2. #BRUMBYLIVESMATTER, Pete Evans & KFC.

Newsletter 2: Electric Booga — wait, nvm.

Hello again,

We made it to the second edition. I’m writing a letter each week(-ish) with some original Australian online culture reporting. I’ll try to show my working as much as possible so you can pick up a tip or two that I’ve learned from being terminally online.

More than 500 of you have subscribed. I’m chuffed, thank you very much.

If you haven’t already subscribed, please do. If you have, may I recommend forwarding it to a friend who may enjoy it? 

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#BRUMBYLIVESMATTER

Last week, there was a protest in Australia that made headlines: A passionate group of citizens came together in Victoria to demonstrate against “senseless killings”.

I’m not talking about the Black Lives Matters protests. I’m talking about something much, much less important: the fight to stop brumby culling in Victoria. It’s been (insensitively, in my opinion) dubbed #BRUMBYLIVESMATTER by its army.

WARNING: IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT WHY HORSES ARE PESTS THAT SHOULD BE CULLED, STOP READING

For those of you who aren’t too familiar with brumbies, here’s the low-down: a brumby is what we call a feral horse in Australia. They were introduced when Europeans invaded Australia and quickly established themselves as a pest because they destroy native habitats with their big dumb hooves, compete for food with native animals, and ruin waterholes. 

(A better writer than me might draw attention to brumbies as a metaphor for colonialism, but alas, that’s not quite within my reach.)

If you want real evidence, the Conversation has some great pieces on brumbies.

So, despite being non-native and damaging to the environment, brumbies have become part of Australia’s mythology: from their romanticised portrayal in one of Australia’s most famous poems The Man From Snowy River to their appearance in the design of the $10 note. And, to give credit where credit is due, they are horseys and horseys are pretty. 

Anyway, what has this got to do with Australia’s internet? Well, a bit.

The group organising the protest is behind an on-going legal battle with the state government agency, Parks Victoria, to try halt their plans to cull brumbies.

This campaign has been covered by large parts of the media — with a man called Phil Maguire usually depicted as the face of the movement. 

Maguire is right out of central casting for a brumby activist: he posts pictures of himself on Facebook riding horses. He wears the hat and the coat. His family runs a company that takes tourists on horse rides through a nearby national park.

But what’s been covered less is the enormous group of anti-cull people on social media who aggressively campaign for their beloved brumbies. Facebook groups with thousands of members like Equine Voice Australia, Brumby Matter Incorporated and Rural Resistance have been able to amplify their pro-brumby messages to get picked up by the media. And, people who want a cull or even those just posting about brumbies say they’re sick of copping abuse from these groups.

Rural Resistance is the biggest of the pro-brumby groups, and it’s the group started up by Maguire. Launched in January 2020, the group didn’t start out as a single issue group. In a February post made to his personal profile, Magure said the group was created as a place to find fellow thinkers to launch a new state political party for “rural autonomy”. 

The group starts out quite small. It’s a standard rural, right wing leaning Facebook group with engaged members posting about their hatred of green tape and inner-city politicians. The state premier, Daniel Andrews, is the group’s most frequent nemesis — particularly in Maguire’s posts. The group frequently shares misinformation or baseless rumours, like fears about buses of city dwellers ransacking regional supermarkets or bullshit about Australia’s bushfire charities. It was really nothing special.

But when the group really comes into its own is when the Australian Brumby Alliance’s bid to have the brumbies considered part of the heritage of the Australian alps is rejected by the Federal Court in early May. 

This blows up in Rural Resistance. Although he’s been anti-culls for more than a decade, suddenly all Maguire posts about is brumbies and he posts about it often. People flock to join the group and the cause. And not long after, the group balloons to having more than 20,000 engaged members who are hanging off Maguire’s every word.

Maguire’s posts grow grander and grander as the month goes on. He announces they’re going to launch a legal challenge. The group raises more than $90,000 on GoFundMe, and Maguire’s wife, Louise, claims they’ve raised $180,000 for the legal challenge by early June. A petition gets more than 130,000 signatures. A myriad of articles are written about Maguire and his fight. They win a small concession from the Victorian Government to hold off their plans to cull for a week, but then lose in the Victorian Supreme Court the next week. Celebrities like Lee Kernaghan and Olivia Newton-John throw their support behind the cause. The Victorian Legislative Council passes a motion to stop the cull. Maguire claims that he’s going to muster the brumbies himself and house them on his own property and calls for people to take direct action to stop the culling. He even said an unnamed politician rang him up to threaten him. 

Maguire recounts this all in his posts to the group, who enthusiastically cheer him on along the way. But there are some other things that Maguire doesn’t mention as much. Maguire is not just a cattleman, he’s also a former Herald-Sun journalist. Maguire also has a financial stake and a grudge against Andrews: as reported by the ABC, Maguire can “can make money out of grazing cattle in the national park”.

