The Ministry of Truth will control your every online conversation
By Jo Nova
The Censors are always the bad guys
The only way to fix misinformation is with better information.
Dear Australians, we only have until Monday to lodge a submission against the proposed amended Misinformation bill.
It’s a bill so bad warnings are coming from the far side of the world
The Cato Institute warns that if Tech companies take the simple route and comply with the Australian proposal Americans using mostly American companies may be effectively subject to misinformation rules set by foreign governments (and that may be the point, eh?) The great leftist global machine gets “help” with every country conquered by censorship glue.
Why do the guys with galactic megaphones need to shut you up?
Suppose misinformation was harming Australians, what stops the government giving us the correct information? They have the billion-dollar ABC, the billion-dollar CSIRO, the entire tamed academic sector, every school in Australia (they’re all funded and controlled by the government) — and yet somehow against this, an unfunded mum or dad writing on Facebook or a blog might harm trust in government institutions and therefore must be shut down, before any harm even occurs?
Think about what this says about the Australian ABC? It must be pretty useless if it can’t save Australians from verified lies? Things could only be this absurd if it doesn’t have any truths to refute “the lies”, or it doesn’t have an audience because it’s an odious propaganda machine no one wants to watch. Or both.
The Labor government claims that they won’t be censoring content, which is a lie, the media “platforms” will be forced to do it for them. If the platforms don’t comply, the government will send men with guns to their door to take away 5% of their global income. Even if the fine is never issued, the instant this law comes into effect, the threat of being savagely fined will mean platforms will be censoring Australians.
How would we keep comments open on this blog? Ask everyone to write satirically?
Ban anything that may be contributing to harm that might happen, maybe
The legislative bomb is a multifunctional octopus. It pretends to prevent “serious harm” but the proposed legislation defines misinformation as anything “reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm”. So there are three legalistic qualifiers there for any sympathetic judge to crush dissent. What’s “reasonable” — depends on whether you can afford a QC. What’s “likely” to cause harm (but hasn’t actually done it) is anyone’s guess or the work of seers and soothsayers. And a “contribution” to serious harm might be just about anything. Did you retweet that scientific study showing that Antarctica isn’t warming? You’re harming the planet, the government energy policy, killing the spotted quoll, and damaging financial prospects for solar manufacturers. Stop that now!
Thou shalt not harm the government, the economy, the bankers, or government health plans
It’s hard to believe they revealed their real intentions so obviously. This bill is not designed to protect the people, it’s designed to protect the government. What’s the worst kind of “serious harm” you can do to an Australian — harm the government, or their referendums. (The Labor Party are so hurt they lost the “Voice” vote last year.) It’s the first thing they list.
Read their own words in Amendment 14:
For the purposes of this Schedule, serious harm is:
(a) harm to the operation or integrity of a Commonwealth, State, Territory or local government electoral or referendum process; or
(b) harm to public health in Australia, including to the efficacy of preventative health measures in Australia; or
(c) vilification of a group in Australian society distinguished by race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, disability, nationality or national or ethnic origin, or vilification of an individual because of a belief that the individual is a member of such a group; or
(d) intentionally inflicted physical injury to an individual in Australia; or
(e) imminent: (i) damage to critical infrastructure; or (ii) disruption of emergency services;
in Australia; or
(f) imminent harm to the Australian economy, including harm to public confidence in the banking system or financial markets;
that has:
(g) significant and far-reaching consequences for the Australian community or a segment of the Australian community; or
(h) severe consequences for an individual in Australia
The second thing on the list are words that harm “preventative health measures” which means vaccines — the biggest, worst and most expensive preventative measure the government ever forced on the people.
The third priority is to outlaw any harmful words against their favourite protected mascot groups. So if you think women in one religion are being mistreated or harmed, you can’t say that. If you think children are being hurt by anyone in a protected mascot class, you’re not allowed to say that either. The laws will hurt those they claim to “help”.
It’s revealing that the other protected class are the poor suffering bankers. You must not “harm public confidence” in banks or financial markets. Presumably pointing out that banks are technically insolvent might cause a bank run. Don’t mention that bankers make money from printing our national dollars from thin air, effectively profiting by loaning money they don’t have, which would be called counterfeiting if anyone else did it. Shh!
