Tag: australia

The Face Behind Australia’s Censorship Push

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has made international headlines over alleged censorship creep in an escalating standoff with social media platform X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

Inman Grant’s current crusade is not an isolated affair. She is a key player in a growing network of international initiatives seeking to impose bureaucratic controls over citizens’ speech, including coordinating with high-level EU officials, the World Economic Forum, and government-backed “anti-disinformation” projects such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 

The fracas with Musk involves Inman Grant obtaining an interim injunction to force X to hide footage of the non-fatal stabbing of a Bishop, which was live-streamed during a Western Sydney church service on Monday evening 15 April. 

​​X Global Affairs says the platform complied with a removal notice from the Commissioner to restrict content visibility to Australian audiences, but has challenged a further “unlawful” demand that X “globally withhold these posts or face a daily fine of $785,000 AUD.”

“Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian “eSafety Commissar” is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?” Musk posted to X.

eSafety would not confirm if the removal notice ordered that X withhold the footage globally or just within Australia, but in a statement released on 23 April, the Commissioner confirmed that eSafety will seek a permanent injunction and civil penalties against X Corp over the matter. 

Politicians on both sides of the aisle have come out swinging in support of Inman Grant, calling for more online censorship as they seek to exploit two recent knife attacks, one of which claimed six lives to relaunch a shelved misinformation bill, with the center-right opposition flipping its position to now support the legislation.

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New ABC Fact-Checkers, Same Problems?

Australia’s public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), proudly announced in 2022 that it had partnered with the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), an international alliance of major news corporations and Big Tech firms, to counter the growing threat of “fake news.”

It was part of sweeping reforms in the media to deliver ‘trusted’ news to global audiences and protect the public from the harms of misinformation and disinformation online.

Spearheaded by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), partners include Reuters, the Associated Press, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, and ABC Australia, along with social media and tech giants – Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Microsoft (LinkedIn), and Google (YouTube) to name a few.

When ABC announced its new alliance with TNI, Justin Stevens, ABC News Director said, “We’re pleased to join the Trusted News Initiative and, in the process, provide Australian audiences with a deeper and better-informed view of our region and the world.”

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Australia’s eSafety commissioner and the Global Internet Censorship Network

Twitter owner Elon Musk should be thrown in prison, said a senator in Australia yesterday, because he refuses to delete a video of a recent stabbing from Twitter globally. “Whatever Elon Musk is on,” said Senator Jacqui Lambie, “it’s disgusting behaviour. Quite frankly, the bloke should be jailed.”

But what’s truly disgusting behaviour is calling for the incarceration of someone for refusing to censor the entire global Internet on behalf of a single nation. It is not the right of any nation to decide what should be on the Internet around the world. “No president, prime minister, or judge,” responded Musk on Twitter, “has authority over all of Earth!” He’s right.

It’s true that violent content online can be disturbing. I think platforms should put warning labels on them and find some way to prevent minors from seeing it. I also think there are real privacy concerns that should be addressed.

But violence is not the only thing the Australian government has told Twitter to remove. It has also targeted political speech. And nothing can justify the Australian government censoring the entire global Internet of content it does not like.

Many of us, myself included, have long suspected that government censors in Ireland, Scotland and the European Union would attempt to censor the whole of the internet, not just in their own countries. With Brazil and now Australia demanding the power to censor the whole internet, it’s clear that our fears were more than justified.

And now, Public has learned that there is a formal government censorship network called the ‘Global Online Safety Regulators Network’, which Australia’s top internet censor, Julie Inman Grant, who is an American, described at the World Economic Forum. The group includes censors from Australia, France, Ireland, South Africa, Korea, the UK and Fiji.

[Note: The UK’s Office of Communications (“Ofcom”) is one of the seven members of the Global Online Safety Regulators Network.]

But before getting to that, it’s first important to understand just how powerful she is. Here is Julie Inman Grant, boasting of her extraordinary censorship powers. “Yes, we do regulate the platforms. We have a big stick that we can use when we want to … They’re going to be regulated in ways that they don’t want to be regulated.”

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Australian PM Calls For Crackdown on Memes About Himself

Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese has endorsed social media censorship of satirical memes about him.

Albanese insinuated that social media platforms are duty-bound to suppress the so-called “misinformation” present on their sites.

Albanese noted, “I noticed today, for example, on the way up here that they removed various sites that were up containing fake images of myself superimposed on other people. That’s just the sort of thing that’s going on on social media. Social media has a responsibility to do the right thing here.”

X has initiated a legal challenge against the Australian government following an unprecedented court order mandating global content censorship. This move comes after the Australian Federal Court ordered X to block worldwide access to posts showing a violent stabbing in a Sydney church, despite X already geo-blocking the content within Australia​.

