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Here’s why I’m cheering for ‘Billboard Chris’ Elston’s in his lawsuit against Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.

I’ve never met Canada’s Chris Elston — better known as ‘Billboard Chris’ — but I hope he prevails in court against Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. Bigly.

Chris travels the world advocating for children’s rights, and is best known for wearing a billboard stating, “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers” — a bold message that often invites lively conversation with members of the public.

But Chris found himself in trouble with Australian authorities when he posted on X criticising Australian transgender activist Teddy Cook. Almost immediately, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant ordered the post’s removal, citing Australia’s Online Safety Act.

His post, made in February 2024, challenged Cook’s appointment to a World Health Organization panel tasked with drafting healthcare guidelines. Chris accurately referred to Cook as a woman, and questioned whether a promoter of bondage and bestiality was a suitable candidate for shaping global health policy.

Grant deemed the post offensive, claiming it misgendered Cook and could cause serious harm. She threatened X with a fine of up to $782,500 if it didn’t comply within 24 hours, forcing the platform to geoblock the post in Australia.

Backed by the Human Rights Law Alliance and supported by Alliance Defending Freedom International, Chris appealed the decision. His case is set for a five-day hearing starting March 31, 2025, in Australia’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

This week, Chris arrives in Australia for the hearing, which represents a pivotal moment for free speech in Australia.

Thank you once again to Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, for attempting to keep my dangerous views away from Australians.

It’s working wonderfully, as you can see by this national TV appearance. @tweetinjules, children are beautiful just as they are; no drugs or… pic.twitter.com/0fHTqjeT2K

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇦🇺 (@BillboardChris) April 28, 2024

The Four Stages of Censorship

Why is it important that Chris Elston wins his case?

The eSafety Commissioner’s move to censor Chris was a repressive act that hurts all Australians. In many ways, it typifies how Western civilisation is losing its way, and abandoning freedom for tyranny.

When I look at the war on free speech taking place across the West, I see it progressing through four major stages.

It began in the 1990s, when we were pressured to lie to ourselves and each other under the rubric of political correctness. Political correctness was voluntary, and the cost was relatively small: If you don’t lie like the rest of us, you’ll be frowned upon in polite society.

The second stage was cancel culture, which dominated the last half of the 2010s. Cancel culture was almost identical to political correctness, but now it came with a material cost: If you don’t lie like the rest of us, you’ll lose your reputation and maybe even your job.

The third stage was DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion. DEI ensured the lying was formalised as policy throughout the entire corporate world and every major social institution. Now the cost was even higher: If you don’t lie like the rest of us, there is no place for you at all in the professional world.

Finally, stage four was the global rollout of misinformation and disinformation laws, which came with the highest cost of all: If you don’t lie like the rest of us, you will face fines and possibly even jail.

I can only thank God that Australia recently dodged this bullet, with the Albanese Government recently abandoning its bid to make lying mandatory via its unpopular MAD bill. (However, I remain fearful the major parties will reintroduce similar bills in the future).

But even without misinformation laws, Australians still face a whole web of “hate speech” laws and “online safety” legislation that restricts our freedom of speech. So far reaching is it that Chris Elston — a Canadian — found himself entangled by it.

The Real Disinformation Superspreaders

In this little excursion through history, have I been too harsh in describing the enforced consensus as “lying”?

I don’t believe I have — I think “lying” is the perfect description.

At the heart of Billboard Chris’ court case is one of the most obvious lies of all: that a woman who thinks she’s a man is a man — and we all have to play along with it.

As Jordan Peterson has said, there’s no bigger lie than this. “If you’ll swallow that, no future camel will choke you… You only have to sell your soul to the devil once.”

There is literally no bigger lie than a man can be a woman.

If you’ll swallow that, no future camel will choke you.

That’s why you’re being asked to do so.

You only have to sell your soul to the devil once. https://t.co/ss1vOKMZfW

— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) January 21, 2024

The irony in Chris’ case — and in the whole supposed war against disinformation — is that it’s being waged by disinformation superspreaders.

Our culture’s elites — of whom the eSafety Commissioner is a shining example — are the same people who:

• Peddle the chemical and surgical castration of children as “gender-affirming care”
• Covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline
• Pushed Net Zero policies that are sending us broke
• Sold the Voice referendum as unstoppable
• Called the Wuhan lab leak a conspiracy theory, even as they hid the truth from us
• Said Hunter Biden’s laptop was a “Russian op”
• Called January 6 the darkest day in America and the Black Lives Matter riots “mostly peaceful protests”

These are the same people trying to convince us that men can become pregnant and compete in women’s sports, obesity is beautiful, governments can decide what to inject into their citizens, racism is good if it hurts white people, a climate apocalypse is upon us… the list of outlandish lies goes on and on.

In short, the people trying to police disinformation are the ones most responsible for it.

Australias eSafety Commissioner, the far-left trans activist who wants to “recalibrate free speech,” @tweetinjules, is once again speaking about her totalitarian desire to censor the internet.pic.twitter.com/fO7ZdqAICR

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇦🇺 (@BillboardChris) July 20, 2024

This is why Chris must win. And it’s why we must keep fighting for free speech.

We cannot allow lying to be made mandatory.

So I’ll be praying for you Chris. Godspeed!