Lastly, if you think someone is doing criminal activity don’t say so, because it might have “severe consequences for an individual”. Is that what the Labor Party meant to say — let’s protect criminals?
Who decides “the truth”?
Apparently it’s not God, it’s ACMA — The Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Apparently, it’s the team with the most money. Only a billionaire, or a government, could afford to set up a “third party fact-checker”.
The number of people up in arms about these rules grows by the day: Nick Cater, Phillip Altman. Roger Pielke Jnr. Caldron Pool. Australian Citizens Party and The Cato Institute.
Please copy your submission below to inspire others. Phillip Altman has a list of Senators emails to cut and paste.
REFERENCES:
The Bill: Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024
The 69 page proposed legislation PDF form and Word doc.
Submissions close on the 30 September 2024. (General advice on how to make a submission).
Submissions can be uploaded here (button on the right column) or emailed to the Committee Secretariat below.
Committee Secretariat contact:
Committee Secretary
Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Phone: +61 2 6277 3526
ec.sen@aph.gov.au
h/t to Andrew M, David Maddison, Stephen Neil, Nick Cater
Comments like ‘ If you don’t know, vote no’ would be the first to go.
They are still butthurt from the ‘Voice’ loss.
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The ACMA Bill seemingly is getting ushered through by stealth rather than being openly debated and commented upon by mainstream media. Albo’s tactics during the Voice referendum didn’t pay off like he expected (vote Yes in good faith and we’ll sort out the details once it has been passed).
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/detail-of-indigenous-voice-to-come-after-referendum-albanese-20220731-p5b5zj.html
This time they’re taking a less transparent route- the detail is there if you know where to look for it, but they won’t make the slightest attempt to inform you on what is transpiring and the potential effects it will have on Australian’s ability to access and share information via social media
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Someone needs to call up Ray Hadley!
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The system is about to reset. Would you like to schedule a time?
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I haven’t studied it at all yet, but intuition suggests to me that this bill might not need much help to devour itself.
Who is the ultimate arbiter?
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No need to study it when the govt and media are exempt and the only one it applies to is you the public that says it all for me .
It will in effect shutdown blogs like this that call out bad government and if it was law right now anyone agreeing with the host and commenting would probably be guilty of misinformation if the government deemed it so .
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At 12:39 am it has just occurred to me that the purpose of the haste with this bill could be to head off and prevent investigation into the COVIDVAX issue.
After reading this article my intuition is reinforced.
“or (h) severe consequences for an individual in Australia”.
It’s impossible not to laugh! That “Amendment 14:” was clearly written in some kind of panic, quite likely suffering withdrawal. It can’t be real! What is it amending?
If the rest of the bill is like that I was right to think it will devour itself.
They are trying to stop us from speaking. But a lot of stuff has already been said, and it won’t go away unless we let it.
Drag this issue across every political forum and court case that can imaginably imply, with a view to seeing proponents contradict themselves on the record. Maintain the panic!
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‘You must not “harm public confidence”’.
Uh … what confidence?
Jeez, there’s barely any left now.
The last of it will be gone after this.
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Thanks Jo, We mustn’t give up.
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Refusing to give up causes ‘harm’ to your government.
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I’ve got a really bad feeling about this. What’s the point of any more submissions? The thousands of recent submissions were nearly all ignored. Mostly I’ve got a bad feeling about this because of the lack of publicity regarding the legislation. When you have a referendum etc, there’s a chance that a lot of us plebs will at least be aware of it. Yes/No, gay marriage referendums there were media ads, leaflets in the mail, statements from celebrities, billboards. This legislation is arguably way more important than Australia’s most recent referendums, but here we have it being rushed through parliament without any real introspection. Plus, I think the legacy media like it because they will be able to claw back a lot of news production now going to social media. Just like during COVID, the media bosses will have cosy relationships with government. “We wont say nasty things about you, so please give us all your social distancing, vaccine, face mask ads”. In this case, the legacy media wont be accused of mis/disinformation because they have deep pockets to defend themselves legally anyway. The LNP gave the genesis to this legislation, but were never going to get it passed because of lack of Senate majority. Whereas Labor, desperate to please everyone, will make it happen. Thanks a lot Paul Fletcher and Malcolm Turnbull – not. One thing I’m sure of these days, politics is not the solution.
