There's Only Room for One Liar

Government in an age of disinformers and misinformers

Last Saturday, Australia’s Federal Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, announced her department's proposed appropriation of new powers to combat misinformation and disinformation. Seems a funny day to release such an important piece of legislation?

It is also wonderfully serendipitous that on the same day my local Federal member, Susan Templeman, sought to have me silenced as I addressed festival goers at a large local event. We were both there in an official capacity. As a former Winter Magic Festival director, the current committee asked me to speak on behalf of past organisers.

Ms Templeman was subtle but not subtle enough to escape the gaze of some sharp local people who thought what I was saying was worth listening to. Something I said upset her so she nudged the Mistress of Ceremonies to intervene and thus prevent further harm to her flock. It didn't work. I kept going.

We must never let this happen again

What caused my local representative to act? It might have been my description of daffy plans for Smart Cities creeping into local policy planning. It might have been when I lamented the closing down of this very popular festival in recent years and how it had struggled over many more at the hands of persistent bureaucratic madness.

More recently, this was due to fear. Initially, it was the fear of too many happy, smiling people. This was followed by a conjured fear of terrorism. And finally, the real festival killer, the fear that encouraged us to view family members, friends and neighbours as bio-terrorists. It might have been these or when I said we must never let this happen again.

Anyway, something I said prompted her to assert a monarch’s right and seek to close me down. In my words, she heard misinformation or more likely disinformation.

Imagine my excitement when two days later our Communication Minister's new proposal for controlling online content arrived in an email from Ms Templeman's office. I had been chasing her staff for some time on this matter and here it was.

It was now obvious, even to me, that I was out of control and this draft Department of Communications (ACMA) legislation would explain, clearly, where I have been misinformative and disinformative. What's the difference? Misinforming is when your words harm or mislead people by accident or due to someone misinforming you.

The misinformer doesn't know what he is doing. He may be an idiot. Disinforming is when your words are calculated to deceive or harm and you offer them in full knowledge of their likely impact. There may be far fewer people in either of these categories than we are led to believe.

The legislation is not aimed at datacasting or broadcasting (TV, radio). It also excludes Australian governments from these content provisions. This means the legislation will not apply to their news delivery. As one of the main sources of misinformation and disinformation, we should be thankful for this. It could be very trying to have government closing down its own delivery platforms on a regular basis.

As a friend reminded me, this is a gift to commercial mainstream media too as this potentially eliminates a key source of competition. Social media was often pinching their footage anyway, even if merely to ridicule it. Thank goodness msm will be be free to misinform and disinform and “good” people will again be safe.

As the terms defined in the legislation’s title promote, my main focus will be on Clause 7. This will avoid the very real danger of boring you with too much detail. There are certain to be grenades hidden in other sections of this document but I call on you to help me defuse them.

Know Your Misinformer

Ms Rowland tells us through Clause 7 (sub-clause 1):
[D]issemination of content using a digital service is misinformation on the digital service:

(a) if 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 (sub-clause 2) carries the same elements with the additional:
(e) the person disseminating, or causing the dissemination of the content intends that the content deceive another person.

So definition is important here. Your work is misinformation if Michelle and her team classify it as false, misleading, deceptive or causing harm to someone other than yourself. Your work crosses over to disinformation if you do the above purposely. Happy with that? How has government and media censoring served us over the past few years? Are you happy to see that extended to censoring your own preferred online content?

The legislation is also clearly directed at services that have an interactive feature. This includes if at least one of the following applies:

(a) the digital service allows end-users to post content on the digital service;
(b) the digital service provides a means for end-users to share, using the digital service, content that is provided on the digital service with another end-user of the digital service;
(c) the digital service makes:
(i) interaction between end-users; or
(ii) interaction by end-users with content provided on the digital service; observable to other end-users.

Dob in a Disinformer

So, under these new rules, as long as you are writing for yourself, commenting on your own work and making sure no-one else sees it, you are free to be as obnoxious as you like. There are no plans to extend the legislation, at this time, to protect oneself from literary masochism (seems that's a real thing). Yet, in writing for your happy audience of one you might need to make sure no-one looks over your shoulder on a bus or takes a peek at your work at the local cafe in case they take offence.

