Culture

Twitter Is Calling Bullshit On Australia’s New ‘Terror Level’

Keep calm and vote Liberal.

by Alex McKinnon  12 September 2014

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This afternoon Tony Abbott called a press conference to announce that Australia is raising its “terror threat level”, which is a thing that apparently still exists, to its highest-ever rating; the National Terrorism Public Alert System, introduced back in 2003, has sat at ‘medium’ until right now, when it was raised to ‘high’.

The new rating will mean more visible security in airports, government buildings and large public events, but it’s unclear why the threat level has been raised now, or at all; according to the Australian National Security website, the new rating indicates that a “terrorist attack is likely,” which would be quite scary if the Prime Minister hadn’t announced that the news “does not mean that a terror attack is imminent” in literally the same press conference.

The naysayers out there might be sceptical at the announcement, even going so far as to deem it a cynical attempt to distract people from the government’s deeply unpopular policies and seemingly total inability to do anything right at all by raising the ever-present boogeyman of Islamic extremism. Some particularly nasty characters might even point out that a senior government minister started giving evidence in front of ICAC at the exact same time the terror press conference went to air, and that a national security threat would serve as a very useful diversion for a political party which has lost ten members over corruption allegations so far. Thankfully, such haters are mercifully rare. Except on Twitter, where they are absolutely everywhere.

One of Twitter’s best functions is how it can call out bullshit as bullshit almost before it leaves someone’s mouth. That, and making jokes about weed. because the terror threat level is ‘high’. Geddit? Ahhh. You get it.

Bless you, Twitter. Never change.

– Feature image via @platinumdepot who let us use it because what a legend, seriously.