It is a lightning rod of political controversy, commanding an audience of almost 83,000 followers on Twitter with a steady stream of messages supporting the Andrews government.
Using The Simpsons character Troy McClure as its avatar, the anonymous Twitter account @PRGuy17 has risen to prominence as one of Victoria’s loudest local voices in a hyper-partisan online world.
The Twitter profile of the @PRGuy17 account.Credit:Twitter
Created in March 2020, the account quickly became one of the most vociferous cheerleaders of premier Daniel Andrews’ government during the pandemic and the lockdowns the government ordered.
As the account’s influence grew, @PRGuy17 and its followers repeatedly clashed with politicians, journalists and other commentators who were critical of, or dared to question, the Victorian government’s COVID-19 response.
Yet the question of @PRGuy17’s identity remained a secret.
That may soon change, after a judge this week ordered Twitter to disclose information connected to the account, so the mystery person can be named in a defamation proceeding.
The case has been brought by Avi Yemini, a correspondent for alt-right, Canada-based website Rebel News connected to the anti-lockdown movement.
Avi Yemini, pictured at an Invasion Day rally in 2020, wants to find out who is behind the @PRGuy17 Twitter account so that he can pursue defamation against them.Credit:Rachael Dexter
The origins of @PRGuy17’s online celebrity status among Labor supporters can be traced back to Victoria’s long second lockdown, when the government ordered people to stay home to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The rules were extraordinarily strict — people couldn’t go further than 5km from their house — but the message from the Andrews government was that unprecedented times called for unprecedented measures. It was a response most Victorians agreed with.
Daily press conferences, often fronted by the premier, were shown live, watched by thousands of housebound Victorians. On Twitter, @PRGuy17 provided real-time commentary defending the government’s measures as journalists asked whether the response was proportionate.
“It was one of the most partisan moments in modern Australian political history,” says academic Tim Graham, who studies social media and Twitter at the Queensland University of Technology. “I don’t think it would have occurred in this way if it weren’t for an extremely polarising global pandemic.
“A lot of people were online, looking for somewhere to vent, and the tenor, and the tone of PRGuy weaponised that outrage for clout.”
The account repeatedly tweeted the #IStandWithDan hashtag, a signifier of affection for the premier despite his tough restrictions.
The account holder has a gift for seizing on political events, according to Graham.
“PRGuy is able to get a new hashtag, a partisan hashtag, in less than an hour, into the top 10 and into number one in the Australian trending list. That’s seismic influence as measured by national political discussions on a platform,” Graham says.
For example, @PRGuy17 was able to boost a hashtag critical of Victorian MP Tim Smith, one politician who popularised the #DictatorDan hashtag, into the number one trending hashtag in Australia in just over 30 minutes.
Graham says @PRGuy17 and its followers often attempt to seed ideas and political opinions into particular communities, such as sympathetic politicians or media, then try to get those communities to influence people higher up the media ecosystem.
“PRGuy and their followers are often trying to tag journalists that they perceive to be on their side to try and get them to amplify their preferred ideas into mainstream media,” he says.
The account made other journalists a target of its Twitter fan base, criticising their questions or lines of inquiry, using a hashtag to mock their work.
“Anyone that spoke out with anything critical of the Labor government, like what happened to[some journalists], I would characterise it as abuse,” Graham said.
“PRGuy’s got these hyper-partisan followers and has got them ready to go, like a standing army. When he quote-tweets something, like a journalist, he’ll frame it in order to prime his followers to have a certain interpretation of that event … it sets the mob, it creates the firestorm.”
Graham says the account employs a “very well-crafted rhetorical style that is always very on brand”.
In response to the court order issued on Tuesday, @PRGuy17 tweeted later that night that any effort to silence its account would “grow my voice”.
“Some of the most important things any of us say require huge sacrifices,” the tweet said.
“I’m a fierce supporter of free speech — even when I disagree or my feelings are hurt — and I’ll fight for it.
“I’m just getting started.”
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