You got the prime minister to perform. Didn’t you? Shaking his bum. I seem to remember on that video. Was that the toilet paper shortage?

In a sense, the disinformation is very dangerous. In an open society, you’re never going to be able to stop it because then you’re playing their game. It’s these strategies.

There was some pretty malicious rumors. Weren’t there? During the early when there was a spike in infections in April last year and you had all stuff being thrown out there online and elsewhere about the effectiveness of vaccines.

That’s right. Infodemic is a very good way of describing it. I was tough by the way you’ve combined the language. In some ways, the language of the epidemic with the language of…

Tell me about the use of language because you mentioned about disinfecting, about inoculating against rumors and malicious disinformation.

The comedians are your partners in this.

Of course, you’re working closely with comedians on that. How does that work?

Shiba Inu, isn’t it?

You’ve also faced a barrage of disinformation, and coming particularly from China. I was struck by the “Humour over Rumour” campaign. How did that come about?

You were able to use technology. I remember reading about the shortage of masks, for instance, in the early days.

…it’s chilling. The full toolkit of surveillance coming to bear, and so almost casual brutality towards those who disobey the algorithms, whereas here, you’ve managed to carry the people with you.

When you look at the use of technology in the process of controlling or eliminating Omicron in China…

Do you think that you’re succeeding with that in terms of the different measures that you’ve been able to introduce so far?

It’s two radically different ideas about transparency. How would you see that? How would you define your own view on transparency when you contrast it with what the party is doing across the street?

Tell me about that.

One of the things I was taken by in reading through some of the other interviews was this notion of the use of technology. Particularly, the contrast with the way it’s used across the street. The idea of making government transparent to the people as opposed to…

It’s all been fairly smooth?

It was a big transition, wasn’t it, from civic movement through to government membership?

How’s it going? It’s how many years now?