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To add to that bad feeling, I have also been enlightened recently to the “UN Pact for the Future”. Not by my informative and useful media and politicians, but by social media. Australia has apparently signed up to that too.
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“What’s the point of any more submissions? ”
They will always pretend to ignore submissions but this is yet another gambit to see if we are pushovers. We stopped the last bill, but they will keep knocking at the door to see if they get lucky.
Just keep pointing out the rush, the deception, in pushing this through in every forum you can. Why wouldn’t they hold a referendum on this, indeed? Great question. And to ask the question is to know the answer.
They know the public don’t want it and they are doing it anyway. Make them pay.
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I urge more submissions too. Anything to throw sand in the gears of the powers that be.
As a minor point referenda are held only to change the constitution. Plebescite would be closer to the proper word and those are surprisingly difficult to run, even when we go to the polls to elect the next parliament.
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Why do you think it’s being fast tracked?
What’s coming up, the truth of which they want to suppress?
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Indeed.
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Why are they fast tracking?
Try : The US election;
The next vaxxine rollout;
A Russian win in Ukraine;
Blackouts in the northern winter;
and at home:
Labor on the nose with an election coming up.
Any others?
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Methinks they’d have just one leading issue. The coming Australian election.
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If Trump can win, it will be harder for Labor here to put in legislation like this. Imagine having a President Elect of the US talking about how disappointing an draconian and dangerous this legislation is.
Everything is always and foremost about the US election. It changes everything.
In a sense this is good news. If they were sure Kamala would win, they might not be in such a rush. If they were sure Labor would win here next year, they might not be in such a hurry either. Perhaps they sense they are losing the opportunity…
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For the ALP, the bank card is surely the biggest issue, but yes, the US election is now nearly on us.
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Coming defeat of QLD labor next month.
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The economic recession that we most certainly are not having … because economy strawwwwwwng.
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I was going to say, look at my comment 5.1. It’s probably all part of that agenda. Call me a cooker, I don’t care.
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‘How would we keep comments open on this blog? Ask everyone to write satirically?’
This blog is fine, it has been a satirical blog since the beginning, but there has always been serious intent. The Bill will probably pass, so good strategy is required to stay alive.
Turning the place into an academic structure, lectures and tutorials, an extremely informative and hilariously amusing blog would attract greater numbers. I think they might come in the form of blog refugees, the chattering class, and not the rank and file.
We are on the front line of the information war, dig a trench. The Chinese netizens are in the thick of it.
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You must be kidding El Gordo. Without a paid team of moderators with legal training, I would have to shut comments down or hand moderation to an “approved” AI the government likes. How would that work for you?
And nearly all my posts would “harm” public confidence in the government, their preventative health measures, their institutions, or our confidence in US elections.
So you think I should copy Chinese Netizens and just accept that things will change a bit?
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We are in a democratic system and the people love their freedoms, so I can’t see anything unusual happening. Western cultures around the world are grappling with this thorny problem.
On this blog the automatic claw picks up key words and holds us in moderation until a human comes along to free our words. So that is how the authorities intend to moderate misinformation and disinformation with AI, nothing to fear if you remain satirical.
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So this is meaningless pap which says exactly nothing:
“We are in a democratic system and the people love their freedoms, so I can’t see anything unusual happening.”
And the rest is just more anaesthetic cliches. Are you genuinely afraid to admit the truth of what they propose or are you paid to try to put out fires?
Nothing to see here, just move along?
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We are not living under the boot of a totalitarian dictatorship, that is the extreme situation and we won’t go there because of our democracy.
A year ago Rowan Dean found himself in trouble because he said AGW was a fraud, I presume he is still with Sky News and continue speaking his mind after the Bill is passed.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/27/sky-news-australias-outsiders-breached-industry-code-for-accuracy-on-climate-science-media-watchdog-finds
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More nothingness and non-answer distractions from you. What has anything you said got to do with the current Misinformation bill?
Whatever Rowan said is irrelevant because this proposed law was not, and still isn’t voted into legislation.
