Permanent Canberra's Internet Power Grab: No More Articles Like This if They get Their Way By James Reed

I got the link to the post by Alison Bevege from Rebekah Barnett’s blog, and she shows what pure evil we face, that will lead to internet censorship that will cripple sites like this one, where dissent news and commentary occurs. The government is aiming to change the law so that the existing social media companies, and no doubt, the wider internet, will censor our content   on behalf of the government’s broadcast regulator Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which will set formulate the rules, and we can be sure that these new rules will be draconian. The full details are given by Bevege below, but for those who want a concise summary, the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 will  engage in decentralised censorship  by enforcing “digital platform standards” and “industry codes” on “misinformation and disinformation” with massive fines to social media companies. ACMA will define “truth” and “misinformation” and register industry codes to force Big Tech companies so that the only information available is exactly what the government is pushing. So, all of the posts made today about new research showing the dangers of the Covid vaxxes, for example, even though there is academic research behind, it gets censored since it is contrary to the government line. Coverage of the French riots, even the Voice No case could also get censored.

This is truly the worst assault upon free speech in Australia; even American commentators are alarmed about this. It must be strongly opposed, so once more tell everyone in your circle about it, information to bring you up to speed below, and contact MPs, and freedom movement pollies, like Pauline Hanson, for a start.

https://lettersfromaustralia.substack.com/p/people-who-cant-use-a-spell-check

“People who can't use a spell check or safety test gene-vaccines want to control everything you can see, hear or say online

The biggest threat to your safety is Permanent Canberra's internet power grab. They want to own "truth" then silence what they don't like as "misinformation". You can say no - but not for long

Censorship is power. The one who censors takes power from the one who can’t see.

Permanent Canberra is right now building a digital cage “for your safety”.

They want to change the law so tech corporations censor you on behalf of the government’s broadcast regulator Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which will set the rules. Ever had a strike on YouTube or a FaceBook suspension?

You’ll be safe from ever having a “misinformed” thought again.

Corporations to censor you for Canberra

The proposed legal changes will give ACMA sweeping powers to bring digital platform providers under their censorship framework.

They will outsource censorship to the digital platforms so the government can dishonestly pretend that it is not the one ordering the censoring. It’s decentralised censorship.

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 will do this by enforcing “digital platform standards” and “industry codes” on “misinformation and disinformation” with fines.

ACMA will get to define “truth” and “misinformation” and register industry codes to force Big Tech companies to make sure nothing you write on their platforms contradicts government-approved “truth”.

ACMA will give the digital platforms a chance to come up with their own codes. But whenever ACMA feels it’s necessary or convenient, they can determine whatever standard they like, “in order to provide adequate protection for the community from misinformation or disinformation”, for example at (46) c) here.

It allows ACMA to register a code that restricts (“burdens”) political communication as long as it’s “reasonable and not excessive, having regard to any circumstances the ACMA considers relevant” (Division 4 - Misinformation Codes (37) d) i), ii).

Think political censorship won’t happen? It already did last week when Liberal Democrat John Ruddick gave his maiden speech on being elected to the NSW Upper House. His excellent speech called into question the dangerously rushed gene-vaccines, and it was censored off YouTube. It has since been reinstated 

If this law is passed, you will never again see anything Permanent Canberra doesn’t like on Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, YouTube, Bitchute, Substack or Rumble because ACMA will fine them if they don’t censor you. Some of the fines are 1000, 5000 or 10,000 penalty units.

A Commonwealth penalty unit is now $275. That means a 5000 penalty unit fine is $1.375 million.

The digital firms will have to collect information on your “misinformation” and turn over extensive reporting of their “misinformation and disinformation” policing to ACMA.

That means ACMA can report on its website just how much “false, misleading and deceptive information” there is, to justify why it is virtuous and therefore necessary for the government to police your information.

The politicians you vote for are your advocates in power, giving you a (small) chance to influence the laws made. This new change sidelines them and gives the power to set “misinformation standards” to ACMA. These rules are called “legislative instruments” because they are not passed by Parliament. You can’t vote ACMA in or out, so they don’t have to care if you like it or not. See: (64) Digital platform rules (1).

I describe the covid-products as “gene-vaccines”, because they are.

It’s obvious and factual: both the mRNA products (eg: Pfizer), and the DNA products (eg: AstraZeneca), insert a genetic sequence into your cells instructing them to express an uncontrolled amount of non-human spike protein from the covid-19 virus.

They are nothing like traditional vaccines which are simple doses of weakened or killed virus injected to provoke an immune response.

