In today’s edition of “well that’s a bit fucked, isn’t it?” a pro-fracking website by the name of Beetaloo Economic Alliance used a photo of a First Nations elder and staunch anti-fracking campaigner without his consent.
Yes, you did indeed read that correctly. Much to unpack.
The Beetaloo Economic Alliance website — which is marked as having crap security, BTW — uses an image of Mudburra elder Ray Dimakarri Dixon to advocate fracking in the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory.
“I was shocked. It’s horrible, terrible stuff,” Dixon said in a press release.
“It makes me feel that people might be looking at it and thinking that I support fracking.
“But I’ve been standing up for my Country, and water, and the environment.”
Dixon’s photo appears near the bottom of the website with the copy: “No impact on air quality. A three year study by the CSIRO published earlier this year found fracking had no impact on air quality.”
He said he was appalled to see his photo promoting fracking.
“I never spoke to them [the Beetaloo Economic Alliance] or had contact with them,” he said.
“You can’t just go and put a website up with a person’s image without talking to them.
“They’ve got no respect for Traditional Owners of this land.”
Except for the fact it’s monumentally cooked to use a photo of a Northern Territory Elder who has been a long-time fracking critic, the website itself is weird as shit.
It features photos of blokes in hard hats with ‘yuge headings such as: “Your opportunity is under attack! The only question is, are you going to allow it?” and “New jobs for many Australians”.
There are zilch ways to contact the Beetaloo Economic Alliance and the links to its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram profiles don’t work. In fact, the only functional links are to a yarn by The Australian which supports the Beetaloo Basin project; an email template which can be sent to “Labour” MP Marion Scrymgour to give “Beetaloo the chance it deserves to prosper”; and a video from the ABC about how gas from the project could “solve Australia’s energy crisis”.
It all feels v. fucking suss to me.
Hannah Ekin, a spokesperson for the Central Australian Frack Free Alliance (CAFFA), said the site felt like astroturfing, which is essentially a fufu campaign to create widespread grassroots support for a person, policy or product.
In a press release, they said folks in the Northern Territory are sick of the deceptive tricks fracking companies are pulling.
“Surveys have shown the vast majority of Territorians don’t want fracking,” Ekin said.
“But the fracking industry doesn’t want to take no for an answer, so we see these dodgy websites created by unknown players like the Beetaloo Economic Alliance and Back Beetaloo popping up.”
Back Beetaloo was another pro-fracking website which, in October 2021, was revealed to be an astroturfing operation. The site was registered by a former Sydney Liberal staffer who decided to dip their toes into digital marketing.
“Back Beetaloo’s astroturfing was unethical but the Beetaloo Economic Alliance’s use of a Traditional Owner’s image — one who is committed to the fight against fracking at that — without his permission is totally unacceptable,” Ekin said.
Per the Guardian, IT expert Jack Fuge said the Beetaloo Economic Alliance website was registered to an entity in Pyrmont, but the business name wasn’t registered with ASIC.
Here’s hoping they can find out who’s behind this fkn foul excuse of a website.
