In a recent post, I pondered whether Anthony Albanese’s proposed online censor would punish politicians for their lies. Well, we have the answer to that one: as is too often the case, the political class are exempting themselves from the draconian rules they foist on we commoners.
In a totally unsurprising move, the proposed legislation specifically exempts governments and their agencies from charges of spreading misinformation.
Now, why would that be, we might ask.
[Daniel Andrews] misinformed Victorians on July 7, 2020 when he said there was “simply no option but to further strengthen the lockdown”. The Premier was wrong to say the alternative was to “finish up like Sydney”. He was ill-advised when he described outdoor children’s playgrounds as “potential transmission sites” and wrong to treat kids like mini grim reapers. The chance that he saved a single life by making Victorians drink beer with their masks on is remote.
Andrews’ lies didn’t stop there. When Andrews boasted that his state had “higher standards” of Covid management, he emphasised that, “I can say that because it’s true”. But it wasn’t true, then or now. Victoria’s Covid death toll is twice per capita the rest of Australia. 99.7% of Covid deaths in Victoria occurred after Andrews imposed lockdowns.
Andrews lied. Spread misinformation — obviously harmful misinformation, at that. Just as Jacinda Ardern and her cronies did, when they spread such obvious lies as “two weeks to flatten the curve”, and that Covid vaccines would “stop the spread”.
But instead of cuffing Dictator Dan live on TV during his daily Big Brother broadcasts, his staatspolizei arrested pregnant mothers in their homes.
Imagine what they’d do if they were empowered by Albanese’s proposed Ministry of Truth.
The haunting image of the arrest of a pregnant woman for a Facebook post is a small taste of what might lie ahead if the Australian Communications and Media Authority is granted the power it seeks to enforce “the code”, an agreement between online platforms to censor harmful misinformation and disinformation.
The definition of “harmful” is broad. It includes “hatred … on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion or physical or mental disability”, “harm to the health of Australians” and “harm to the Australian environment”. Imagine the size of the woke picnic to be enjoyed on those clauses alone […]
The ACMA’s 2021 report into online misinformation, framed against the backdrop of a pandemic, provides the starting point for Labor’s proposed legislation. The examples of what the authors then considered to be misinformation have not aged well.
The ACMA conducted polling to identify the extent to which these supposed heresies had spread. More than one in 10 Australians (11 per cent) were categorised as “misinformed (high)”; that is to say they disputed at least three out of five official views. Three out of 10 were in the “misinformed (low)” category, disputing one or two of the authorised arguments.
Each threshold statement was the subject of extensive debate in scientific journals at the time, though not in the mainstream press.
And the political class were lying to our faces.
We know many of the government guidelines were based on pure guesswork and that a not insignificant number of people suffered adverse reactions to the vaccine that were severe or even fatal.
We know the dangers were exaggerated, sometimes deliberately, as revealed by texts from a former UK health minister since made public. We are reasonably confident simple supplements such as vitamin D give a measure of protection and relief.
Even without an official MiniTrue to back them up, the digital censors were hard at work during the pandemic, memory-holing thousands of tweets.
In May, Chris Kenny revealed in The Australian that the Department of Home Affairs asked digital platforms to remove 13,636 posts, including 4213 related to Covid between 2017 and 2022. Digital platforms such as Facebook, Meta, Twitter, Instagram and Google complied.
It was an audacious example of mission creep. References were made under 2019 amendments to the Criminal Code in the wake of the Christchurch massacre to prevent the dissemination of abhorrent or violent material.
The Australian
Take careful note of that: they used a law change designed to stop people spreading video of a massacre, to stop people disputing the official narrative — which we know was a farrago of lies — on Covid.
Do you really think they can be trusted with the power to stamp out “misinformation”?