Musk has openly criticized the Australian government, accusing it of attempting to impose censorship on a global scale. He argues that such court orders set a dangerous precedent, allowing any country to exert control over the entire internet. This approach threatens the foundational principles of free speech and the open internet, undermining users’ rights to access information from around the world.

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Orwellian Sydney Police: We Will Be the “Source of Truth”

Offering a fresh perspective on the fallout of a recent Sydney stabbing attack, residents have expressed their anger and mistrust toward the police who have insisted they alone should be the arbiter of truth in this incident. These sentiments stem from a press briefing given by New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb last Thursday.

Webb, who was sharing information about a 16-year-old male being accused of terrorism following the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of Christ The Good Shepherd Church, asserted that the police will be the utterly reliable source of updates. She warned against “misinformation,” but decided not to elaborate on what she was alluding to.

“I also want to stress that there is misinformation being communicated across social media, and people should not share any of that information,” Webb said. “The source of information should be from police and law enforcement authorities. And if people have concerns they should check our websites, our socials, and any other direct news from law enforcement about current information. If we have current credible information about any risk or threat to the community, we will let them know, we will share that with the community. But please be assured that police will be the source of truth and not social media and misinformation.”

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Australian high school class explicitly explains bestiality as part of LGBTQ lessons

A high school in Australia is under investigation by the South Australia Department for Education after it hosted an unsupervised presentation for young girls that explicitly explained bestiality as part of a sex ed lesson about LGBTQ+.

Renmark High School’s principal, Mat Evans, issued a letter of apology to parents who heard that their children left in disgust during the session on March 22 given by a third-party presenter and put on by Headspace Berri.

The apology read that the school was “taking this matter very seriously” and had “raised concerns” with the speaker from Headspace located in Berri who has been suspended from operating in government schools while the Education Department investigates, per The Advertiser.

Evans also stated the school had launched an internal review due to the normal procedure of “notifying parents of specific presentations was not followed.”

“I apologise unreservedly for that,” he said in the letter sent on March 25.

“I acknowledge that some of the students felt uncomfortable with this content, and there have been a number of complaints from parents,” he said.

“I’d like to thank those parents for raising these concerns with me directly and apologise to those families.”

He said that the internal review would “ensure that processes around such notifications, and procedures with regard to third parties attending at our school are always met in future.”

Horrified parents learned that their daughters in year 9 at the school had been pulled from their regular lessons and placed in a separate classroom with the Headspace Berri facilitators and the speaker without the supervision of a teacher. They had not been notified of the presentation or had consented to it.

“We had a teacher that told us to grab a chair and sit in front of the board, and then the Headspace people came in and then [the teacher] left, so then we’re sitting in front of a board alone with no teachers, just the Headspace people,” 14-year-old student Courtney White said, according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The title slide of the presentation read “You can see queerly now. Now point in hiding.” 

14-year-old Emelia Wunderberg said all the girls felt extremely “uncomfortable” as the presenter went into graphic detail about their sexuality and then showed a slide about what each component in “LGBTQIA+” meant.

“There was a slide for what the ‘plus’ means, and they just started randomly saying words that no-one knew, like bestiality,” Emelia said. “They said [the queer community] just accepts all of it, even though … isn’t it illegal?”

“We’re all just sitting there like, ‘What the hell? What are we doing here? Why are we learning about animals having sex with humans?'” she said.

“It was really disgusting, it was really uncomfortable.”

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A WORLD FIRST ! AUSTRALIAN SENATE TO INVESTIGATE EXCESS DEATHS !

You would think that any Federal Government would jump at the chance to launch an inquiry to investigate why there are so many unexplained non-COVID Excess Deaths in Australia and around the world following the release of the COVID-19 “vaccines”.

But no, the Labor Party voted against Senator Ralph Babet’s motion to investigate Excess Deaths. The Albanese Labor Government obviously does not care if you live or die but, fortunately, they were defeated!

Congratulations Senator Babet!

CLICK HERE to watch a 2 minute video of the vote and announcement. It was a narrow victory – 31 to 30.

Below are the details from Senator Babet.

Finally!! Excess deaths to be investigated by the Senate

I’ve been trying repeatedly for two years and yesterday the Senate finally voted in favour of investigating excess deaths. 

For the past few years Australians have been dying in excess numbers without adequate explanation. 

Excess mortality is not just a transitory phenomenon. In 2022 we experienced our highest excess death rate since World War Two. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) provisional mortality statistics released last month confirm that to November 2023 there were 15,114 or 10% more deaths than the baseline average. 

My successful motion means that the Community Affairs References Committee will be tasked with the job of investigating the factors contributing to excess mortality. 