I’m just curious because your replies are so transparently absurd.
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Ell+gordo,
“… nothing to fear if you remain satirical.”
Precisely, how do you know this?
Do you have a communication cable direct to the minds of greens in government?
Geoff S
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Look on the bright side, at least you haven’t been put in prison………..yet.:)
This bill needs to be shredded, and whilst at it, remove the ‘e-safety’commissar and abolish the department, entirely.
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Oh golly Jo, that’s a no brainer … choose the AI. In fact, the AI would improve comment quality, and very quickly the regulars would be running rings around it.
It would get a little weird for a while … but in a way that’s the logical next step given what we have been through so far.
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Tel, I must be missing something.
Who would watch the watcher? Would I have to spend hours tracking the AI moderator logs (assuming they were honest) to unpack it’s biases? Would anyone know if it altered comments threads a week after publication. What it 50% of new commenters “never appeared”?
Would commenters realize if a word was tweaked in their comment before approval to make it more palatable?
If the comments had to be run through a government approved AI, the government would also get all the IPs and the emails.
It’s not looking appealing…
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There will be public consultation to ensure freedom of speech, so I’m not afrayd. In a communications war a good wordsmith could avoid AI scrutiny.
‘The Bill has been informed by feedback from the public consultation process last year about the need for safeguards for freedom of speech and the Bill provides a number of important safeguards and additional clarifications to ensure this Bill meets community expectations and strikes the right balance.’
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Donald Trump is a good wordsmith.
In what public ways is he avoiding AI scrutiny?
Geoff S
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Remember Albo’s rage (and the Libs) at the stabbing of that Priest in Sydney? “we must keep the children safe”. Meanwhile, my Neighbour sat down to watch a film on Netflix with her 14 year old son, that he suggests they watch because it’s the latest thing.
He disappears from the room because he has seen it before, which was strange she thought, apparently, they watch things repeatedly no problem. Next thing there’s a scene where a young boy is drugged by another and a non-complaint buggery scene goes on and on and on (apparently).
So we must keep the kids safe, but watching Netflix dramas is awesome and nothing to worry about. Good grief. Who put these idiots in charge?
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This shows the contempt with which the Lib/Lab/Green Uniparty holds the Australian people.
And don’t forget it was the fake conservative Liberal faction of the Uniparty that first proposed this legislation and they also created the office of the e Safety Kommissar which is essentially a WEF appointment.
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Yes.
The outrage against Labor is to be expected but as you rightly pointed out the Libs first proposed the legislation.
I wonder how many of the general public are aware of that?
The fool in Nth Korea must be proud of what the idiot politicians in Australia are trying to do with this legislation.
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Does this apply to crap said at protests?
Why are protests, which force people to listen to misinformation, OK to leftards, but blog posts that are voluntarily read are subject to censorship?
The media portrayal of protests shows you how much bias will be in these judgements. If the media is for the protestors, cameras are placed low and everyone of the dozen fill up the screen. Against, cameras are high up and panned out till they look like a handful of ants. Or worse. Channel 7 News Adelaide showed protestors to a drag queen reading to children, then a separate group of very muscled men in all black and masks that looked like actors. The leftards make choices every day to misinform.
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“Why are protests, which force people to listen to misinformation, OK to leftards, but blog posts that are voluntarily read are subject to censorship?”
Because truth cuts to the bone.
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Stuffed right from the word go.
In Schedule a) The THIRD level of Government, in this case, Local, has been to
two referendum and was firmly defeated in both cases.
There has been NO 3rd referendum on this item. Which means they are repugnant to our Constitution of Australia.
The Deep State people are panicking to get this through and set up BEFORE Guy Fawkes Day.
And before the 21st of January.
GOD, help Australia.
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I lodged a submission but the site then reverted to “lodge a submission” page. How do I know if it has been successful?
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Good question.
You could always email a copy to the Commissioner (and all our Senators too, see the Philip Altman link).
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I got an email straight away: “Thank you for your submission to the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 [Provisions] inquiry. The Committee will consider carefully all the matters you have raised.”.
FYI my submission said in part:
“This bill is a serious threat to free speech in Australia and should be rejected.
