‘Highly Disturbing’: Australian Government Censorship Gone Too Far

Rebekah Barnett

10 April 2024

7.3 MINS

Aussie mainstream media criticises government’s censorship overreach as Elon Musk’s X threatens to sue. Have we reached a cultural tipping point?

On Australian prime time TV this week, panelists on current affairs show The Project questioned the wisdom of government agencies singling out social media posts for removal, particularly on subjective topics like gender ideology.

The segment marks what may be viewed as a cultural tipping point in years to come.

On Thursday night, The Project covered the latest instalment in an ongoing spat between social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety.

It’s a Goliath vs. Goliath drama that has occupied much of the internet over the past month, and it all started with a social media post.

In February, Canadian activist Chris Elston — known as ‘Billboard Chris’ for wearing a billboard in public carrying messages against practicing gender medicine on children — posted to X:

“This woman (yes she’s a female) is part of a panel of 20 ‘experts’ hired by the WHO to draft their policy on caring for ‘trans people.’ People who belong in psychiatric wards are writing the guidelines for people who belong in psychiatric wards.”

The caption was accompanied by a link to a salacious Daily Mail article detailing the trans-identifying female to male, Teddy Cook’s X-rated proclivities.

The following month, Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety, issued X with a removal notice, threatening an almost $800,000 fine and civil penalty proceedings if the offending post was not taken down within 24 hours.

The removal notice hinged on eSafety’s determination that an “ordinary, reasonable person” would conclude that the post was “intended to cause serious harm to the Complainant.” Remember this — we will come back to it soon.

X complied, removing the post from Australian browsers, but upped the ante with a counter-threat to sue eSafety. Elston is now initiating his own appeal, with assistance from the Free Speech Union of Australia.

The Project Covers the Censorship Scandal

The story was picked up on Thursday by The Project, a mildly progressive, weeknight dinner-time show whose panelists represent the white-bread urban mainstream. While popular in its earlier runs, The Project has struggled in ratings in recent years, perhaps in part due to the challenge of trying to remain interesting while offending no one.

This is not a show that pushes the envelope. On the rare occasions that it does, the backlash is swift and the apologies floweth forth — as when the airing of a dirty Jesus joke made by a professional drag artist caused a national uproar last year, for which The Project swiftly repented.

So when The Project covers an issue, and when the panelists offer a consensus opinion on it, you can bet that the issue and the opinion sit safely within the Overton window. These are the opinions of ordinary, reasonable people.

With this in mind, consider that The Project interviewed Elston for this segment and let him make his case in his own words, rather than speaking for him and characterising him as a ‘far-right transphobe,’ as mainstream media have been inclined to do when reporting on this topic.

In balanced journalistic style, the segment featured two main interviewees, Elston and trans activist Katherine Wolfgramme, who were given equal airtime.

Then consider that The Project went ahead with the following grabs from Elston’s interview:

“I’m on a mission to end what I consider to be child abuse all across the world, the business of trying to change the sex of children.

“I don’t think any unelected bureaucrat, or any elected bureaucrat for that matter, should be determining what we’re allowed to say online.

“There was no incitement to violence… this was just my opinion, and I’m entitled to it.”

The segment also featured footage of Elston wearing a billboard stating “CHILDREN CANNOT CONSENT TO PUBERTY BLOCKERS.”

Screenshot from The Project, 4 April 2024

The Project producers considered the above image safe to run, without overtly distancing themselves with ‘transphobe’ framing.

A voice-over asked viewers, “Has government censorship gone too far, or was eSafety’s action a necessary measure to keep vulnerable Australians safe?”

Host Waleed Aly picked up the thread. “Do we want the government scanning X and picking out individual tweets that it doesn’t like?”

His ordinary, reasonable co-hosts seemed to think not. On the government policing hate on the internet, panelist Jessie Stephens asked what viewers at home were no doubt thinking: “What else is the internet for? That’s what the internet is.”

“I guess the question is about where the line is,” said Stephens, adding that “for one person what’s harassment or abuse is another person’s free speech or another person’s political or personal opinion.”

Another panelist, Georgie Tunny, was worried about online hate directed towards the trans community, but said, “I do find this perplexing… putting all of this effort on this one particular tweet.”

“And now we’re all talking about the tweet more than we would if we’d never reported it,” laughed Stephens.

Indeed, millions of people who would never have seen the social media post censored by eSafety have now seen it on the internet… and the news… and TV, and are having discussions about its content and eSafety’s attempt to censor it.

“This is the Streisand effect in full bloom,” said Elston of the media juggernaut.

Australian Censorship in the Spotlight

In an email after The Project segment aired, Elston told me he was thankful that the show “allowed me to communicate about the mission I’m on to end this child abuse all across the world.”

Though most of his recorded interview didn’t make it into the segment, Elston made his own recording, which he has posted on X. You can watch the 12 minute clip below. The Project also provided the raw footage of Elston’s full interview to him.

Here is the full, unedited footage of my interview with Australian Channel 10’s ‘The Project.’

Last week, the Australian government ordered @X to take down one of my posts critical of Teddy Cook, a trans-idenitifed female appointed to a panel of @WHO ‘experts’ tasked with… pic.twitter.com/eXzUHrtT2q

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) April 4, 2024

Rachael Wong, CEO of Women’s Forum Australia (WFA), said it was great to see a mainstream show like The Project platform one of the most fervent advocates against paediatric gender medicine, billboard and all.

