Australia’s Wild, Draconian New Speech Law Targeting ‘Misinformation’

Australia and New Zealand are, with the possible exception of Canada, the furthest down the totalitarian rabbit hole of all Western nations.

I have no idea what made these people so docile in the face of brutal government overreach, but I assume it has to have something to do with the relative peace and security on the continent over the years.

Related: The War Down Under (Australia Today, America Tomorrow)

As if they weren’t put-upon enough, “misinformation” on social media is now defined and banned in Australia’s legal canon.

Via Crypto Slate (emphasis added):

“Australia’s Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 continues to ignite heated debate, with critics arguing that the bill risks stifling free speech.

The proposed bill, which targets misinformation related to elections, public health, and critical infrastructure, requires tech companies to establish codes of conduct.

Platforms failing to self-regulate will face standards imposed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which would oversee enforcement. This could include fines of up to 5% of total global revenue for platforms that fail to comply with the new rules.

However, free speech advocates warn that this could have a chilling effect on legitimate public discourse and potentially limit people’s ability to criticize public institutions.”

“Misinformation,” per the legislation, includes content “likely to cause or contribute to serious harm,” a term that includes questioning Public Health™ orthodoxy and, of course, vaguely defined “racism,” among other -isms verboten by Social Justice™.

Via Reclaim the Net (emphasis added):

“Dissemination of content using a digital service is misinformation on the digital service if…

the provision of the content on the digital service is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm…

For the purposes of this Schedule, serious harm is…

harm to public health in Australia, including to the efficacy of preventative health measures in Australia; or

vilification of a group in Australian society distinguished by race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, disability, nationality or national or ethnic origin, or vilification of an individual because of a belief that the individual is a member of such a group.”

The information war is a real war — and it’s an existential one.

Were Substack based in Australia, or Great Britain, or Canada, it would have been illegalized by now. The same for X, and the same for Rumble. The anti-human technocrats with a death-grip on the West understand well that information control is paramount to achieve their objectives — at least so long as popular will retains any of its power that they so fear.

Naturally, corporate state media yarns like steel-spined buildings not hit by airplanes collapsing of their own accord at freefall speed neatly into their own footprints (Building 7) won’t qualify as “misinformation,” and neither will evidence-free claims of weapons of mass destruction possessed by whatever Middle East regime the warmongers want to topple next.

All of the Pentagon and State Department’s lies, and their Australian counterparts’, are totally fine.  

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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