[] The proposed bill has a number of clauses that will undoubtedly result in suppression of free speech. For example:
• Clause 14(a) includes “harm to the operation or integrity of a Commonwealth, State, Territory or local government electoral or referendum process” in the definition of “serious harm”. A statement that, for example, draws attention to a flaw or weakness in an electoral or referendum process could be portrayed as misinformation or disinformation that harms that process, but could later be found to have been correct.
• Clause 14(b) [similarly]
• Clause 14(f) [similarly]
[] There is a serious risk that a future government could misuse this bill, if passed into law, to protect itself from criticism by representing that criticism as misinformation or disinformation and suppressing it. In other words, a future government could use this bill to protect its own faults and failures from scrutiny by penalising those who try to discuss them.
[]
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East Germany all over again, only on a global scale. Brick by brick the totalitarians have been rebuilding The Wall for the last 30 years. And the original AGW agenda was the foundation footing.
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It occurs to me that – everyone who has ever posted on this and other web sites could be put under surveillance quite easily by the persecutors with warrants to take our computers to look for evidence of acceptance and distribution of misinformation. I, and I am sure many others, would have a large collection saved of articles on this and other topics such as climate change, renewable energy and vaccination, that would be considered by the Government to be misinformation. Is a simple nom-de-plume enough to save us from persecution by the apparatchiks of a paranoid government. Or do we simply – say – we are here – you cant control what we think. Then of course there is Alexei Navalny…
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A man in a dress is not a woman. Fact.
The kommissar of mis/disinformation or hate speech can come and get me.
I don’t care.
If 97% of mathematicians agree that 2+2=5 and we accept that – the battle is over.
Everyone has a point where they will say enuf is enuf.
I hope that reality and common sense will eventually prevail however that will take some no nonsense, no BS leaders to accomplish that. I see no contenders for that role in either the Liberal or Labor party here in Australia.
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There must be a market for everyday pirate-radio-of-the-internet?
All this “consultation” is being done to say they have listened to the people. Same techniques now being used by lots of public entities (eg Air Services).
So as clear as crystal, the Uniparty will get it’s way on this censorship. Funny how language and sex censorship (like this) was finally overturned after the 60s.
Luckily, the capability of modern internet will still ensure an underground of communication that will become more popular than the current big tech platforms.
This might even be a good thing because the latest internet has become a rats nest to find solid information on any topic (health, money, politics, etc).
Sure, growing your readership and sponsors might be harder but Jo is likely not getting rich from her sterling efforts in the current “un-legislated” universe.
Word of mouth is very powerful. This site needs to be mirrored on other unregulated IT infrastructure.
Elon is clearly a friend for network connection and his satellite constellations are hard for any one gov of meddlers to silence.
And anyway ACMA has seemingly lost interest in the radio spectrum now so it is wide open to low-power mesh communications.
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The Uniparty may not get their way. The Libs are opposing it. If they get enough uproar they might go to the election promising to get rid of it (if it is passed). So send in submissions, post thoughts here, and email your liberal member or candidate. Tell them you will be voting for “a minor party (insert name here)” on this issue alone unless the Liberals make this a do or die line in the sand.
Since the laws will benefit Labor more than conservatives, the ACMA bill will make it even harder for the Liberals to win. Only a captured RINO would not oppose it. (RINO = LINO = CINO etc)
But I like the way you are making back up plans.
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Any links to a “cut and paste” to help with submissions?
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I will write my submission and post it at the site. We just need to be conscious of the deadline.
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Thanks Jo
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If you are not sure what to say or don’t have time, this tool will create one for you – takes 60 seconds:
http://freespeechunion.au/misinfo
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FWIW – Instapundit-ing
“A FRIEND SENDS A PREDICTION: “Wild guess, we’re due for a fake assassination attempt on Kamala they’ll blame on Trumpy rhetoric. Dominant storyline the next 6 weeks.”
Yep. Got rid of the Trump assassination attempts in something closer to 6 hours, but this will be different. And probably racist, notwithstanding that Janet Jackson says Kamala isn’t black.”
https://instapundit.com/674298/#disqus_thread
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And Courier Mail on line headline just now –
“Shots fired at Kamala Harris campaign office”!