Wong, a campaigner for women’s sex-based rights, told Dystopian Down Under that it was also encouraging to see The Project panelists “genuinely discuss concerns around the eSafety Commissioner’s overreach in this case.”

“This is not the first time the eSafety Commissioner has targeted tweets challenging gender ideology,” said Wong, noting a pattern of opinion policing that she calls “highly disturbing.”

Wong pointed to several posts previously censored by eSafety, including one suggesting that men can’t breastfeed, and another about a trans-identified male who allegedly injured female players during a women’s football game in NSW.

eSafety is headed up by the Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, who has publicly criticised Elon Musk since his purchase of the Twitter platform in 2022 over his advocacy of free speech on the internet.

Inman Grant, who is affiliated with the World Economic Forum (WEF), famously suggested a “recalibration” of human rights in online spaces, including freedom of speech, at a WEF meeting in 2022.

As it stands, however, Elston’s speech is protected under Australian law, asserts the Free Speech Union of Australia (FSU). “We find this decision from the Commissioner to be unduly censorious,” said the FSU in a letter sent to the eSafety Commissioner last week.

While Australia has no First Amendment or bill of rights speech protections, FSU highlighted that under the law, Australians “have a right to freely express their political opinions,” including insults, and eSafety “has no business trying to censor someone living in another country.”

We've sent a letter to Australia's eSafety Commissioner over their attempt to censor a so-called 'anti-trans' post on X. We think the post is protected political communication, so we're asking the Commission for an explanation, and have lodged a freedom of information request. pic.twitter.com/E9RQ6KwpG8

— Free Speech Union of Australia (@FSUofAustralia) March 27, 2024

The FSU is now working with Elston on his appeal against eSafety’s censorship of his post.

“This is a really important case which is fundamental to our democracy,” said Reuben Kirkham, Co-Director of the FSU, in an email to Dystopian Down Under.

Kirkham pointed out that eSafety’s powers under the Online Safety Act are discretionary (per Section 88), which leaves the potential for bias in their application. “We understand that many genuine claims (e.g. doxxing) by [critics of gender ideology] are not being addressed,“ said Kirkham.

As example, in a post on X in January this year, sex-based rights campaigner Angela Jones claimed that eSafety did not act on her complaint to the regulator after she was doxxed and stalked online.

I was doxxed & stalked online & my disabled brother & young kids were tormented by a dangerous psychopath for 6 years. @VictoriaPolice & @eSafetyOffice did nothing. Yet I could have my account suspended for calling an obvious man a man, which is considered “hate” https://t.co/Jy66HttSMI

— Angela Jones (@angijones) January 10, 2024

At the same time, “it is concerning that the Commissioner has also associated herself with Teddy Cook” in the recent past, said Kirkham. In September 2022, eSafety announced Cook’s involvement in crafting online resources promoted by the regulator “to help the LGBTIQ+ community safely navigate the online world.”

Australia’s Plans for Further Censorship

In the end, it was this inconsistent and ad hoc approach to eSafety’s censorship that bothered The Project hosts the most.

Whether or not Elston’s appeal and X’s intended legal action result in the eSafety’s censorship being overturned, it appears that this round can be chalked up as a win for anti-censorship and anti-gender medicine activists.

“The Australian government’s attempt at censoring me has backfired spectacularly,” Elston posted last week.

But The Project panel’s proposed solution to censorship overreach suggests that there is still work to do in educating the public about the Censorship Industrial Complex, and advocating for better ways of dealing with speech and information flows.

“If government (sic) is really worried about abusive environments online, then come up with a structural response to the way that social media companies are allowed to operate… whether it be the filters they’re required to use, or the way their algorithms work,” suggested Aly.

This is essentially what will happen if the Australian Communication and Media Authority’s (ACMA) Misinformation Bill passes into legislation later this year.

Under the draft legislation, ACMA will gain new powers to set and enforce industry standards for digital platforms, with the stated aim of combatting mis- and disinformation.

The bill casts an extraordinarily wide net over the kinds of speech that might be censored, including content that could be construed as posing a threat to certain identities, to the environment, to health, to democratic processes, or to the economy.

Under threat of hefty fines and criminal penalties, platforms will play it safe, most likely implementing blanket filters like Aly suggests. This will have the effect of censoring more speech, not less, on a staggeringly broad range of issues.

After receiving widespread public criticism, with many commentators likening ACMA’s aspirations to a Ministry of Truth, the bill is now being overhauled. (The fact that the government exempted itself from the definition of misinformation probably didn’t help the optics). A final version will be tabled later this year.

The Australian government’s proposed misinformation laws come at a time when governments around the world are cracking down on free speech under the pretence of protecting the public (and democracy) against ‘misinformation’ and/or ‘online harm’, from Europe, to the US, Ireland, Scotland, Canada and Brazil.

Read more at Dystopian Down Under.

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Republished with thanks to Dystopian Down Under. Image courtesy of Unsplash.

About the Author: Rebekah Barnett

Australia / COMMENTARY / Fairness & Justice / Freedom / Gender / Politics / Safety & Security / World

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