Another thing that he’s largely kept from the group is his history of homophobic and transphobic comments. For years, he’s written some contemptible stuff on his blogs (1,2) and his profile on the far right website Gab. I don’t know what he posted on his Twitter account because it’s been suspended for violating Twitter’s rules.

I contacted Phil by Facebook Messenger and commented on his photos asking for him to message me. He never responded.

Now, I’m not milkshake ducking him for no reason. Why this matters is because Maguire brings it up when he is targeting someone he deems an enemy of the cause. 

Maguire has posted multiple times about Ricky French, a freelance journalist who has written for the Australian about the brumby cull saga. On 25 May, Maguire claims French is “set to lie” about Maguire, and that the group has to “identify [enemies] before they get to slander us.” 

Then in a now-deleted May 28 post, Maguire says he is stepping down because French spoke to him about comments he made, like declaring in 2019 that homosexuals shouldn’t be in public life.

“He called me today and among his first words was the claim that I am a radical right wing activist,” Maguire wrote. “Apparently one acquires that tag by being critical of homosexuals, by calling them poofters and supporting brumbies.” He also repeatedly calls French “delicate”. The post has more than 2,300 likes and 1,800 comments from followers in his group.

Maguire didn’t actually step down. He’s still the de facto leader of the group. French, on the other hand, has barely mentioned Maguire in his articles.

But he has copped a heap of abuse for it. The day after Maguire’s post, French posted about the messages he’d received.

Ricky French @frenchricky

The sort of fan mail you get from horsey types when you report on the feral horses/brumbies issue and the people leading their campaigns.

I spoke to French. He said that his opinion of the community — a group that you might assume would be peaceful nature lovers — is that they’re dogmatic, immune to reason, and tribal.

“[The abuse was for] simply asking reasonable questions. Most of the dozens of messages I got weren't especially abusive, but more incredulous in tone - hurt that someone might be questioning their heart-felt beliefs, or questioning their leader,” he wrote to me. 

This isn’t an isolated example. It’s well known that you don’t want to fall afoul of the pro-brumby groups online. A social media producer for one of Australia’s biggest news publishers told me they’ve been targeted by the pro-brumby groups. “It’s like the Schapelle Corby campaign from years ago,” they said.

It’s not just the media either. Nick Clemann, who works at the state-funded Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, has been in the crosshairs of these groups before while sharing scientific evidence he says shows the damage brumbies cause. He showed me messages and comments directed at him from pro-brumby people.

Clemann told me that he’s wary because he’s seen how other anti-environmentalist groups have threatened his fellow state government employees in the past.

“Colleagues in NSW have had to move their kids to new schools after threats of violence to their kids. I have colleagues who have had guns pointed at them while doing their job (trying to prevent illegal clearing of native vegetation),” he wrote.

Now, to be clear: the abuse I’ve seen from pro-brumby groups is limited to online messages. But, the impact of these groups shouldn’t be underestimated. I was told these groups haven’t haven’t mobilised any “real world” action — the protest was tiny compared to the Black Lives Matter march or the anti-vaxxfest a few weeks ago.

The distinction between the real and online worlds is a false one. If they can raise money, gain media attention, launch legal action, abuse people and convince famous people and politicians to get on board with their cause— well, isn’t that real world impact? 

Regardless: since these groups were introduced to the debate about brumbies, they’re competed with other voices for attention and ruined any chances at a nuanced, evidence-based discussion. 

Now, that’s a metaphor for brumbies.

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CONSPIRACY CORNER

You might have already seen that I live-tweeted the 60 Minutes segment with conspiracy theorists Pete Evans and Fanos from the 99% Unite Facebook group. 

I wasn’t a huge fan for the reason that I’m not a fan of a lot of conspiracy coverage: they introduce their audiences to dangerous ideas. I think it can acceptable when programmes do a good job of debunking — but most don’t.

Anyway, as proof of this, here’s how many articles Pete Evans has appeared since the start of the year, per Muck Rack trends:

And here’s how many people are searching for him, per Google Trends:

Note the spikes since April when he started leaning into conspiracy content.

In short: he’s getting attention from sharing conspiracies. Outlets are writing about him to get clicks. He’s growing his audience. Everyone wins — except, of course, the audience who are exposed to his views.

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• I enjoyed this from @RHT_ebooks: “the layers involved in this artfully capture the rabbit hole aspect as well. A tweet of a photo of a piece of paper on the ground printed with a screenshot of facebook sharing antisemitism”

• While the encrypted messaging app Signal was trending in the US because of the protest, guess what was trending here? KFC.

• This story about the gross forum that shared pictures of Australian journalists was good.

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Hey! If you liked this, you may want to share it with others on social media. I’d be grateful.

Bye for now!

@cameronwilson

P.S. I am ALWAYS looking for tips for weird / interesting / important internet stuff. Please email or DM me if you see anything I might be interested in.

P.P.S still looking for a job.