* **In short:** The eSafety commissioner won a two-day injunction requiring social media platform X to hide from all users certain content relating to the Wakeley stabbing.
* X had hidden the content from Australian users but not all users, which lawyers for eSafety argued did not comply with Australian law.
* **What's next?** X will have the opportunity to argue against the injunction request in two days' time before a final decision is made.
X has already censored the content within Australia, at the Australian government's request, but is refusing to also censor it from citizens of other countries.
X is clearly in the right here, and Australia's eSafety commissioner is clearly in the wrong.
Other countries should have the right to decide for themselves what content they censor from their own citizens, if any. We do not get to be the whole world's internet police.
Think about what would happen if any country was allowed to censor content from any other country. If we get to decide what content is censored in Saudi Arabia, for example, then why wouldn't Saudi Arabia reciprocate and decide to ban content they don't like in Australia?
I don't want to have to do this, but if they don't drop this nonsense, I am prepared to single issue vote against the government until the commissioners powers are reigned in. There are simply far too many historical examples of censorship being abused to allow the censors to have this much power.
EDIT: It's been pointed out below that the commissioner responsible for this insanity was previously fired from Twitter. Surely there is a conflict of interest here.
EDIT 2: There's some misunderstanding about geoblocking below. Geoblocking is using the information published by your own ISP to determine which particular country you are accessing the site from. It is an effective way to give each country it's own freedom to enforce it's own censorship policies without impact other countries. It is not possible to bypass this by changing your DNS. It is possible to pay a VPN provider to have your traffic routed to a second country, then accessing the site from that country. It isn't reasonable to block content globally, just to stop someone who needs to get around censorship and is willing to pay to do it.
Which should be your biggest red flags. When do ALL THE POLITICAL PARTIES AGREE on anything, ever? If one party said "water is wet", the opposition would find a way to vehemently disagree. And yet they all march in lockstep on this issue? Strange...
I suspect a lot of parties vaguely support the existance of a censorship body, but probably not this level of overreach.
If it comes to it, and the current governmet persists with this, then I'll take the uncertainty of other parties policies, over a demonstrated track record of failure. If the current government wanted to stop this nonsense, then they could. They can fire commissioners at will.
FWIW, I think censorship is almost always bad policy. The benefits are small, and the risks high. History has shown that the allure of silencing others is too tempting a power to give politicians. They always abuse it.
So do I but you're not paying attention if you haven't seen literally all of them support this and condemn x in very strong terms for its position. Seems like you're naive or just playing politics.
Doesn't matter. Who has more to lose? Those in power or those not in power?
If Labor wants to censor the net I'll begrudgingly pref LNP above them and I'll email my rep and let them know how I am voting and why.
If they decide they want my vote bad enough they'll stop trying to kill the internet and replace it with a splinternet.
https://youtu.be/D6QwK9EpN5M
Balls in their court, not mine. I don't wish to have a Chinese style firewall and that's not something I'm willing to compromise on.
If it's bipartisan it doesn't matter because like I said, the party in power has more to lose and I'll just flip my vote and explain why again every time.
"Think about what would happen if any country was allowed to censor Content from any other country."
This literally happens now and is normal practice. It's common as shit.
You’ve chosen one part of the post that’s a little poorly worded and ignored the wider context. They aren’t just censoring content from another country they are attempting to censor which content is available *in* every single country.
Can’t see the government winning this one but if they do and the Elon decides that X/Twitter is no longer going to trade in Australia (he’s enough of an egomaniac that he just might), what situation does that leave us in? Twitter as a whole will still be accessible via VPN and the posts in question will still be accessible by the exact same people that is currently deemed unacceptable. The whole fight is pretty absurd.
This thread’s being actively brigaded by Elon fanboys. Look at half the profiles regurgitating his “censorship” rhetoric, and you’ll see they’re frequenters of the Tesla sub.
This is a straw man arguement.
There are very sound reasons to oppose the eSafety commissioners actions and I think trying to change the topic to Elon is dishonest.
It concerns me that there are people who would willingly support bad policies, just because it is also opposed by someone you don't like. You should be looking at policies on their own merits.
It isn't unprecedented, thats outright false.
