This is who they are now.
Nobody picked up on my sarcastic blog post a while back about the fact the Green Party are more obsessed about their press and what is said about them online then most other parties. Good that they are progressive about the web, bad at the attitude and sneakiness about it. You cannot should not be a Green Party member or employee and defend them without disclosing who you are both to the blog owner but also to their readers. It’s deceptive, it’s dishonest and it’s worrying. First there was this blog post with a very aggressive comment from a person in Green Party HQ and then another is left on Keith’s blog followed by one from a “Dave” from the same IP address. No comments left on Shane’s blog.
I’m sure there’ll come a reply that other parties do the same but they do it less so. This is now the standard mantra of the party and their hired guns. “best result achievable”. Is astrturfing the “best result achievable” when it comes to interacting with people online? Is u-turning again and again? I don’t care what the other damned parties do. The Greens only jumped over half a cliff wheras in 1982 Labour jumped off 3/4 of a cliff. Whoop de doo.
Judging by the frequent visits here, I wonder could the answers to the below questions get answered on the Green Party Blog, which doesn’t appear to allow comments. Goose and gander.
Is it party policy to leave comments on blogs and NOT disclose your bias/employer?
Is it party policy to “engage” in a deceptive manner with those making comments about the party?
How do the Greens monitor the blogging community and why do they?
Is it part of the job of salaried employees of the Green Party to defend the party on blogs?
This is dedicated to the Green Party:
Ah, political shills. Charming.
Hmm – and the first comment here is DC – same person as Comment One on my post here –
http://bohanna.typepad.com/pureplay/2007/12/an-open-letter.html#comment-94215490
keith
As a matter of interest, what’s the IP address to watch out for?
It might be easier to get people to identify their affiliation if that requirement was part of the dialogue box when they try to leave a comment. But most blog templates don’t have a field to complete with a job title or professional affiliation. In more than 5000 comments left on my web properties, fewer than five people have cited their professional affiliation to a thread or post. I think there’s a lack of awareness and a lack of template support. Typepad or Movable Type lets you expose the IP address of those who comment. Perhaps Keith Bohanna should modify his Typepad template to show those details because doing that would answer @justin and his query about the IP address.
I have to admit that its fairly shocking to think in this day and age that total anonymity on the web can be expected.
Damien, did your experiences with that air freight company and Google privacy blog posts not prove a few things to readers here:
1. People, even who purport to work for the worlds largest online entity are stupid users of technology;
2. Address tracking can occur in a number of ways, Bernie mentioned two online packages that routinely log IP addresses. In addition a REVDNS – Reverse DNS loop-up will land the querist back at the point of origin of the post e.g., the employers IP address as assigned. So forensically/logically, it can be said to have come from there. Granted people can spook addresses, but its rare enough; and
3. A basic Whois record lookup will land you on the details of the IT system admin with control in order for you or someone else to sue them.
In my opinion a corporations AUP – Acceptable Usage Policy, should be quite clear in outlining abuses and statements which could operate to on-line libel (slander) or indeed lead an individuals views to be construed as that of their employer at a certain point in time or when a communication comes from their systems.
There are a couple of cases which would seem to protect employees in the EU context from corporate abuses of their personal privacy, save for notice of same recording etc. Klass v Germany, Copland v UK. I believe the Irish Employment Appeals Tribunal – EAT, case of Browne v Ventelo displays that lacking of clear Codes of Practice or Conduct can lead to negative the employers position in litigation or a dismissal appeal.
Moral: If you hold a personal view, use your own account and do it in your own time. Don’t defame as the web only provides a kimono type of shield. Once the kimono is opened we can see you all, hair, warts and all.
If the individuals in any of the cases I mentioned worked for me or my organisation, I’d sack them.
p.s. of course using an email address owned by a company or group doesn’t take much investigation work to get to the owner. 😉
@ Bernie “Perhaps Keith Bohanna should modify his Typepad template to show those details because doing that would answer @justin and his query about the IP address.”
Perhaps someone/or Bernie would tell me how the @*&$ to do this as completely un-obvious from the Typepad help section 🙁
@Justin – 213.94.207.114
keith
Ooooh better again:
That IP is a Govt IP:
netnum: 213.94.207.112 – 213.94.207.127
netname: DEPTENVIRONMENT
descr: Eircom Customer Assignment
country: IE
admin-c: PB2697-RIPE
tech-c: PB2697-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: TE-MNT
remarks: Please send spam and other abuse complaints to abuse@eircom.net
source: RIPE # Filtered