here and by email, not a fucking chance.
Its making you look like an eejit though.
But I suppose there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Good call Conor. Last name Lenihan by any chance?
Ah Damien,
Seriously… I know both of you and I can say that Malcolm Byrne is a good egg. That he is young enough to have a sense of humour about life and youth culture shouldn’t be condemned.
You know i’m not a FF fan, but Malcolm is what i’d call the acceptable face. He’s intelligent, committed and I saw the non-partisan energy he put into his UCD/USI days, particularly with the LGB and education agendas.
As someone who once got hockeyed for a lack of foresight in how the internet culture can be misrepresented I’ve a lot of sympathy for him. It’s not like he is condoning drug use.
No, what gave you that idea? Is my spelling and punctuation incorrect?
Anyhow, Im an FG supporter (‘course you are sez you) but this sort of shit really irritates me.
Councillor does Facebook application!
And some other politican implicated in cocaine taking!
Fake outrage!
I mean, some fool had a pop at him for using gaydar, above.
Yawn.
It was just a stupid thing to do, and it boils down to this:
Public representative makes light of serious issue (drug taking).
That’s it; no outrage, just a bit of tut-tutting and the hope that the people we elect in order to represent us would hold themselves to some modestly higher standard, a slightly more sober aspiration, than has been shown here.
I see the gays are out in force to back their chum up over this one. Holier than thou crap as usual. If it was Ned O’Keeffe they’d all be attacking. Oh I’m probably not allowed point out that double standard because it obviously means I’m homophobic.
Conor (Lenihan or not), what kind of person, never mind a politician goes out of their way to install something about illegal drugs on their profile on a public website? Oh yes, we already answered that. Malcolm.
And my point about the gay sex website that Malcolm used is that he already had experience of having his use of it publicised by a paper. I don’t care that he used it. Did it not sting enough in the back of his head so that logic and cop on once again were removed as he installed a quiz on illegal drugs, on another profile of his on a public website? Seriously seriously seriously now, most people of average intelligent would have learned what the press are like but not this guy. You called me a fool for saying he used Gaydar, but I think your friend is the fool, something he’s good at.
And if you want to go down the “so what” route about the facebook quiz being nothing of consequence then why did this guy mark his profile as private and remove the application? He obviously either finds it serious or realises that other people will, enough people to doharm his public image and not get the votes. Why does he not just say “so what”? He obviously doesn’t hold the same views as you.
By the way Mulley, I see you seem to be hated on Politics.ie for doing this.