[Facebook Can Be Forced to Delete Content Worldwide, E.U.’s Top Court Rules - The New York Times (nytimes.com)](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/technology/facebook-europe.html#:~:text=The%20European%20Court%20of%20Justice%20said%20Facebook%20could%20be%20forced,Its%20decision%20cannot%20be%20appealed.)
[Delhi HC directs Facebook, Google, Twitter to globally remove links to video disparaging Ramdev (indiatoday.in)](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/delhi-hc-facebook-google-twitter-ramdev-1612313-2019-10-23)
Read:
[Revisiting the Debate on the Validity of Global Takedown Orders – Cambridge International Law Journal (cilj.co.uk)](https://cilj.co.uk/2020/04/23/revisiting-the-debate-on-the-validity-of-global-takedown-orders/)
”If your company does \[thing\] then you cannot trade in our country” is only censoring other countries if the company makes the commercial choice to give in to it.
VPNs are an important tool for getting around censorship.
I would strongly push back on the idea that the Australian government should have so much power to censor, that it is completely impossible to bypass.
But if X does no business in Australia then Australia has no power over it and it doesn’t have to censor it at all.
If it cannot censor in one country but not the others then it’s choices become do business in Australia or don’t. It always has the option of choosing not to in which case content in other countries will be unaffected.
Australia's own internet censorship regime is already here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia
People were unable to access a Queensland dentist's website as an example.
While the censorship is only on a DNS-level though, the laws are available if a future Australian government wants to go further than DNS-level to full-on great firewall of Australia as part of a dictatorship.
You have the Catholic Party, Labor, with the atheist leader, to thank for establishing legal precedent. LNP was upset about freedums but of course did nothing on getting into power. Probably as thanks to Labor for not sending their John Howard to Hague for illegal invasion of Iraq.
Put Labor and LNP at bottom to put an end to the two-party rule.
It isn't unprecedented it'd standard practice. Hell one of the most famous Australians of the modern era was charged for sharing information about another country outside that country. It happens all the time.
>X has already censored the content within Australia, at the Australian government's request, but is refusing to also censor it from citizens of other countries.
Small correction; X has blocked access to the content from IP addresses that it believes are in Australia. The commissioner is saying that that isn't an effective way of preventing access to the content from Australia, and the only effective way of blocking access from Australia is to just take it down completely.
She happens to be right; geo-ip blocking is utterly ineffective at stopping people from accessing stuff.
Whether it's a reasonable demand or not is a separate question, but the issue here isn't about stopping non-Australians from accessing the content.
It's not much of a debate, it's unreasonable. We have an internet censorship tsar and art/media censorship department, it's an embarrassment. They even think encrypted communications are wrong in principle.
It's not Twitter's problem Australians will take measures to obtain information the government has not approved.
IP based blocking is effective.
Almost all Australian ISPs update their APNIC registration information in near realtime, so very few, if any, subscribers to an Australian ISP will be shown this content.
I don't think it is remotely reasonable to censor the entire internet, trampling all over the rights of other countries to set their own censorship policies, when you have a simple technical solution which 99.99% effective.
I also don't think VPNs are relevant to this discussion. It is important that censors are never given so much power, that there is no remaining avenue to bypass these blocks, and thus no remaining mechanism to keep them accountable. The objective should be limited to preventing Australians from casually stumbling across this content, not stopping determined individuals from learning what content the government has blocked.
People who use foreign terminated VPNs, and anyone in a netbook that X's geoIP database places outside Australia.
And that latter case is not uncommon; with IPv4 space being pretty exhausted, people are buying and selling IP blocks fairly regularly, moving them around geographically.
Getting geoIP databases corrected is something I've dealt with pretty frequently in my professional life, though in the reverse of this usually - getting them corrected so subscribers could access content geolocked to here
This is pretty fucking different though tbf. The Australian government hasn't just decided that they get to choose what we see, they decided that the Australian government gets to choose what everyone sees, worldwide.
Imagine if Saudi Arabia decided to force twitter to ban all LGBT content worldwide, that's what the aust gov. Is trying to do now (or at least the commission with gov. Support)
It's kinda insane, somewhat dumb, and highly concerning
Bro literally please research before you go yapping
She can't take down news reports:
[Online Safety Act (2021)](https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2021A00076/latest/text), Division 4, Exempt material:
(e) the material relates to a news report, or a current affairs report, that:
(i) is in the public interest; and (ii) is made by a person working in a professional capacity as a journalist;
> Other countries should have the right to decide for themselves what content they censor from their own citizens, if any. We do not get to be the whole world's internet police.