The two must be differentiated to avoid confusing the public.

Permanent Canberra, however, wants you to confuse them because ordinary vaccines are widely trusted. People would inject them without fuss, helping them achieve their policy goal.

So they don’t like the term “gene-vaccine”.

Last week I sent a media request to the Department of Health and Aged Care with a couple of questions related to the gene-vaccines.

They prefaced their emailed response on Friday with the threatening claim that the term “gene-vaccine” is “false and misleading” (see snip above), using some wrong irrelevancy about DNA.

Observe the sinister terms “false and misleading”.

Think of what that means to a journalist in the context of legislation being passed to force the internet (including Substack) to take down “misinformation”

The new proposed law defines “misinformation” as “the content contains information that is false, misleading or deceptive”.

So my Substack that you are now reading would be taken down under the new law, and I could be disappeared from the internet, because the Department of Health and Aged Care could complain to Substack, call it “misinformation” (even though it isn’t) and cite the ACMA code. Substack would comply or face fines.

The people to own “truth” can’t use spell check

Who are these people that want the power to define everything you can see, hear or say online? Surprise! It’s Permanent Canberra.

These are the exact same people who told you it was a great idea to compress 15 years of medical safety testing into less than six months, censoring anyone who said it might not be safe to do so, including all doctors.

The resulting new gene-vaccines are so dangerous that the excess death rate soared by 15.3 percent in 2022, a figure which Permanent Canberra pretends to be baffled by.

Home Affairs and the Department of Health and Aged Care used “community standards” reporting to get Facebook and Twitter to silence the voices of jab-injured people.

Senator Gerard Rennick, who helped the gene-vaccine injured, was censored by FaceBook. When he posted the true story of Faith Ranson, a Tasmanian teenager injured by her second Pfizer shot, it couldn’t be shared. “No one else can see your post” is what Facebook wrote (screenshot below). “Your post goes against our Community Standards on misinformation that could cause physical harm”.

The government was completely wrong about the gene-vaccines. They were not safe. They did not reduce transmission. They injured people. The vaccinologists, doctors and scientists who warned this would happen were censored - you could still find their voices on places like Rumble.

Under this new law, the government can fine Rumble so you won’t be able to hear those voices of dissent anywhere. And they still do not admit they were wrong. ACMA still refers to criticism of gene-vaccines as “Covid-19 misinformation”.

The government likes censorship because it gets you to comply with their policies even when they are stupid or harmful. It lets them set the Overton Window and gives them power to manage you like little children. It enables bureaucrats to hide mistakes, incompetence, criminality and corruption from you.

If you could see it, there might be consequences.

That is why the Government wants to control “truth” on the internet, the only place where wild voices like Alex Jones or Maria Zeee can still be heard.

It’s not to “protect the community from misinformation”, it’s to protect Permanent Canberra from you.

This will also censor your newspapers

You think your local newspaper (print or online) won’t be affected? Wrong.

Newspapers and the journalists whose bylines are in them are reliant on social media sharing for their voices to be amplified.

The goal of news websites such as Daily Mail Australia or News.com.au is to have their stories go viral. That brings ad revenue. It’s the business model. For individual journalists whose byline is on the story, it’s the metric of success. They chase clicks.

This means the government can most effectively censor them by getting Big Tech to turn down the volume on stories they don’t like. Just like Facebook did to Gerard Rennick’s post of Faith Ranson (above). They won’t get clicks and will be discouraged.

Journalists dependent on clicks can also have their careers destroyed by personal blacklisting.

Before Elon Musk, Twitter used blacklisting against Stanford University professor of medicine Jay Bhattacharya, who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration challenging the covid response orthodoxy.

Professor Bhattacharya was put on a “Trends Blacklist” so his tweets could never trend and Twitter users - mostly journalists and policy makers - would be unlikely to see them.

This is far more effective for government than ordering journalists what to print. It’s hidden censorship because they police themselves.

The government doesn’t have to tell media outlets not to run stories critical of gene-vaccines, they just go nowhere, regardless of how worthy or true or important they are.

Traditional media companies have also entered into revenue sharing agreements under the news media bargaining code with tech platforms Meta (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) and Google (YouTube). This established that social media firms must share ad revenue with traditional media whose work is shared widely on their platforms. This is another incentive to keep traditional journalism in line with any new digital codes.

This all partly explains why corporate media outlets so often refused to report the true stories of gene-vaccine injured Australians from 2021 through 2022 - these news stories were not able to be shared on Facebook and Twitter.

