Culture

The Census Website Has Crashed And Everyone’s Losing It

You had one job.

by Osman Faruqi  9 August 2016

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After weeks of hype, significant privacy concerns and the threat of massive fines, the big day finally arrived. Census night. And it was a complete and utter catastrophe.

The Census website has crashed, in what is clearly a revenge attack from the Chinese swimming team who are still furious about Mack Horton’s sledge of one of their star athletes.

After a huge debate raged around privacy concerns that left many Australians questioning whether they should even complete the Census, the government has tonight helpfully provided the answer: Even if you want to fill it out, you can’t. Visitors to the Census website, attempting to fulfil their civic duty, are unable to log on.

The official Census Twitter account is alternating between telling everyone that everything is fine, and pointing out the website is down.

It’s a pretty awkward result considering the Census website had literally one job: Letting people fill in their census forms. And to add insult to injury, it appears the federal government spent tens of thousands of dollars “load testing” the website to ensure it could handle all the traffic.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the government department who run the Census, they are working hard to try and restore the website. But it seems likely most of the country will go to bed or finally finish watching Stranger Things rather than sit around and wait for service to be restored.

It’s the first time the Census has been run predominantly online, and given the disastrous outcome it might be last. Serves them right for bragging about how easy it would be!

If you are really keen to fill out the Census, don’t despair. The government has clarified that you can fill it out at some point within the next month and you won’t cop a fine.

Despite the colossal failure of the nation’s largest and most important public survey, the whole #CensusFail has really brought the country together. It’s kind of heartwarming.