The Silencing of Everyday Aussies
The Australian Government, once again, is pushing for yet more restrictions on what can be said online.
“Eppur si muove” (and yet, it moves)
Galileo Galilei, as he was convicted by the Catholic Church of “misinformation” (for stating that the Earth moves around the Sun).
Australia is going through some pretty tough times and we can all feel it: from interest rates, inflation, energy prices and more, they all contribute to our shared sensation of instability and uncertainty. There is however a topic that has received much less media attention, and the cynical reader would say this is intentional: the upcoming proposed “Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023”. I will refer to it simply as the “Misinformation Bill”.
I have explored in the past the complexities of determining the truthfulness of information in general, and how this complexity quickly devolves into the more practical question of who gets to say what is “true”. The Misinformation Bill appears to be exactly that: the Australian Government under Anthony Albanese wants to push for a bill to give the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) the power to determine what is mis- and dis-information, arguably indirectly, by pushing those who are mandated to comply with the Code to be developed to “report” to the ACMA regarding said matters, and force them to comply with whatever code is developed. The last paragraph of the simplified outline of the bill reads as follows (emphasis mine):
Where there is no registered misinformation code, a registered misinformation code is deficient or there are exceptional and urgent circumstances, the ACMA may determine a standard to provide adequate protection for the community from misinformation or disinformation on digital platform services. Digital platform providers are required to comply with misinformation standards that apply to them.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported in late June that “social media giants will be hit with millions of dollars in fines if they repeatedly fail to remove disinformation and misinformation from their platforms”, and although it also reported that “the government says the ACMA would not have a role in determining what is true or false”, there is little insurance against it. In fact, most skeptics and critics argue that this is exactly what this bill will be used for. After all, the Australian Government (and not just Albenese’s) has been long keen on having a firm grasp on what can be said online, and why — in Labour’s defense, both the Office of the eSafety Commissioner and the Online Safety Act (which sets the rules for what can be considered “offensive” and gives the eSafety commissioner the powers to enforce the standards outlined) were created under the Coalition’s rule, for example. All major parties are complicit in wanting to control the flow of information, and to naturalise the existence and execution of these censoring powers, although it appears that the Coalition is keen to mend its ways, or to at least oppose Labour on this front.
Hiding behind a mask of good intentions in the public’s best interest, governments around the world are already flexing their muscles to control the flow of information for self-serving purposes. For the interest reader, the recent publication of both the Twitter files and the Lockdown files drives this point home, as they show how keen authorities are to push around media companies (both traditional and social media companies) to do their censoring for them. The role of the Counter Disinformation Unit and its role during the pandemic also deserves a special mention. Australia appears to be walking down the same path.
A reasonable person might understandably ask: what is the problem of taking down lies, mis- and dis-information in the name of safety and preventing hate? To which I argue: who (and how) gets to determine what is “hate”, “safe” and “unsafe”, why and, most importantly for what purpose? Think of the last time you had an argument on a contentious topic, say gender, race, minorities, COVID, lockdowns, COVID vaccinations, The Voice Referendum, climate change, and more. How many times were you on the minority view on any given idea, or had a view that was challenged by someone, or you challenged someone’s view on the matter? Most importantly: do you trust that whomever is making these decisions about the definitions and limits of “hate”, “safe” and “unsafe” has your best interests at heart, and that these powers will never be used for something you deeply disagree with and against your own sense of what’s “true”, “safe”, or simply needs to be said?
The aforementioned Misinformation Bill sets out the definitions that apply under some of these labels (emphasis mine, bold original):
Misinformation:
For the purposes of this Schedule, dissemination of content using a digital service is misinformation on the digital service if:
(a) the content contains information that is false, misleading or deceptive; and
(b) the content is not excluded content for misinformation purposes; and
(c) the content is provided on the digital service to one or more end-users in Australia; and
(d) the provision of the content on the digital service is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm
Disinformation:
For the purposes of this Schedule, dissemination of content using a digital service is disinformation on the digital service if:
(a) the content contains information that is false, misleading or deceptive; and
(b) the content is not excluded content for misinformation purposes; and
(c) the content is provided on the digital service to one or more end-users in Australia; and
(d) the provision of the content on the digital service is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm; and
(e) the person disseminating, or causing the dissemination of, the content intends that the content deceive another person.