(Behind the Murdoch wall)
Tinfoil hat to headlines in half a day must nearly be a record?
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“Shots fired at Kamala Harris campaign office”!
Yes, with a BB gun, more dangerous to throw stones.
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Will be a sad day when content- submissions on this blog is censored as mis-disinformation.
I start my day by enjoying Jo’s articles & satirical prose, followed by a broad spectrum of opinions in the subsequent comments. Some I agree with, some not so much, but thank you all for such freedom of opinion via this blog. I’ll miss it terribly should the powers to be have their intended ways with this social media freedom.
Thanks in advance Jo your exceptional literary service over the years.
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Start to my day, too, with a mug of coffee.
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Welcome to North Korea.
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This is my previous submission about the censorship bill, obviously ignored.
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/acma2023-31735-david-s-maddison.pdf
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This is really persuading paper and your efforts on it are truly commendable … have you been nominated for a medal yet?
Calling out this legislation as “censorship” implies it should be called “Censorship Act 2024”.
Maybe such better marketing could cause many LIBs and ordinary Australians to wonder if they want that sort of Gov interference in their lives.
And funny to think about the things that were regularly censored by gov before the 70s that are so commonplace these days.
Films, plays, TV, artistic expression, language, etc have all seen a massive climate change from the 60s when police actually arrested folks for swearing on stage.
Secondly, your point on “consensus science” needs to recognize the impact of a more litigious society of today.
The real reason that consensus even got a leg-up is that the medical fraternity have so much uncertainty in their diagnostic/treatment regimes.
Medical doctors need insurance against being sued for mal-practice (maybe they really mean mal-information?)
Their insurance companies asked “what is standard practice” to establish if a such acts were being performed.
Unfortunately, SOP morphed into “consensus” and voila – everyone now believes medicine is how science works. Medicos – can’t live with them or without them!
So Official Narratives are just political science (or maybe legal science) that are miles away from the real sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, etc).
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FWIW
“The Left’s Latest Attempt to Call Trump a Nazi Gets Blown Up by One Tweet”
“The New Republic had a total meltdown when the former president said he would use immigrants’ serial numbers to begin a much-needed overhaul in enforcing our immigration laws. ”
But!
“Loads of Hitler comparisons here because because Trump mentioned a “serial number” for immigrants, but the govt already issues something called an “A Number” to “aliens”
That is, they already have serial numbers”
More here
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/09/24/the-lefts-latest-attempt-to-call-trump-a-nazi-get-blown-up-by-one-tweet-n2645183
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People of Australia, this is your fault. You elected this government. For years elections have been auctions of unsustainable promises in which the winner is the one who bribes the electorate most plausibly with its own money. You took the money while letting the politicians get away with removing your freedoms. “It’s the economy, stupid!” But economics surfs atop culture.
You could have set up fresh political parties and voted for them in sufficient number to sway the policies of the big parties. You didn’t. Soon you might not be able to. This is your fault.
Download this book while you can: From dictatorship to democracy by Gene Sharp:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060209144939/http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf
Sharp wrote a thesis about nonviolent resistance movements that achieved their end and then distilled a how-to manual from it. It takes courage and organisation; courage because violence is the State’s strongest suit and there will be victims; organisation because the temptation to respond to State violence with violence is great, but counter-productive. Many leaders of the ‘Arab Spring’ a decade ago worked to this model, and overthrew governments, but had nothing better to put in their place. Let Westerners show that we do have something better.
All of this will be much harder once cash is ended. Time is short.
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Both the major parties support this stuff.
The minor parties aren’t that great either … PHON is a protest party unfit to govern, and the Greens are a single issue party which has been taken over by socialism and fails to even deliver on the single issue that they specialize in.
What’s left? 4WD, sex, outdoor recreation and the gun nuts … the rootin, tootin, shootin, scootin parties. Those are fine by me but they never win.
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Stop whingeing and get your mates together and Do It Yourself.
If NOBODY in a population of 25m is willing to do that, you get what you deserve.
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It’s all about the ‘status quo’. You can not, as a citizen not controlled by your betters, to question things and cause harm to your betters who know better than you if you need a shot, greenhouse gas policies, or stricter criminal policies. You are allowed to say your opinion, but not state the ‘harmful’ ‘misinformation’ that the opinion is based on.
