The acting Director of the Government Communication Office, Dragan Barbutovski, has been making waves ever since taking office. At first, he was known for personally engaging in controversies on Twitter, but when he started losing the verbal duels, specifically because he was caught in a lie, he blocked practically everyone who disagreed with him – and some to spare.
He explained why he blocked practically the entire right-wing Twittersphere with an extremely bizarre tweet, which was also insulting to everyone on the right whom he blocked. Here is what he wrote: “EXPLANATION: Anyone who spreads hate speech, knowingly lies and spreads untruths, is racist, nationalist, homophobic, abusive, vulgar, lewd; anyone who makes threats and anyone who agrees with such tweets (either by retweeting them or ‘liking’ them) will be blocked. Obvious ‘fake’ profiles will also be blocked, according to the same criteria.”
Apparently, everyone on the right is a liar, a racist, a nationalist and a homophobe. But in reality, it was the other way around. Namely, Barbutovski was caught in a blatant lie when he accused Bojan Požar’s partner, Barbara Drnač, of saying that the government would not help the volunteer firefighters who helped fight the extensive fires in the Kras region. Požar later commented on Barbutovski’s actions, writing: “This is how the director of the Government Communication Office, Barbutovski, misused the Twitter profile of Barbara Drnač to share some government information, then went on to tweet untruths about her, claiming that she raised concerns about paying the firefighters, instead of apologising to her…?!”
As soon as the Director of the Government Communication Office realised that he had done something wrong, he blocked both Požar and Drnač. Požar, of course, also commented on that: “The shameful finale of the Director of the Government Communication Office, Dragan Barbutovski: instead of apologising to Barbara Drnač, he blocked her on Twitter.”
When the Director got tired of blocking everyone, he made his profile private, even though – at least in terms of content and motives – he presents it as his work profile. For a brief period, he lived exclusively in the information bubble of his 2209 confirmed followers, while the rest of us citizens, who pay his Director’s salary, were not privy to his Twitter posts.
That is not how it should be
Apparently, someone then told him that this is not how things should be, because a government representative cannot just exclude the entire public from his social network profile – and he thus made it public again. But by then, a good part of the Twittersphere was already laughing at him.
Professor and former Minister Žiga Turk commented on what Barbutovski did, writing: “Apparently, he got tired of blocking everybody, one by one. I mean, he has the right to make his Twitter what he wants it to be, but that is neither very mature of him (if this is his private Twitter profile) nor professional (if this is his work profile).”
Another intellectual and former Minister, Matej Lahovnik, agreed with Turk, writing: “The work profile of a government employee should not be limited and only available to a select few, especially not in times of crisis.”
Prime Minister Golob’s unfortunate choice
Barbutovski’s work so far also suggests that this is probably the most unfortunate personnel move in Golob’s government – which says a lot in a group of people where Igor Šoltes, Marjan Šarec and Alenka Bratušek are on the payroll. Investigative journalist Bojan Požar suggests that the Director in question joined the government team at the proposal of Marta Kos, which would not be a surprise, really.
Not long ago, Barbutovski also threatened a Twitter user that he would report her to the Twitter censors. Never before in the history of our country has a government representative threatened to expose the citizens of his or her own country to American corporations. “You will be blocked and reported to Twitter spreading hate speech. Best regards,” the country’s top censor told the Twitter user in question.
And it was even more surprising when he retweeted Golob’s now-famous English interview, in which he called the people of the Western Balkan countries Russophiles and thus indirectly accused the leaders of these countries of conducting politics against the will of their citizens. Since the Acting Director of the Government Communication Office lives in a world of his own, he did not call his boss, the Prime Minister, and advise him to refrain from such statements but even retweeted his interview, writing: “I invite you all to listen to this.”
Apparently, the head of the Communication Office did not even really look at the content – he was only interested in the form, in the sense of – look how well the Prime Minister can speak English. Although the people who actually know English quickly realised that Golob’s “Google Translate” English is far from being something to brag about, but that is a story for another day. The Director did not look into the content of the interview and did not notice that Golob had caused a diplomatic debacle, unlike any other government independent Slovenia has ever had.
Volatile and polarising
The Acting Director of the Government Communication Office is clearly an extremely volatile figure but also an extremely polarising one. We are clearly returning to a time when right-wing users of social networks, and right-wing citizens in general, are seen as disruptive elements of the state who must be censored in one way or another, or at the very least have communication with them permanently severed. This is the antithesis of the “improved communication” that the new government loved to talk about so much. The previous Director of the same office was available 24 hours a day to any journalist or member of the public. But this practice seems to have come to an irrevocable end with the first-class government we have now.
Andrej Žitnik
