A couple of months ago I wrote about Australias eSafety Commissioner and her attempt to force Global Censorship on X (formerly Twitter) via a court case. The news this week is that after wasting a substantial sum of taxpayer money on it and making our country look like idiots, she has dropped the ridiculous case and has gone into Spin Mode to try and save some face.
There are a few notable quotes of hers that are worth pointing out, however I think that this one is my favorite :-
"After weighing multiple considerations, including litigation across multiple cases, I have considered this option likely to achieve the most positive outcome for the online safety of all Australians, especially children"
A Polispeak statement loaded with duality if ever I’ve seen one. So...dropping the case is likely to achieve the most positive outcome for safety? That doesn’t even make sense. Oh, and won’t somebody think of the children! At this rate she might be in the running for a gig on The Simpsons or Southpark.
Perhaps an even more telling (yet subtle) quote, however, is this one :-
"Through this process, eSafety has also welcomed the opportunity to test its novel regulatory powers"
This is why it’s so important to be aware and get involved in the legislative process. Basically the politicians introduced a law, in this case the “Online Safety Act” and then the bureaucrats authoritarians see how far they can push it. Every dictator in history has taken power with the excuse of keeping their citizens safe. There is nothing new here, but it’s good to see that in this instance the attempt to use new laws to exert more power and enforce censorship has failed.