Conversely, stories that pushed the government’s vaccination policy goals were amplified by social media - stories mocking the opponents of coerced gene-vaccines as “cookers” got instant boosting. News.com.au, Crikey and the ABC all opened their doors to anonymous (and therefore dishonest) media influence operation Cookerwatch for easy clickbait.

This incentive makes it easy for news editors to internalise the censorship. They don’t even realise they’re doing it.

Corporate media are in Plato’s cave

Many journalists thought they were doing the right thing and were being responsible by not giving “anti-vaxxers” a fair hearing. In the first half of 2021, all corporate news outlets thought covid was a bigger threat than it really was and that the gene-vaccines were safe and would help stop the pandemic, due to government misinformation.

This was all entirely wrong, but the safety net of dissent and criticism was gone.

Permanent Canberra used its allies in academia, Big Tech and industry to control the information environment. They created an echo chamber so news media would enforce its gene-vaccine policies as true believers. Permanent Canberra never stopped to ask: could we be wrong? They created a system-level failure.

Avi Yemini from Rebel News revealed a leaked video in July 2021 showing Daily Mail Australia editor Barclay Crawford telling journalists to discredit gene-vaccine critics.

“If we’re doing something that is airing anti-vax views, make sure we’re also dismissing them in the story … make sure your stories are rubbishing their ridiculous claims,” he said.

I have defended Barclay. He was my editor at Daily Mail and he is not a bad person. He genuinely believed in July 2021 that medical science had provided a vaccine to help us and that “anti-vaxxers” were therefore a threat to public health. He was just trying to be responsible, and didn’t realise that we were in the middle of a system-wide failure. All other media were doing the exact same thing in various ways.

This is not to defend the way media censored people - that is the entire problem. But if you don’t understand how good people get trapped into the system then you can’t fix it. If you demonise people because you want a villain then you make worse problems.

When you take away all reference points, good people do bad things - even when trying their best. You can’t have free thought without access to all the information.

That is why the government must be prevented from building public-private partnerships with corporations to enforce their policies by stealth.

Permanent Canberra is building a mind-cage for us all, an information environment in which you will have no uncontrolled reference points. You will be in Plato’s cave looking at shadows on the wall.

This was an important story from Rebel/Avi Yemeni because it is a scoop that shed light on media attitudes in every newsroom in the nation - and they are all echo chambers.

Barclay wasn’t alone - all the major media outlets were doing the exact same thing including the ABC which participated in smearing those who opposed the coerced injections and never investigated the safety problems.

Here’s the ABC lying about how “safe” they were.

They all refused to listen to the other side. They wanted the certainty of believing opponents of the gene-vaccines were all unhinged or stupid.

Here’s Lisa Muxworthy, editor of News.com.au, an online masthead that sometimes gives favourable coverage to Cookerwatch.

In this re-tweet from January 2021, people who objected to face masks are compared to dirty disease spreaders who don’t wash their hands before touching your food.

No doubt this was retweeted from a desire to encourage people to wear masks.

At first, experts told us covid was spread by fomites, and the mask would protect others from your droplets. But now that we know that masks don’t work. A face mask is a splash guard - it inhibits droplets but it can’t stop a respiratory virus. If you can smell coffee through your mask, you can catch covid through your mask.

The gold standard of science, the Cochrane Collaboration, has found no evidence masks work, but the tweet is still there.

Notice how Ms Muxworthy’s re-tweet invokes the disgust response against those who opposed mask wearing. This was pervasive in early 2021. Even Barclay referred to “anti-vax” ideas as a “disease”.

This shows just how extreme the climate was in 2021. It was considered acceptable to mock people who got in the way of the government’s covid policy. Memes were circulated comparing “anti-vaxxers” to filthy plague rats. In the 1930s Adolf Hitler used the disgust response in the same way against communists and Jews. He called them a moral pestilence, infecting the nation with “filthy” ideas.

Letters From Australia has asked both Barclay Crawford and Lisa Muxworthy to allow a gene-vaccine injured person from Jab Injuries Australia and regulatory expert Phillip Altman to come in and talk to the newsrooms so they can ask questions and hear reason from the other side. They would not call them “anti-vaxxers” if they only listened for five minutes.

They so far have not responded.

Who else is building this mind-cage

In 2015 Permanent Canberra set up an eSafety Commissioner to stop online bullying, (instead of teaching kids strategies to disagree with respect).

This eSafety Commissioner has incredible power. Under the Online Safety Act 2021, the Commissioner’s functions include “coordinating activities of Commonwealth Departments, authorities and agencies relating to online safety for Australians”.

