Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism • Hacker News Board

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#41

Post by briane80 » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 3:59 PM UTC

yosamino wrote: post #30

briane80 wrote: post #13

This story follows a pattern of coordinated attacks on public services in The Guardian and other left leaning media outlets. Usually with the agenda of demanding more money and funding. No doubt, mistakes happen in large bureaucracies but the story is usually slanted as some evil agency trying to destroy certain 'marginalised' sections of society. Whereas the truth is probably nothing like that. I cannot help but thi…

I think I can't quite follow your argument. Did you mean that the Guardian is trying to demand funding from someone, and they think they'll get this through this story somehow ? Would you mind explaining ? > No doubt, mistakes happen in large bureaucracies but the story is usually slanted as some evil agency trying to destroy certain 'marginalised' sections of society. Whereas the truth is probably nothing like that.…

Well if you read the article they did not attack the client. Compare that with the inflamatory language used in her article such as "Centelink terrorised me", "Terrorised by Centrelink, I began to behave as the bureaucracy saw me: angry, emotional, confused, dependent and idiotic"

Secondly the only additional information released seems to be the actual date of when she seperated from her ex and failed to lodge the change of circumstance which lead to the overpayment. She already stated her break up in the original article.

Also have a look at her other articles in her blog. Poems about "blowjobs" and "Pussy" mixed in with the usual radical feminist nonsense. I thinkwe know exactly where she's coming from.

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#42

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

mdpopescu wrote: post #12

josephg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Australian who lived a couple of years in the Bay Area. The views people hold toward privacy was one of the most surprising cultural differences between our countries. As an outsider I was shocked to learn that privacy really is an afterthought for a lot of bay area residents. US anecdote: a product I worked on had a feature which needs full access to a customer's email account to use. The feature scrapes thei…

I worked on a financial product based on one of Intuit's. I was shocked to realize that this Intuit product was impersonating people (using their username and password) to log on to their bank accounts and download all transactions - which our product was then analyzing. I was sure nobody would allow that; who will give a third-party their bank username and password? I was extremely surprised to find out that the ans…

> I was sure nobody would allow that; who will give a third-party their bank username and password?

Banks have been extremely reluctant to hop onboard with APIs. KeyBank wanted to charge me $20/month to turn on a Quickbooks export, for example.

Capital One has a neat ability to generate read-only credentials for use with stuff like Mint. Wish more banks would do that.

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#43

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:18 PM UTC

yosamino wrote: post #40

yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping in mind that this organization was a welfare office, what's the solution? Should the government stop keeping records of how much money welfare recipients have collected? Should they not keep logs of calls to customer support, tax payments and similar things? If a person is unable to manage their own life and requires the government to be their parent, it's unclear to me how the bureaucracy can simultaneously…

> If a person is unable to manage their own life and requires the government to be their parent That snide comment is really uncalled for. I hope you will never be in a situation where you require assistance, government or other. But to your larger point: Maybe government and other bureaucracy should strive to collect only that personal data that is strictly necessary for them to function and create a culture in thei…

This case is pretty clearly a conflict. The person in question already released a bunch of information about her situation, but it was released in a dishonest manner designed to make the people on whom she was dependent look bad.

Perhaps that conflict doesn't rise to the level that should be necessary to protect privacy, but I think that's at least worth discussing. Is it really productive to prevent government organizations from refuting lies told about them?

That snide comment is really uncalled for. I hope you will never be in a situation where you require assistance, government or other.

I notice that you don't characterize my comment as wrong, you merely criticize the tone.

You should read this great article which explains how tone policing is actually just a silencing tactic used by privileged people to avoid confronting the actual content of a message.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/tone-policing-and-privil...

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#44

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:20 PM UTC

ro_sharp wrote: post #38

yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping in mind that this organization was a welfare office, what's the solution? Should the government stop keeping records of how much money welfare recipients have collected? Should they not keep logs of calls to customer support, tax payments and similar things? If a person is unable to manage their own life and requires the government to be their parent, it's unclear to me how the bureaucracy can simultaneously…

What the article is suggesting is that perhaps the release of a person's private financial information by a government agency is not something the broader community would consider to be acceptable. From reading this comment and others it appears you have a personal political view regarding the extent of Australia's social safety net, which I would suggest is not particularly relevant to the debate. What is relevant,…

Yosamino's comment, which is what I was replying to, was about the collection of information.

