The Prime Minister has dismissed as "electronic graffiti" a medium that his own government and corporate Australia spend millions of dollars a year monitoring and engaging in.
Responding to the negative comments on social media sites about his decision to award the Queen's husband, Prince Philip, an Australian knighthood, Tony Abbott equated tweets and updates to Texta scrawls on a bathroom wall.
"I'll leave social media to its own devices. Social media is kind of like electronic graffiti and I think that in the media, you make a big mistake to pay too much attention to social media," Mr Abbott said on Australia Day. "You wouldn't report what's sprayed up on the walls of buildings."
Naturally, #electronicgraffiti was a popular hashtag on Twitter by early afternoon.
"I think you just call it graffiti when you don't like what it is saying," honorary associate in digital cultures at University of Sydney, Mark Pesce, said on Monday.
"It is the way communities talk to themselves now, just like talkback radio was 20 years ago."
In fact social media has become an important way for politicians and governments to engage with the electorate. As Fairfax Media recently reported, the federal government spends millions of dollars every year monitoring media, including online social media sites. Government departments regularly issue tenders for social media training or monitoring.
And government scientific body CSIRO has developed a social media monitoring tool for the government called Vizie. The program scrolls through platforms to find content relevant for the Department of Human Services to identify hot topics.
Mr Abbott used Twitter to conduct question and answer sessions ahead of the 2013 election using the #asktony hashtag. He also regularly posts friendly messages, special greetings and photos of himself with global leaders from his @TonyAbbottMHR account.
The Prime Minister used the phrase "electronic graffiti" in an interview last year with Michelle Grattan of The Conversation. Asked why he thought the political process had sped up since the Howard era, Mr Abbott said social media and talkback radio had intensified politics.
"The thing about social media is that it is anonymous, so it can be much more vitriolic and extreme than normal media and yet it is there for everyone to see. It is kind of like electronic graffiti. The political process is accelerated and intense in a way that I don't believe it ever really has been before," Mr Abbott said in March 2014.
Federal Labor member for McEwen, Rob Mitchell, declared "So now we are all vandals", on his Twitter feed on Monday.
"Social media is like electronic graffiti' says Abbott. Like a pinata Abbott is the gift that keeps giving."
