Institute of Public Affairs (IPA): Misinformation Laws an Assault Upon Free Speech, By James Reed
Many journalists at this blog have covered the issue of the extreme threat posed by the Albo government's Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Act 2024. The Institute of Public Affairs has also made similar criticisms, which are concisely summarised in the extract below. While this is not new material or objections to us, it is in agreement with criticism we have made, and so support is interesting to refer to. All freedom movement people are in agreement that this legislation is a terrible assault upon free speech. Another extract of an article is quoted at the blog today from Zerohedge.com, giving the same view from an American freedom perspective is given.
Australia has fallen into dark times, as the liberal democratic traditions that founded the nation, are slowly being dismantled in favour of the New World Order of global governance.
"Misinformation legislation introduced into federal parliament today represents a chilling assault on every Australian's right to free speech. The new Bill broadens provisions to censor speech, which even the government's fatally flawed first draft did not include," said John Storey, Director of Law and Policy at the Institute of Public Affairs.
The revised Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 grants the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) enormous power to fine social media companies if they are found to have failed to properly censor 'misinformation' and 'disinformation'. The new Bill contains three fundamental flaws:
A revised definition of 'misinformation' to mean content that is 'verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive' would create legal powers for politically biased fact-checkers to determine what is true and false (Clauses 13(1) and 13(2)).
It creates an unelected and unaccountable star chamber bureaucracy with the power to launch investigations and hearings to ensure compliance with censorship guidelines that can target mainstream Australians (Schedule 2, Clause 2).
A new definition of 'serious harm' is even broader than the first bill and can potentially capture any difference of opinion (Clause 14).
"The government's proposed 'misinformation' and 'disinformation' laws are the single biggest attack on freedom of speech in Australia's peacetime history, and have no place in a liberal democracy such as Australia," said Mr Storey.
"The big tech companies will become the censorship and enforcement arm of the federal government to shut down debate and speech that it disagrees with."
"Under these laws even the truth will be no defence. If a citizen were to disseminate information which was factually true, but ACMA or a fact checker labelled it 'misleading' or 'deceptive' because it 'lacked context', then that information would fall within the scope of these laws," said Mr Storey.
The revised legislation has not taken into account the deep concern of many mainstream Australians who can now be targeted by an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy for prosecution for simply stating genuinely held opinions online.
"The federal government has not listened to the concerns about free speech raised by mainstream Australians. Instead, they are pandering to its political base by actually broadening the censorship powers of ACMA, such as introducing by stealth a change to the definition of 'harm' to include 'vilification'," said Mr Storey.
Previous research by the Institute of Public Affairs found that fact-checking organisations were systematically biased and targeted the 'No' campaign in the Voice to Parliament referendum. That research found
So-called 'fact-checkers' published 187 fact checking articles related to the Voice – 170 of these assessments, or 91%, targeted claims of those who supported the No case.
Almost every example supporting the No case was assessed to be false. 99% per cent of assessed claims supporting the No case were deemed 'false', whereas only 59% of the comparatively few claims assessed supporting the Yes case were deemed 'false'."
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