The Australian government’s attempts to police online speech have descended into farce after its ‘world’s first’ eSafety Commissioner admitted it was effectively powerless to stop people re-sharing ‘banned’ posts.
On Tuesday, Daily Mail Australia revealed the Australian government tried to force a Canadian man called Chris Elston to delete an ‘offensive’ post about a UN trans expert, threatening X owner Elon Musk with an $800,000 fine if it was not removed from the platform.
Mr Elston, who goes by the name of ‘Billboard Chris’ on X and lives in Canada, refused to delete the post.
When X subsequently complied with the ‘removal order’ by geo-blocking the post in Australia, Mr Elston simply re-shared the offending post.
In a colossal back-fire for the e-Safety Commissioner, that post alone has been seen over 130,000 times and a concerted campaign to re-share it by others has racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
In response to this publication’s story, Billionaire X owner Musk said: ‘What is the world coming to?’
Now, the taxpayer-funded eSafety Commissioner has admitted it can only block or remove the subsequent posts if other complaints are made by the offended party.
‘eSafety’s Adult Cyber Abuse Scheme is a complaints-based scheme,’ a spokesperson for the eSafety Commissioner told Daily Mail Australia.
‘In cases where a new version of the material has been posted after a removal notice has been issued and complied with, we require a new complaint from the targeted Australian resident – or someone authorised to report on their behalf – to take regulatory action.’
This effectively means the ‘world’s first’ online safety regulator could be engaged in an endless game of whack-a-mole as it attempts to police speech online.
Political figures were lining up to condemn the alleged waste of Aussie taxpayer’s money.
Hellbound and Down 