Online bloggers with only one regular reader will need to take special care to understand all their reader’s pronouns. Too robust nouns and verbs that move too fast can cause irrepairable injury to someone who reads too quickly or carelessly. Words starting with “B” can be particularly harmful and should [b]e avoided. They are known to put sensitive readers in a fud for days. This may also lead to a heavy fine.

Another reason this matters is because of a new “Dob in a Disinformer” service proposed under Clause 33:3:(g). A similar service was used to great effect during the Covid-19 crisis. In New South Wales, people were invited to dob in doctors who were less than effusive in their support for the “safe and effective” Big Pharma offerings.

By sending a complaint to the state's Health Care Complaints Commission any doctor could be brought down by a one line comment on an obscure website. They would then face the Stasi-like Medical Tribunal of NSW for potential disciplining and loss of registration. This happened to a local doctor in my direct experience.

Clause 33 also celebrates the legislation’s support of fact-checkers which are in my experience the seediest and most pliable of truth-tellers.

The definition of “harm” is worthy of close inspection. It appears broad enough to attract penalties for the reckless use of caps and misgendering of pets. Our e-safety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has had a big victory here.

Aside from the optional reporting done by dobbers, additional reporting will be required by digital platform providers (information aggregators) to ACMA to explain how they are managing breaches of the peace. Fines will apply for non-compliance. This is covered by Clause 15.

In a discussion of regulatory policies and development of category codes, we are also told under Clause 32 that:
“The Parliament intends that one or more bodies or associations that the ACMA is satisfied represent sections of the digital platform industry should develop one or more codes”. This is most likely to be players like Facebook rather than Twitter. It seems our Government already has a very good relationship with Facebook and freelances for Zuck at our expense.

One glaring omission is a means of addressing when last year’s disinformation becomes today’s truth. This was the experience for champions of the wonder drug Ivermectin. Could Ms Rowland discuss that one with former TGA head John Skerritt. Or will our new Ministry of Truth make certain that these reversals never happen?

The Battle for Trust

So what has caused Michelle Rowland and the Comms team to act now? What has caused my local Federal representative to seek to close down dissent at a local community celebration?

What we are seeing now is a battle for trust. If Government is to continue to run its current anti-social agenda, including Smart Cities, it must close down dissent. In the end, it will need to continue to engineer trust by concealing dissenting opinion (see the Trusted News Initiative) while enforcing compliance on those who resist.

Governments around the world are in crisis. The number of us who trust them drops by the day. This is reported in the latest Edelman Trust Barometer. Who is Edelman? It is the largest public relations firm in the world by revenue.

Now, just to be clear, I don't trust Edelman either. It was the PR firm behind Covid-19 (the angelic Jane Halton makes a cameo in this clip too).

Go to 8 minutes 54 second point to hear Matthew Harrington, Global President, Edelman.

Edelman tells us we don't trust media, non-government organisations or governments. The strongest level of trust, we are told, is directed at business. This hints at another game and the destruction of our trust in government appears to be central to it.

For some time, it has been obvious that our governments are not representing our interests. This is particularly true in western countries. They appear to be dancing to a tune we can't hear. Do our local politicians know what they are doing? Hard to know but what is clear is they don't want to discuss it with us..

Having destroyed our faith in governments there are forces that are encouraging us to put our faith in business. This is the trick. Edelman is not talking about your local grocery store. They are referring to very big business.

ESG, DEI, SEL, SDGs … acronyms with which to conjure

The sort of very big business with the capacity to drive a climate scare campaign as we watch our economies being deindustrialised in the name of sustainability (ESG); our children manipulated by social and emotional learning (SEL); our society deconstructed by policies of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). You might also look up the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and World Economic Forum in your spare time. There are people with some very big plans for us. I urge to you to research these subjects as I am.

Meanwhile, please make your voice heard in relation to this extraordinary example of government overreach before it is too late.

Don’t put it off. Our response has to be loud and long enough to worry all of those traitorous Edelman sectors. Their betrayal must be rewarded.

NB: I am adding a late link to a recent conversation between Sydney solicitor Tony Nikolic and Maria Zeee. Here they explain this legislation may reach right down to the individual though most media attention has been given to the impact on big social media platforms. Go to 20 minute 12 second point of this discussion.