Your betters know it better.
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I wonder if mice look at traps and marvel that the cheese is free…
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Ireland’s hate-speech bill bites the dust,
Where clearly the people don’t trust,
The powers that be,
To leave their speech free,
Makes pushback on censorship a must.
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“In terms of a threat to the whole country, this must be the gravest threat to democracy in Australian history”
Legal opinion forwarded to Craig Kelly on the Misinformation & Disinformation Bill …..
“In its current form (attached) the proposed legislation appears to me to have the potential to censor free speech both by candidates for political office and even by sitting members of a State or Federal Parliament, if such speech appears on a digital communications platform.
Of course, the legislation cannot prevent members of a State or Federal Parliament from speaking in Parliament but, outside of Parliament, even someone such as a Senator Babet who is very active, with excellent content, on X (Twitter) and YouTube could be deprived of a voice on X (Twitter), YouTube etc.
The censorship would be done indirectly by attacking those platforms and threatening them with enormous fines etc.
Indeed, such a result was able to be achieved previously, even without legislation. An example which comes to mind is the previous de-platforming of Craig Kelly, which included even the censorship of YouTube videos which merely broadcast speeches which had been made by him in the Parliament.
This was seemingly able to be achieved by “back-door” means (similar to what was done in the USA to lean on digital communications platforms to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story and influence the result of the 2020 Presidential election).
By contrast, under the proposed legislation the government of the day could say whatever it likes, which could then be reported and amplified by the mainstream news media, whose activities are exempted from the legislation.
The reasoning for the conclusion that the proposed legislation would not affect the activities of government, and its lap-dog mainstream media organisations, but could be used to silence the online speech of anyone the government does not like (even a sitting Senator or MP)
In terms of a threat to the whole country, this must be the gravest threat to democracy in Australian history.
It is clear that the Labor government, with the support of the Greens, want to push it through before Christmas (and thus be able to lie with impunity, and censor free speech in opposition to its own propaganda, in the lead-up to the Federal election). The ultimate aim, as with the Democrats in the USA, is permanent one-party rule.
The timing of introduction of the legislation, so close to the Federal election, is obviously designed to limit the time for constitutional challenges in the High Court.
The only way to counter this would be to do an analysis of the best lines of attack on the proposed legislation, so that the contents of the challenge can be mapped out and prepared in advance and launched as soon as the legislation has been enacted and applied or at least threatened to be applied (such that there would be no “hypotheticality”).
Otherwise, Australia will be a very different country by next year.”
https://x.com/craigkellyXXX/status/1838499051341516907
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Just let it happen.
Things need to get a lot worse before they can get better. The sooner our Society hits Rock Bottom the sooner we can fight a Revolution and get rid of the Bedwetters.
It’s a cycle that’s repeated so many times in History, and it cannot be stopped, only delayed.
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Be careful Tim. That’s exactly what they want you to think.
Fight now, when we still have email, phones, and freedom.
If we hit Rockbottom we’ll be living in a world of digital ID, AI monitoring, central bank digital currency, and no where to escape. Blood will run in the streets.
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FWIW, the following is the body of my submission. No soaring rhetoric; just requested that ACMA be required to make clear their articles of faith so that internet publishers aren’t in the dark. The side-effect is that voters will be able to see what is being suppressed.
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From Senator Babet 12:20 today
“We are aware of an intermittent issue with the Australian Parliament website preventing some people from viewing the Mis/Disinformation (censorship) bill put forward by the far-left Albanese Government.
The error message displayed is “502 Bad Gateway”. I have this morning written to the Secretary of the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications who are handling submissions, and CC’d both Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and the committee chair.
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The first draft of my submission on the misinformation bill is below.
I post it in case it inspires anyone else and so that I can receive feedback on parts that I could improve before the submissions deadline. Criticism welcome.
________8<________8<________8<__________
Like its 2023 predecessor, the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 should be opposed and for many of the same reasons.