Harm:
harm means any of the following:
(a) hatred against a group in Australian society on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion or physical or mental disability;
(b) disruption of public order or society in Australia;
(c) harm to the integrity of Australian democratic processes or of Commonwealth, State, Territory or local government institutions;
(d) harm to the health of Australians;
(e) harm to the Australian environment;
(f) economic or financial harm to Australians, the Australian economy or a sector of the Australian economy.
Most importantly, the bill also sets out who are the excluded services for misinformation purposes — basically who can publish anything and not be liable for dis- and misinformation:
For the purposes of this Schedule, the following services are excluded services for misinformation purposes:
(a) an email service;
(b) a media sharing service that does not have an interactive feature;
(c) a digital platform service specified by the Minister in an instrument under subclause (2)
(2) The Minister may, by legislative instrument, specify that a digital platform service is an excluded service for misinformation purposes.
And also what content is excluded from the Code to be developed (page 5):
excluded content for misinformation purposes means any of the following:
(a) content produced in good faith for the purposes of entertainment, parody or satire;
(b) professional news content;
(c) content produced by or for an educational institution accredited by any of the following:
(i) the Commonwealth
(ii) a State
(iii) a Territory
(iv) a body recognised by the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory as an accreditor of educational institutions;
(d) content produced by or for an educational institution accredited:
(i) by a foreign government or a body recognised by a foreign government as an accreditor of educational institutions; and
(ii) to substantially equivalent standards as a comparable Australian educational institution;
(e) content that is authorised by:
(i) the Commonwealth; or
(ii) a State; or
(iii) a Territory; or
(iv) a local government.
It has become cliché to call something “Orwellian” in allusion to George Orwell’s 1984, but a detailed read of the proposed legislation perfectly and reasonably allows for Orwell’s Ministry of Truth to be invoked in a non-exaggerating manner. The informed readers can parse the implications of this bill by themselves without me having to point them out. In my opinion, this is effectively the Government flexing its authoritarian muscles to control information, to appoint their acolytes — the arbiters of truth, arbiters that can be controlled via financial and political pressures —, and using these institutions’ perceived authority and breadth to do the censoring on their behalf via “fact checking”; fact-checking that has been on many occasions less than stellar in both its accuracy and methodology. To be the arbiter of truth and never be wrong is indeed an impossible standard to meet: after all, even the best scientists and science journals make mistakes. Which is why, presumably, the Government is excluding itself and its acolytes from being liable for mis- and dis-information. Most importantly, not even the advocates and architects of this bill know how to deal with valid concerns over this bill’s overreach such as the innocent nature of people sharing information without knowing it’s false, and the changing nature of information (what was deemed “wrong” at some point can turn out to be true in the future, and vice versa). These advocates also appear disingenuous in their approach: Recently, on the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, Deputy Secretary Media and Communications in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts Richard Windeyer stated that the bill will “allow [them] to understand at a systemic level […] what’s occurring over time [regarding misinformation]” (timestamp 8:07). This point has also been echoed by Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, stating that “the focus is going to be on systemic issues, it’s not about moderating content”. Yet their point does not explain why the bill conveniently excludes the Government and its branches, news agencies, universities, and more. Anyone genuinely interested in understanding what’s occurring over time at a systemic level would keep these key players as part of the sample and focus.
