We must lower the temperature

Less than two weeks ago, a federal MP was reflecting privately on the febrile political atmosphere and made a chilling prediction.

“Somebody’s going to get very badly hurt. Or worse.”

The remark was steeped in the dread of not knowing when, where, how or who. A week later, a newsflash landed like an anvil. Dr Helen Haines had been run down in the street. 

Helen Haines? 

In the practice of politics, she’s perhaps the nation’s best example of toughness with grace. A community-nominated independent from regional Victoria who’s held the seat of Indi through three elections. A passionate and forthright local representative but a non-provocateur, rammed by a four-wheel drive outside her Wangaratta office. Of all people. Helen Haines.

The other MP’s ominous comment had sounded more like informed fear than random premonition and so it has proven to be. The security agencies that track violent threats to politicians had detected an escalation and, quietly, those at risk were being warned to take extra care. The Daily Telegraph’s editor Ben English revealed this week that Australian Federal Police commissioner Krissy Barrett had requested a meeting recently with News Corp executives to tell them threats against parliamentarians were increasing, particularly against women, and that she feared an attack was coming. That meeting was two weeks ago.

The reason for confiding this to newspaper editors is the same reason ASIO’s chief Mike Burgess has warned repeatedly, for years, about the tone of public discourse. The language used in presenting information – inflammatory wording in headlines, provocative framing in news stories – can accelerate the upward trajectory of those threats. 

Likewise, the way things are phrased in broadcast interviews and in political debate generally, including in parliament itself. Recordings of remarks are clipped up and posted on social media, becoming part of the problem. Outrage begets outrage and what generates clicks for media companies can be repurposed by others. It’s hardly breaking news that forthright and provocative are racing around the world while moderate and considered are putting on their shoes.

Attention has been a commodity for as long as we’ve had politics. Digital technology monetised it and social media turbocharged it. The massive companies that own the platforms have turned their products into a kind of global pyramid scheme. They use the content uploaded by everyone along the attention food chain – malicious actors peddling misinformation and disinformation, influencers flogging products and ideas, politicians trying to win support, people sharing funny cat videos and views on music and movies and sport – to connect one idea to another, then another, keeping users engaged until users find themselves a long way from where they started out. 

These systems reward the surprising, the unusual, the shocking, the extreme. To keep being rewarded with eyeballs on, the offerings need to become more and more so. Algorithms ensure the variety of material presented to users gets narrower and louder, until friends’ holiday snaps and what mates did down the pub fade from view and eye-catching posts from strangers are all they see. Reasonableness boundaries are breached and the unacceptable becomes ordinary. Themes emerge that overtake everything else.

At its extreme, the effect of this is a distortion of the human experience, desensitisation to what used to be outrageous, increasing agitation, and then rage. This occurs gradually or rapidly, depending on the subject matter, situation and viewer. As it does, the constant intensification and sheer volume and speed of the incoming material can literally warp users’ minds. The platforms’ software systems are designed to prompt and profit from exactly those emotional responses. And we aren’t equipped to cope with it.

From there, it’s easy for someone who’s been soaked in certain kinds of content to look up from the screen with a misshapen sense of reality and an outsized reaction to legitimate concerns that seem to be being ignored. Why aren’t they doing something? Why does nobody listen to me? Every little extra frustration adds to the sense of offence and betrayal – every retail assistant who’s too slow, every service call unanswered or placed in a queue, every complaint or alert letter with no resolution, every extortionate price rise. It leads to the conclusion that people whose jobs are to fix all the problems and right the wrongs, or ideally prevent them, to ensure things run smoothly and make life better, aren’t taking any of this seriously enough.

It all compounds the sense of injustice and the need for someone to pay. If circumstances conspire, which is increasingly often, reasonable concerns can seem to require violent solutions, with awful, unspeakable outcomes. Radicalisation to terrorism follows a similar path.

It’s not clear why Helen Haines was the target of an allegedly deliberate attack or whether social media content played any role in this case. But the fact that it was Haines and not somebody with a more combustible political style is forcing the kind of soul-searching about the nature of public discourse that might occur less evenly if someone more pugnacious had been affected. Suggestions that mental ill-health may be involved should not be a reason to resume business as usual. It only raises more questions about where systems are failing. 

Also, though it’s awful to contemplate, one alleged attack does not preclude more. Institutional disillusionment, a global economic downturn and an acute domestic cost-of-living crisis all intersect with this still-advancing technology, creating an environment that’s turned what would – and should – be robust political discourse into a compound ready to explode.

That’s why Burgess pleads to lower the temperature. It’s not about dumbing down our politics or ending the culture of contest, it’s about depersonalising the political combat wherever possible and avoiding the kinds of inflammatory comments that reinforce prejudice, permit hate and boost narratives that suggest certain people, or kinds of people, are to blame. They’re the comments the algorithm loves.

It’s why all who engage in public communication need to review how they – we – are doing it. It’s not just about what’s said out loud. In a climate where trust is hanging by a thread, simply seeming tin-eared or disingenuous, appearing to prioritise self-interest or engaging in cheap political trickery, rips it further. 

Last month, the prime minister’s office circulated suggestions to media that Haines might have a conflict of interest in seeking local community grants. The so-called dirt sheet implied she was a hypocrite and was sent around because she’d asked Anthony Albanese embarrassing questions about a grant to hiselectorate. After Monday’s incident, Albanese urged people to “be like Helen”. Hypocrisy certainly doesn’t do much for public trust. Maybe all of its stewards might think more about what they say and what they do. Requests for moderation and respect don’t fly when you model something different.

The same goes for Pauline Hanson, who’s now demanding Albanese apologise to Haines while her party continues to produce cartoon videos that vilify all and sundry. Perhaps One Nation should reconsider distributing material that pretends to be satire but actually denigrates, mocks, slanders and humiliates political opponents, and fuels distrust in democracy instead of trying to repair it. Humour is a fantastic tool for political communication. It can also be a refuge for bullies and cowards, and do devastating damage. Make “funny” animated videos, by all means. But don’t produce nasty, highly targeted content that trades in distortion and falsehood to feed the worst of what we are, then claim people just can’t take a joke. Or that you actually hadn’t watched it before it was distributed, as if that’s some kind of defence.

What’s the old saying? It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Or two legs. And, one day, maybe a life. 

If that seems crass and offensive, you’re right. It’s no joke. It never was.

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