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In less than a week's time, Conroy has found himself in deeper and hotter water than ever before in his ministerial career. Australia's Twitterers, better connected than the Government which governs them, have out-organized, out-thought, and out-manoeuvered the government. Senator Conroy has taken a disorganized community of well-connected peers and given them an organizing principle, a raison d'etre. This may not have been Conroy's intention (I rather think it wasn't) but the senator must face the consequences of his actions. This mob won't quiet down until the Government drops the filtering proposal.

Worse yet, from the Government's point of view, when this mob succeeds in changing the policy of the Government, the Government will have implicitly blessed a new political force. This collective, ad-hoc political action (which I have termed "hyperpolitics"), is well on its way to becoming a permanent feature in Australian politics, no matter what happens in this particular instance. Both different from and complementary to online campaigning, hyperpolitics knows no party affiliation, and is too chaotic to be channeled into manageable forms. Hyperpolitics come at you from a dozen directions at once - a sensation Senator Conroy is now wholly familiar with.

Although the issue at hand involves making the internet safe and clean, that is actually less important than the force rising to oppose the plan. In the next days, weeks and months, as we watch the Department of Communications and Broadband modify its proposal and redefine their election commitments in the face of hyperpolitical opposition, we'll get a good glimpse into the inner workings of political life in Australia in the 21st century. Senator Conroy, as the first victim backed into the buzz saw of hyperpolitics, is learning a lesson that other politicians would well heed: the mob is no longer yours to command or control. The mob is fully capable of stating its own needs, and furthermore, is fully capable of satisfying them.

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