Indeed, the nature of information is an ever changing one, and the opening quote is a vivid reminder of that: we once thought and held as truth that the Earth was the centre of the universe, that we were created by God, and many other statements that we now know to be false (from a scientific perspective at least). Yet we have only managed to enlighten ourselves via our capacity to challenge authority (be this authority the Government, the Church, other experts, and so on) via our speech — via our capacity to speak our minds and our ideas. It is only because we are able to speak truth to power and we can muster the courage to say what needs to be said that we now enjoy the progress most people take for granted: minority rights, women rights, Aboriginal people’s rights, workers’ rights, marriage equality, legalised abortion, and more. Ideologically blind to their own irony, some of the most ardent defenders of these rights are also some of the keenest to encourage widespread censorship and curtail freedom of speech, the essential freedom that gave them the progress they have argued for. But many of these actors operate from convenience, rather than from principle.
The picture slowly takes shape but the battle is already well underway, with The Voice Referendum being just the latest victim on how people’s voices are being drowned out by authorities: many concerns and questions, even those coming from other politicians, are being labelled as ‘misinformation’, despite the fact that no legislation outlining the scope and powers of The Voice has been drafted (the Calma-Langton report is not legislation, it’s not legally binding as far as I’m concerned), and Australian citizens will not be voting on The Voice in the next referendum — they will be voting on whether they want a Voice, with legislation and design to be determined after the Referendum passes. In this light, any concern is valid and cannot be branded ‘misinformation’, because there is no legislation binding the Government to implement the recommendations in the Calma-Langton report. It is clear that those branding others’ concerns as ‘misinformation’ simply wish to sway people’s opinion and wash away people’s concerns, rather than wishing to be factually accurate, transparent or honest.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has also been reported stating that “mis- and disinformation sows division within the community, undermines trust and can threaten public health and safety,” yet she herself appears to be blind to how these efforts to control the flow of information are the very root of the people’s lack of trust in authorities, as have been throughout time. Truthfully, freedom of speech has been under attack throughout History, and our time in this planet is proving no different. History has also shown that efforts to thwart the flow of communication sooner or later have failed, and so have the regimes that have invested in said efforts. Yet this track record of failures should not lull us into a false sense of security. We do not know what our current technologies can achieve, and we should not simply walk straight into even darker times because we feel we cannot push back and because we know these efforts to censor people will ultimately fail. We do not know how long will it take them to fail, for starters. Nor we know the damages that they will cause before they fail. I thus encourage you to make your voice heard. Provide feedback on the bill directly to the Department (until August 6th). Contact your local MP. Write to your preferred newspaper. Share this post. Pick your choice. But by all means: do something. History can only give us hope, but it is solely on us to push back against yet another attack on our liberties. After all, History will remain in the books; it cannot rise back from the dead to do our fighting.
We live in complex times when information is being produced faster than it can be checked, and the human brain is simply not designed to keep up with the speed at which we develop technology. Not even the largest teams in the largest companies can keep up and check everything that is posted online, be this text or video, and censorship is never the answer: people will simply move on to other services, and resort to other means of communication. Understandably, this bill might also mean that the affected services might face a loss in revenue as people are censored or pushed out of these platforms, or might face internal conflicts as they balance removal of misinformation and freedom of speech, and thus these services might not want to fully engage with said policy, or do business in Australia in the long run. Meta (Facebook), for example, is already uneasy and interested in advising Australian policymakers on the effects of the overreach of the Misinformation Bill.
Finally, It can be argued that pushing for this bill is simply un-Australian: the Australian Citizenship Test presented to those who want to become Australian requires you to agree with “Freedom of Speech” as an Australian value, and said information can be found in the official documents of the Department of Home Affairs of the Australian Government used to prepare the test:
People in Australia should be able to express their ideas freely, so long as it is within the law. In Australia, people are free to meet in public or private places for social or political discussion. People are also free to say and write what they think about any topic and to discuss their ideas with others. Newspapers, television and radio outlets have the same freedom.
…
It is never acceptable to promote violence against another person or group of people (such as because of their culture, ethnicity, religion or background) because it is against Australian values and law. It is also illegal to make false allegations or encourage others to break the law. Other people’s freedom of speech and freedom of expression must be respected, as long as such expression is lawful.
Yes, “so long as it is within the law”. So I guess it’s just a matter of redrawing the lines and amending the law to make certain “harmful” expressions illegal, right?