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#45

Post by patrick-dd » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:23 PM UTC

briane80 wrote: post #41

yosamino wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I can't quite follow your argument. Did you mean that the Guardian is trying to demand funding from someone, and they think they'll get this through this story somehow ? Would you mind explaining ? > No doubt, mistakes happen in large bureaucracies but the story is usually slanted as some evil agency trying to destroy certain 'marginalised' sections of society. Whereas the truth is probably nothing like that.…

Well if you read the article they did not attack the client. Compare that with the inflamatory language used in her article such as "Centelink terrorised me", "Terrorised by Centrelink, I began to behave as the bureaucracy saw me: angry, emotional, confused, dependent and idiotic" Secondly the only additional information released seems to be the actual date of when she seperated from her ex and failed to lodge the ch…

> Also have a look at her other articles in her blog. Poems about "blowjobs" and "Pussy" mixed in with the usual radical feminist nonsense. I thinkwe know exactly where she's coming from.

No mate, can you please be explicit? It almost reads like you're saying it's OK for someone to have their financial records released by a Government welfare agency if they publish the word 'blowjob' on a blog.

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#46

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #43

yosamino wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a person is unable to manage their own life and requires the government to be their parent That snide comment is really uncalled for. I hope you will never be in a situation where you require assistance, government or other. But to your larger point: Maybe government and other bureaucracy should strive to collect only that personal data that is strictly necessary for them to function and create a culture in thei…

This case is pretty clearly a conflict. The person in question already released a bunch of information about her situation, but it was released in a dishonest manner designed to make the people on whom she was dependent look bad. Perhaps that conflict doesn't rise to the level that should be necessary to protect privacy, but I think that's at least worth discussing. Is it really productive to prevent government organ…

I honestly think that government organizations don't have any business policing what people say about them. They aren't people; their reputation is not terribly pertinent to getting their job done.

Oh, and criticizing tone alongside substantive comments isn't the same as 'a silencing tactic'. Its an effort to keep our forum civil. An actual silencing tactic might look like, calling names like 'privileged people' to shame someone, and redirecting the topic with an irrelevant web link to attempt to look like an authority on discussions like this.

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#47

Post by yosamino » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:26 PM UTC

briane80 wrote: post #41

yosamino wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I can't quite follow your argument. Did you mean that the Guardian is trying to demand funding from someone, and they think they'll get this through this story somehow ? Would you mind explaining ? > No doubt, mistakes happen in large bureaucracies but the story is usually slanted as some evil agency trying to destroy certain 'marginalised' sections of society. Whereas the truth is probably nothing like that.…

Well if you read the article they did not attack the client. Compare that with the inflamatory language used in her article such as "Centelink terrorised me", "Terrorised by Centrelink, I began to behave as the bureaucracy saw me: angry, emotional, confused, dependent and idiotic" Secondly the only additional information released seems to be the actual date of when she seperated from her ex and failed to lodge the ch…

Original claim:

> Ms Fox complained that her problem arose from the fact that she was chased by Centrelink for a debt actually owed by her former de facto partner.

Centrelink rebuttal:

> The agency says Ms Fox's debt [...] arose after she received more FTB than she was entitled to because she under-estimated her family income for that year.

Counter-rebuttal:

> As I outlined in my article, when your ex does not lodge his tax return for a year in which you received the Family Tax Benefit it seems your family income will be classified ‘under-estimated’.

This is easily one of many possible scenarios that is not covered by standard procedures, of which I am sure there exist many every year, but which large bureaucracy are regularly unequipped to deal with, to the point that this behavior is a common trope in popular culture[0].

It's funny when it happens in a movie, but if you're actually on the receiving end of this sort of behavior where no-one listens to your most reasonable requests, takes the time to figure out that some sort of mistake has occurred and generally treats you with disrespect in addition to threaten the financial stability of you and your children, I'd put it to you that it's very human to get extremely frustrated and express that frustration.

