My Tour of Duty as a Pretend Warship

This blog is usually for the purposes of logging various silly tasks that I set myself. Here's an off-topic post about a small (but equally silly saga) on Twitter.

A couple of weeks ago I set up a parody Twitter account, @hms_dauntless, intended to gently mock the current political and media storm over the sovereignty of the Falklands Islands. Within a short period it acquired 410 followers, including quite a few people from the Falklands, not to mention three members of the Military Wives Choir, randomly enough. Then it promptly got suspended by Twitter for "impersonation".

I'm a bit surprised that it got suspended. After all, the account profile clearly labelled it as fictional. Also, I suspect the actual Royal Navy ship HMS Dauntless doesn't actually release tweets like "Anyone else aroused by me? I've got a great big gun and honking great cannonballs" or refer to the Humboldt Squid as "mini-Cthulhus".

I've filled in a suspension appeal form to Twitter, in the hope that they'll let HMS Dauntless out of the brig. In the meantime, here's a few thoughts from me about what I've learned over the past couple of weeks.

The initial inspiration for launching @hms_dauntless was the Twitterstorm after the website of the Penguin News (the Falklands newspaper) turned out to have an image of Argentina's President Kirchner labelled "bitch".

Well, I sniggered. I've labelled files some funny things in my time. But various people in Argentina weren't amused and started sending the paper's editor, Lisa Watson, abusive tweets.

Lisa Watson seems to be made of fairly sturdy stuff. During the 1982 occupation by Argentina, and when she was a 12 year old child, she famously refused to get off a sofa when ordered to do so by Major Patricio Dowling, the notorious security chief on the islands. She certainly doesn't seem the type to be intimidated by a few obnoxious tweets. Indeed, she's replied to and engaged with people on Twitter to give her reasons why she wants to remain British, and doesn't want her home to be handed over to a foreign power. She's been pretty effective at putting across her point of view. I've noticed that some people started tweeting at her in an abusive way, and then went on to have a civilised conversation with her.

I decided to have a laugh and launch the good ship @hms_dauntless into this Twitterstorm. A gentle parody of the actual ship that's about to be deployed to the Falklands, @hms_dauntless was sent to patrol the Twittersphere, with its inaccurate missiles that wreak death and destruction to any passing sea life. As I was setting up the account, "Argentina loves One Direction" was trending on Twitter. Hence the profile described the ship as "Not as popular in Argentina as One Direction".

It was probably a good time to start a silly parody about the Falklands, since over the past two weeks the debate has got sillier and sillier. First Sean Penn - a genuinely talented but undeniably narcissistic star - decided to wade into the argument (he's since published a more nuanced, but also rather garbled, view on the subject). Then Ben Fogle waded in by threatening to feed Sean Penn to a crocodile. @hms_dauntless tweeted, "Renewed tensions between Sean Penn and Ben Fogle, Crocodiles report, "our voice is not being heard. We should determine our own dinner". Followed later by, "Breaking news. Will I Am refuses to take sides on crocodile dispute: encourages Sean Penn and Ben Fogle to negotiate".

On Twitter, things got sillier again with the sudden emergence of @freethefalkland, a hilarious, obviously-fake account, supposedly by a Falkland Islander. It proclaims to speak, "The true about the Falkland Island People and their search for the independence from the Britain." Actually, I shouldn't be so cynical about assuming he's a fake. After all, he insists, "I not Argentinian but if I was the Argentinian I would not be ashame. I am citizen of world friend. Take the chilling pill." Either way, he's been a wonderful comic foil for @hms_dauntless, albeit unwittingly. I hope he doesn't get banned.

Behind the silliness though, there is a real issue. The Falklands are a place I've never visited and most likely never will (though I'd love to - from their tourist website it looks like an amazing place), but the brief voyage of @hms_dauntless has put me in touch with tweeters on the Islands. As well as Lisa Watson I can recommend @joinfalklands, @siannybonny and @boundungagged. Behind all the rhetoric over territory and sovereignty, these are real people who clearly just want to get on with their way of life without being hounded by a foreign power. We should support that.

If Twitter is anything to go by, most of their support from back in Britain seems to be coming from the political right. This disappoints me, because I'm from the left and I think there are strong left-wing reasons to support the self-determination of a people from the unwanted encroachment of another nation. Sadly, too many of my compatriots on the left don't see that. Maybe it's because of Britain's history of being the unwanted encroacher on too many occasions. Or maybe they've swallowed the Argentine rhetoric about British "colonialism" (So? Argentina is also founded on colonialism. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is not a Native Patagonian name.) Either way, George Galloway's appearance on 10 O'Clock Live was toe-curlingly embarrassing - not that Galloway is any kind of good ambassador for the left in general anyway. (Don't mock, righties. You've got Robert Kilroy-Silk).

I hope that @hms_dauntless successfully appeals her court martial and sails the Twitter oceans once more. In the meantime, I plan to take the chilling pill.

I polished off a couple of tasks for this blog while in Edinburgh this week. The zoo had lots of penguins. It made me think of my Islander chums on Twitter.