The bill's section 13 working definition of disinformation as "contributing to serious harm" is prone to wider interpretation of "harm" over time and creates a low threshold because any amount is a contribution. Aside from this flaw, the bill could pass if it had focussed only on disinformation instead of overreaching into misinformation.
Regarding the combatting of misinformation, there are good reasons to question the benefits and apparent nobility of such a motive. The policing of so-called misinformation in the everyday public sphere is to be opposed on the basis that people must be free to say what they believe to be true. Our conversations, especially when they contain misinformation, are steps toward a grander truth that no single human being fully possesses. We need humility in our conversations no matter how certain we are of a purported fact.
Former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth said: “It's quite astonishing to me that after the pandemic, when we are all becoming acutely aware of 'facts' that changed over the course of the pandemic … that we would find our parliament debating a Bill where any number of legitimate concerns about public health policy could be branded misinformation by the government or the scientific orthodoxy of the moment." [ https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/former-deputy-chief-medical-officer-during-covid-pandemic-dr-nick-coatsworth-slams-labors-misinformation-bill-says-legitimate-health-policy-debate-could-be-barred/news-story/a38bb0e520bec64068bca35a268577cf ]
Although it is a stated object of the legislation "to provide the ACMA with powers, which respect the freedom of expression", Division 5 section 67 "Removing content and blocking end-users" does not give enough free speech guarantees. The option of shadow-banning the user would not involve removing content but would still inhibit freedom of expression.
Section 16 makes academic discussions exempt. If we can accept that academics need to be able to correct each other over the course of a long iterative process, we can accept the average person in broader society is entitled to the same iterative learning process on any topic. In essence we have to make mistakes to learn from them.
The ACMA's desire to mitigate misinformation as part of a Code would create significant burdens on a blog run by a single author with few or no moderators to help. The legislation mentions in section 44 a smorgasbord of procedures and new platform features that it could require of a blog's Misinformation Code before it would be approved. The legislation seems to have been written with large employers in mind, such as Facebook, who could absorb this work more easily. Some of the possible burdens are:
* Allowing blog users to flag posts as misinformation would see arguments rapidly devolve into every comment reply being flagged by the other side of the argument, each flag requiring some procedural work from the blog operator because of the Misinformation Code.
* Adding decorative misinformation flags to comments implies a moderator has the necessary knowledge to determine which side was right. This also takes time and effort to decide.
* The moderation cannot be outsourced to AI because this obscures the problem and raises questions over what data the AI was trained with.
It is easier to let the users continue the argument themselves and fact-check each other, with moderator intervention reserved for matters of vulgarity and more serious cases such as defamation. But the ACMA may decide this is not doing enough to stem the risk of misinformation on the platform. The effect on blog owners is likely to be a shutdown of user comments and a resulting shift of commentary out of blogs into the big tech platforms. This outcome would be unfair to blog users and operators, a loss of diversity for the web, and may stifle free speech more due to big tech's use of fallible and biased fact-checking organisations [ https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/media-releases/ipa-research-internet-censorship-laws-must-be-abandoned-due-to-fact-checking-bias ].
There are other sections of the bill which are dubious or wrong.
* Section 12 (3) "The Minister may, by legislative instrument, determine that a digital service is an excluded service for misinformation purposes" but there appears to be no requirement that the list of these excluded services (or reasons for their exclusion) be published by ACMA. Surely Australians would like to know who has been expressly permitted to misinform them?
* Section 14 defines serious harm to include questioning "the efficacy of preventative health measures", a presumably scientific debate, while Section 16 appears to grant exemptions to scientific disseminations, and it is unclear which section prevails.
* Section 44 (3)(c) could be abused by an agency claiming that information is disinformation from a foreign power when it isn't, similar to how 50 USA intelligence agents tried to claim the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation when it was true. [ https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au/p/strengthened-protections-for-free ]
* Section 54 "Limitation in relation to freedom of political communication", where the actual text says nothing about politics and where it could be expensive to contest the interpretation of "no further than reasonably necessary".
* Section 59 "emerging circumstances", in which the ACMA exploits an emergency to impose misinformation standards on a platform.
Although it is possible to fuss further over various details of the bill these details are superfluous as the bill is still fundamentally wrong for one reason; Australians do not want their conversations stifled by government regulations.
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