You provide an excellent example of this:

> Secondly the only additional information released seems to be the actual date of when she seperated from her ex and failed to lodge the change of circumstance which lead to the overpayment. She already stated her break up in the original article.

You're right in a way, the second article by her doesn't add any significant information and reads a little helpless, because if Centrelink had actually taken her initial complaint, when she went to their offices and the article she wrote, seriously, there would have been no further issue.

Instead they chose to personally attack her. Which is quite different from attacking an organization.

> I thinkwe know exactly where she's coming from.

I don't actually. Would you mind explaining ? Does this play into the Guardian receiving funds somehow ?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI5kwSap9Ug

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#48

Post by pavel_lishin » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:37 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #43

yosamino wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a person is unable to manage their own life and requires the government to be their parent That snide comment is really uncalled for. I hope you will never be in a situation where you require assistance, government or other. But to your larger point: Maybe government and other bureaucracy should strive to collect only that personal data that is strictly necessary for them to function and create a culture in thei…

This case is pretty clearly a conflict. The person in question already released a bunch of information about her situation, but it was released in a dishonest manner designed to make the people on whom she was dependent look bad. Perhaps that conflict doesn't rise to the level that should be necessary to protect privacy, but I think that's at least worth discussing. Is it really productive to prevent government organ…

> You should read this great article which explains how tone policing is actually just a silencing tactic used by privileged people to avoid confronting the actual content of a message.

Maybe yosamino was tone policing you, but how about this: I'm calling your statement out as being factually wrong. You accuse and malign someone without any evidence, beyond the fact that they were on welfare. Without proof, your assertion is at best an ad hominem attack.

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#49

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #46

yummyfajitas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This case is pretty clearly a conflict. The person in question already released a bunch of information about her situation, but it was released in a dishonest manner designed to make the people on whom she was dependent look bad. Perhaps that conflict doesn't rise to the level that should be necessary to protect privacy, but I think that's at least worth discussing. Is it really productive to prevent government organ…

I honestly think that government organizations don't have any business policing what people say about them. They aren't people; their reputation is not terribly pertinent to getting their job done. Oh, and criticizing tone alongside substantive comments isn't the same as 'a silencing tactic'. Its an effort to keep our forum civil. An actual silencing tactic might look like, calling names like 'privileged people' to s…

It's not about reputation management, it's about an unfortunate effect of democracy: the public is put in the position of making policy, and if the public is misled they might make the wrong policy.

On the opposite side of the world, note all the criticism of "FAKE news" and the desire by many people for large corporations collecting data on billions of people to police it. The reason is that a population which doesn't understand reality cannot effectively make decisions about it.

I called no one privileged and attempted to silence no one. I merely observed that tone policing is not actually an assertion that anything I said was false.

Can you tell me what's "uncivil" about my comment? Would a comment expressing sentiment with opposing mood affiliation also be uncivil?

Re: Australian welfare recipient’s data released to counter public criticism

#50

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Feb 27, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #48

yummyfajitas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This case is pretty clearly a conflict. The person in question already released a bunch of information about her situation, but it was released in a dishonest manner designed to make the people on whom she was dependent look bad. Perhaps that conflict doesn't rise to the level that should be necessary to protect privacy, but I think that's at least worth discussing. Is it really productive to prevent government organ…

> You should read this great article which explains how tone policing is actually just a silencing tactic used by privileged people to avoid confronting the actual content of a message. Maybe yosamino was tone policing you, but how about this: I'm calling your statement out as being factually wrong. You accuse and malign someone without any evidence, beyond the fact that they were on welfare. Without proof, your asse…

It is not an ad hominem attack. It would be an ad-hominem attack if I said or implied the person was wrong because she was unable to manage her life. I said she was wrong because the data released by Centrelink shows her to be wrong. This is not disputed by the article under discussion, or any parties here.

(Unless you dispute this? Perhaps you think Centrelink's data is forged?)

The comment Yosamino attempted to tone police merely asserted that she is unable to manage her life because she is dependent on centrelink, much like I was dependent on my parents for subsistence when I was a child. Is this in dispute? Do you believe she is actually not really in need of welfare, and is actually just taking taxpayer money for the heck of it?