Submissions will be requested from the general public with public hearings expected to follow. The committee will prepare a report by 31st August 2024. 

Fifth time’s the charm! This is the fifth time I have moved a motion on excess deaths. Finally, the Senate has agreed an investigation is warranted. 

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And so it begins … the damage caused by the C19 injections requires an increase in – diagnostic, mitigation of symptoms with rehabilitation – protocols and qualified staff – until a cure is found

From here (h/t (100) AUCKLAND HOSPITAL CONFIRMS WAITING TIME ON CARDIOLOGY APPOINTMENT LIST… (substack.com): )

(11) NZ and the MRNA on X: “AUCKLAND HOSPITAL CONFIRMS WAITING TIME ON CARDIOLOGY APPOINTMENT LIST… Our vaccine injured Kiwi called Auckland Hospital this morning to confirm how long she would have to wait to see a Cardiologist as an outpatient? She did this following information from her doctor….that… https://t.co/6gNJH4QZwT” / X (twitter.com)

“AUCKLAND HOSPITAL CONFIRMS WAITING TIME ON CARDIOLOGY APPOINTMENT LIST…

Our vaccine injured Kiwi called Auckland Hospital this morning to confirm how long she would have to wait to see a Cardiologist as an outpatient?

She did this following information from her doctor…. that was so extreme she decided to check the facts herself.

Today Auckland Hospital confirms A MINIMUM OF TWO YEAR WAIT TO SEE A CARDIOLOGIST AS AN OUTPATIENT

I wonder how many people will die in the meantime?”

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Mystery ship that vanished with 32 crew members finally found after 120 years

A 120-year-old mystery of a missing ship that vanished without a trace off the coast of Australia has finally been solved — thanks to undersea explorers who stumbled on it by luck.

The SS Nemesis was transporting coal to Melbourne, Australia, in July 1904 when it got caught in a powerful storm off New South Wales and vanished along with its 32 crew members.

In the weeks after the storm, bodies of crew members and fragments of the ship’s wreckage washed ashore at Cronulla Beach about 18 miles south of Sydney.

The SS Nemesis was found accidentally, after it vanished off the coast of Australia in 1904.

The loss generated a media storm and intense public interest, but wreckage of the 240-foot vessel was never found and its final resting place remained a mystery.

Subsea Professional Marine Services, a remote sensing company searching the ocean floor off the coast of Sydney for lost cargo in 2022, accidentally stumbled upon the missing shipwreck.

The wreck was found completely untouched, about 16 miles offshore under nearly 525 feet of water.

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How Australian undercover police ‘fed’ an autistic 13-year-old’s fixation with Islamic State

Counter-terrorism police encouraged an autistic 13-year-old boy in his fixation on Islamic State in an undercover operation after his parents sought help from the authorities.

The boy, given the pseudonym Thomas Carrick, was later charged with terror offences after an undercover officer “fed his fixation” and “doomed” the rehabilitation efforts Thomas and his parents had engaged in, a Victorian children’s court magistrate found.

Thomas spent three months in custody before he was granted bail in October 2022, after an earlier bail was revoked because he failed to comply with conditions.

Thomas, an NDIS recipient with an IQ of 71, was first reported to police by Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and then by his parents because of his fixation with Islamic State, which included him accessing extremist material online and making threats to other students.

On 17 April 2021, his parents went to a police station and asked for help because Thomas was watching Islamic State-related videos on his computer and had asked his mother to buy bomb-making ingredients such as sulphur and acetone.

Thomas was investigated and charged with two terror offences by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT), which comprises Australian federal police, Victoria police and Asio members.

The court granted a permanent stay on the charges in October last year, but a copy of the decision has only recently been published.

“The community would not expect law enforcement officers to encourage a 13-14 year old child towards racial hatred, distrust of police and violent extremism, encouraging the child’s fixation on ISIS,” magistrate Lesley Fleming said in the decision.

“The community would not expect law enforcement to use the guise of a rehabilitation service to entice the parents of a troubled child to engage in a process that results in potential harm to the child.

“The conduct engaged in by the JCTT and the AFP falls so profoundly short of the minimum standards expected of law enforcement offices [sic] that to refuse this [stay] application would be to condone and encourage further instances of such conduct.”

Fleming found the JCTT also deliberately delayed charging Thomas with offences until after he turned 14, as it made it harder for him to use the defence of doli incapax, which refers to the concept that a child is not criminally responsible for their actions.

Police also inappropriately searched Thomas’s property shortly before he was charged, Fleming found.

“There was a deliberate, invasive and totally inappropriate search of [Thomas’s] bedroom without lawful excuse.

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