Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Picturegate

The Irish internet and blogging community reacted with anger today at the idea that the government would take such offense at the display of caricatures of a naked Brian Cowen that they make the state broadcaster apologize for broadcasting a story about the paintings and then send a Garda detective around to another radio station Today FM to demand they hand over emails from the artist.

Today FM, in fairness to them, stood up to the Garda and asked him to return with a warrant. RTE on the other hand caved and apologized as well as taking the story down from its web site and archives. Unfortunately for the government once something goes on the internet it's hard to stop people from keeping a copy of it.

If the government had shut up and ignored the issue then it would have just gone away. Now it's all over twitter and on blogs all over Ireland. There are even t-shirts and copies of the pictures being put up on lamp posts.




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