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The PM was speaking hypothetically, but was his idea to ‘ban social media’ a Freudian slip?

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would “ban social media” if he was made dictator for five years, he confessed in a radio interview this week.

The PM made the candid admission on Monday, in a long-form conversation with Neil Mitchell on Radio 3AW Melbourne.

The hour-long Neil Mitchell Asks Why dialogue opened with the host asking a humorous ice breaker: “You are dictator for five years. What do you do? What’s your first act?”

After laughing, Mr Albanese clarified, “I’m not a supporter of dictatorship.” He then reflected for a moment and replied, “I think the big frustrating thing, if I could do something, maybe ban social media, would be handy.”

The remark comes after a week of heavy online critique for the Prime Minister, with corporate and state media barely able to cover for his blunders.

Last week it was revealed that the Uluru Statement — the document animating the PM’s Voice referendum — contains secret pages that call for a Treaty, reparations, and an Australia comprised of two co-existing sovereignties divided by race.

Mr Albanese’s quip about banning social media also follows the Labor Government’s Orwellian attempt to control online speech through its proposed ‘Misinformation Bill’.

Why the PM Would Ban Social Media

Neil Mitchell’s question to Mr Albanese was clearly hypothetical. “I’ll start with a challenge,” he said at the opening of the interview. “I’ll give you the perfect world. You’ve got no caucus to answer to. You’ve got no federal Labor Party conference. You’ve got no elections. You’ve got no opinion polls. You are dictator for five years. What do you do? What’s your first act?”

The Prime Minister was thoughtful as he began his reply. “It is true that in a democracy you have to account for more than your own views, which is what I guess your question is getting at,” he responded. “But I do try to do things as much as possible that I really think advance the long-term interests of the country.”

It was after these remarks that Mr Albanese shared his frustrations concerning social media.

The reason the PM provided for why he would ban social media was “keyboard warriors who can anonymously say anything at all and without any fear, the sort of things they would never say to you face-to-face”.

“They can just assert [it] as fact,” he added.

While the interchange took place in a spirit of playful curiosity, Mr Albanese’s instinctive response was more than a little illuminating, considering current events.

Banning Social Media: Easier Than Telling the Truth

It is a definitive fact that the full Uluru Statement from the Heart is not one page, but somewhere in the range of 18 to 26 pages.

This fact is confirmed by the Final Report of the Referendum Council, which explicitly labels the contents of the longer document “extracts from the Uluru Statement from the Heart” (see for yourself on page 16).

It has also been confirmed by Professor Megan Davis, one of the architects of the Uluru Statement. She has spent the last five years trying to convince her audiences that the Uluru Statement is not just one page but 18 or more pages.

This fact proved embarrassing for Prime Minister Albanese last week, who has is seeking desperately to distance the Voice from the radical Treaty agenda that will inevitably follow.

On the heels of the Uluru Statement scandal, the PM launched a bizarre rant in parliament last week. He falsely claimed the truth about the full Uluru Statement was a “conspiracy in search of a theory” and comparable to “QAnon”.

The clapping seals in the media were only too happy to bolster the PM’s dishonest remarks, including the ABC, which laundered the lie to Australian taxpayers on their dime.

Weighing in also was the RMIT FactLab, which works “in partnership with Meta” to “help slow the spread of misinformation in people’s news feeds” on Facebook and Instagram.

Discovered only through a recent case information request was that foreign-owned Meta pays RMIT FactLab US$800 per “fact-check”, or up to US$480,000 per year. Indeed, Meta’s plan to “crack down on misinformation in the lead up to the referendum” was revealed by the Australian Financial Review last month. 

Perhaps the PM should be more concerned about foreign interference in a Constitutional Referendum than his own personal embarrassment online?

Albanese’s Legislative Attempt to Ban Social Media

Controlling the flow of information — and censoring criticism of favoured leaders — has always been one of the first projects of authoritarian regimes. No dictatorship can survive without maintaining control over the media.

So while the Prime Minister made his remark in jest, he expressed a deeply illiberal impulse that has tempted leaders throughout history who hope to advance the “long-term interests” of their country.

Most noteworthy is that the Albanese Government is presently flirting with this very temptation at a legislative level, with its proposed Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023.

As highlighted by Justin Quill at The Australian:

In short, the bill proposes enormous powers be given to the Australian Communications and Media Authority to force social media companies such as Meta or Twitter to take down posts or tweets that ACMA, in its apparent all-knowing wisdom, decides is false and causes serious harm.

If the information deemed “false” is not taken down, these companies face fines of billions of dollars. No, that is not a misprint, they could face fines in the billions because these fines can be up to 5 per cent of a company’s global turnover, which for Meta could mean a fine of over $8bn given the company’s global turnover is around $170bn.

If there’s another piece of Australian legislation providing for fines of anything even close to that sum, I don’t know of it. So, in a nutshell, the government (through a government agency it declares is “independent”) will decide what is true and what is false, and then determine what you can and can’t read. Given the government can appoint ACMA, direct ACMA and sack ACMA, I’d hardly consider ACMA “independent”.

Australians can laugh it off when the Prime Minister jokes about banning social media in a radio interview. But when he does it in proposed legislation, they should push back.

The ‘Misinformation Bill’ is currently open for public feedback. The Canberra Declaration strongly urges people to write in with their concerns about the bill, which can be done HERE.

Image via Radio 3AW Melbourne.