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Labor’s Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 attempts to label opinions and facts, that don’t suit the government’s narratives, as “misinformation”, “disinformation”, or “harmful” on social media.

Labor’s previous version of the Bill was widely condemned as heavy-handed and Orwellian, and not much has changed in this new version of the Bill introduced in the House of Representatives last week.

If passed, this Bill would allow the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to issue fines of up to $3,130,000 (5,000 penalty units) or 2% of annual turnover (whichever is greater) for body corporates (i.e., social media platforms) or $626,000 (2,000 penalty units) for individuals.

Obviously, this places immense pressure on social media platforms to remove opinions that are not “government approved” and discourages individual users from contradicting the current Government narratives.

Thanks to a Freedom of Information request from my office, we know that during COVID, the Department of Home Affairs pressured social media platforms to “shadow ban” and delete thousands of posts that contradicted the Department of Health’s advice.

Many of those posts turned out to be factually accurate.

Had this Bill been in effect during COVID, social media companies and individual Australians could have received huge fines for posting true statements.

Speak Up Now

Two weeks ago, the Senate referred this Bill to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications, and you can have your say about the Labor Government’s Ministry of Truth Bill by making a submission using the link below.

CLICK HERE TO MAKE A SUBMISSION

We need to raise our collective voices about this issue, so I would also encourage you to share this piece with your family and friends, and invite them to sign up to receive my regular e-newsletters.

The question, as always, is this: who defines what is harmful? This Bill provides an easy mechanism for governments to silence political opponents and those who hold inconvenient beliefs.

Why should Australians trust that ACMA’s powers would not be politicised?

Mainstream media outlets, of course, would be unaffected. Thankfully, some media outlets are discussing this issue. I recently spoke about it on Sky News:

I will continue to oppose this Bill, do my best to raise awareness about it, and speak on your behalf in the Senate.

To spread the word and oppose this Bill, I invite you to sign my petition below and tell the Communications Minister that you oppose Labor’s creation of a Ministry of Truth to silence Australians.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE

Together, we can fight this Bill.

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Image courtesy of Adobe.