There it is again - “your safety” - it’s all for you. “Safety” can mean anything.

One of old Twitter’s censorship experts, Julie Inman Grant, is now Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, a role she used in June to threaten Twitter with fines of up to $700,000 per day if they don’t crack down on “hate speech”.

“Hate speech” - like “misinformation” and “disinformation” means whatever the government wants, to suppress dissent.

Ms Grant was appointed one of the “#Agile50, the world’s most influential leaders revolutionising government” by global corporate lobby group the World Economic Forum (WEF), her profile says.

The WEF represents the world’s 1000 biggest corporations who want a “fourth industrial revolution” to sideline participatory democracy so they can govern you through technology, using the state for muscle.

You won’t know where the corporation ends and the government begins. Technological corporatism. In other words, “fascism”. The WEF is international fascism, pretending to be philanthropy.

They appoint people. They are stakeholders with a voice. They have public-private partnerships and secret contracts. You have only one vote.

Hate speech is free speech

In her media release threatening Twitter with $700,000 per day fines, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said she wants “hate speech” off the platform.

Well, who defines “hate speech”?

Thanks to Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, and Matt Taibbi’s excellent reporting at Racket News, we have all learnt that the censored “hate speech” included university professors warning lockdowns were wrong, doctors who questioned the safety of the dangerous gene-vaccines, and people who supported former US President Donald Trump. Many kicked off the platform were removed for political reasons. A censorship industrial complex of government-backed think tanks and Democrat operatives manipulated the platform. Home Affairs had a go, too.

Ms Inman Grant worked at Twitter before Elon Musk fixed it. She was irked by his removal of the “public policy representation” in Australia, which is Permanent Canberra’s hotline for take-down requests - the one you don’t get to use.

She appears to confuse words with physical violence, a conflation that justifies banning speech on safety grounds as a physical threat might.

“Online invective can be launched like a ballistic missile, hitting its designated mark and disseminating its toxin to millions of people in an instant,” she wrote in Tech Policy Press.

Really? A missile blows things up. Mean words are just words. They are not toxins, unlike the gene-vaccines which really did maim and kill people.

Describing the speech of others as a “toxin” reminds me of another time: the 1930s, when Adolf Hitler said the Jewish press was “hate speech”. In Mein Kampf, Hitler complained the authorities had been too slow to censor the Jewish intellectual press.

“Indeed such action might trespass on the freedom of the Press, that expression being a euphemism under which such papers escape legal punishment for deceiving the public and poisoning the public mind,” he wrote.

Isn’t “deceiving the public” the same as “misinformation and disinformation”?

We are importing censorship as advocated by Adolf Hitler.

In this WEF panel session, Ms Inman Grant said it’s necessary to recalibrate human rights online “from freedom of speech to the freedom to be free from online violence”.

We cannot have even basic freedom with Permanent Canberra, influenced by the WEF, telling us what “hate speech” is, confusing words with physical violence.

 

As Glenn Greenwald explains, the speaker of words should almost never be held responsible for the choice by others to commit violence unless the incitement is extremely direct and imminent.

This is because anyone can be inspired by anything to commit violence. This is especially true of all political speech. Holding the speaker responsible for the actions of others would make political speech impossible.

The Americans have a First Amendment Constitutional free speech protection, and their courts have so far decided that the limits must be interpreted extremely narrowly.

In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the US Supreme Court established that speech advocating illegal conduct is protected under the First Amendment unless it is likely to incite “imminent lawless action.”

The case in question was of Clarence Brandenburg, a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader in Ohio, who let loose at a rally with the worst racist invective you could imagine.

The Supreme Court found that the First Amendment protection covered even his most hateful of speech. To lose the protection, speech would have to:

1) be directed at producing imminent lawless action, and

2) be likely to produce such action.

 

 

The United States has thrashed out these issues to a sensible conclusion. Hate speech is indeed free speech. You should not have the right not to be offended.

Australia needs a First Amendment to protect the free speech rights of every Australian. That first right protects all the others.

Truth is a rainbow: you can’t grab it for a whip

The real problem underneath this mess is certainty.

People are so certain they know the “truth”.

Journalists want to open the window on observable reality as much as possible. Scientists want to pin it down through the logical application of experiment and observation.

But the truth is a rainbow. Every time you get close it moves slightly away. It’s beautiful and you can run to it, but you can’t ever catch it.

There is no truth, there are only probabilities. Nobody has a monopoly on truth.

Deciding that you own the truth is the warrant and justification for crushing and censoring others as “misinformation and disinformation”.