There are strong allegations of state censorship, such as banning media coverage of the Melbourne protests, through to mobile phone outages. Naturally enough I did not find coverage of this at any mainstream sites, but it was extensively discussed at Tottnews.com. I thus cannot guarantee at this point that the story is fully correct, but in the present war zone, we take with a bag of salt what information we have. There are reports (and photos posted on social media) of a guy being shot in the head by the police using a rubber bullet, who allegedly died, but no mainstream coverage of this, so who knows anymore? From lockdown, in my own personal prison, I certainly don’t.
“Late yesterday afternoon, Victoria Police banned media organisations from taking aerial footage of protests against vaccination passport mandates, in a major blow to the freedom of the press.
News organisations would have to apply to the police force to be permitted to fly their helicopters inside 250km, and a blanket ban was originally placed on live broadcasts.
Police claimed protesters were using the live aerial footage to learn the location of officers.
A number of news personalities expressed concerns, including Nine’s national director of news and current affairs, who appeared on 3AW to comment:
“We’re not a police state, it’s very unprecedented, and it’s very uncomfortable the decision that’s been made. We need to cover [protests]. We live in an open, free society, we’re a democracy. We allow these basic freedoms to disappear now, what comes next?”
The restriction was altered after the media raised concerns of overreach.”
See, the police are loving and caring after all. A police state would just be like having teddy bears rock you to sleep every night after tucking you in. With tear gas.