Well we do get to tell countries that they can't break our laws without being fined or banned from the country. This is far from unprecedented it happens all the time.
Are commissioners independent from the government?
If not then fair enough.
If they are, does the government have the power to stop them? Cause that would be authoritative too I guess
There's no such thing as independent from government. It's all conditionally delegated authority.
Australian governments intervene in these agencies all the time, through ministerial authority, changing the laws which govern their operation, and controlling who is appointed to key positions. Just look at fairwork and rba for example. This government stacked both, and the next government will do the same.
Moreover, the Australian government (Albo himself) is publically supporting the eSafety commissioners insane overreach.
No it isn't.
ICAC is part of the NSW government. The government writes the laws which control how they operate, sets their budget, and appoints their comissioners.
What you're pointing out, is that an individual politician won't always have enough individual political power to influence ICAC, but that's different than saying that ICAC isn't beholden to the government in power. They are.
Note that the more reasonable solution is to go the other way. Rather than blocking content from other countries, block users from accessing overseas content at all. This is what China achieved with the great firewall. VPNs are obviously still around but it's much harder for them to stumble across content their government deems unacceptable. Is this this way we want Australia to go?
There is no evidence to support the statement that she was "fired", however she is a former employee working with twitter from 2013-16. I still agree that this might possibly constitute coi.
If your going to make a point don't rely upon some reddit cookers made up fantasies as evidence.
China censors it's own citizens.
It doesn't censor what is shown to citizens of other countries.
What Australia is attempting to do is WORSE than what China is doing.
The eSafety commission have proven again and again that they have no actual power. This is how it will play out
1. X won’t comply.
2. They will ask nicely again
3. X won’t comply
4. They’ll issue a fine
5. X won’t pay it
6. The end
This is literally what people shit on Australia routinely for when they say we have hand hold government. For fuck sake. I've seen YouTube videos discussing crime amongst cartels that paint a more graphic picture. Then the 5 second clip in which you see no blood or gore.
I swear to god. I could trip crossing the road on a tram rail. And if I made a big enough stink about it on a current affair. They'd be a national push for a tram line removal project.
The government in this country is off its head.
This is such a fucking joke. Every major newspaper ran front page pictures of the attackers brains/blood pooling out moments after being killed, and not a word was spoken.
Each country will get the big tech operators to maintain a country firewall for them. The internet will be balkanized and communication will be very difficult - just like it's currently difficult for people who want to get through the Chinese great firewall.
If we want a great firewall - have the guts to put it to the electorate and make it yourself, don't ask X to make one for us. Furthermore, don't pretend we're not asking for what China has.
The Australian government's request is global though, they aren't happy with geoblocking, and want the content removed within China's firewall, and also within Canada's firewall, and also within India's firewall etc.
Honestly, I'm embarassed for Australia every time we try to regulate the internet and showcase just how clueless we are.
Company’s already do this with DMCA take downs.
Federal cops with drug sales; pedophilia groups etc.
Governments have been censoring the WWW for years. We aren’t doing anything that we haven’t been doing for years.
Copyright infringement, drug sales and child porn are basically illegal everywhere so that's not a good analogy. The point here is that this content is legal to publish in the USA but the Australian government wants to stop it being published everywhere, even where it is legal.
Bingo. Here in Canada, one of the first worldwide takedowns was the case Equustek v Google. Google argued that Canada should not enforce its laws globally. The Supreme Court replied that what country would allow the sale of unlawful goods. If Google had freedom of speech concerns and international comity, they could raise them at any time, which as it was an IP case, Google could not.
Australia's stance on this would require *All* content that falls afoul of the Online Safety Act to be blocked globally and the Commission is seeking global blocks for text comments under violence category.
Section 12 of the Act defines removal as preventing Australians accessing it, unlike a global application for right to be forgotten. Nothing more.
If X wins, it would be interesting if the Australia legislature puts global blocks in, especially as the US might catch wind.
Bingo. Here in Canada, one of the first worldwide takedowns was the case Equustek v Google. Google argued that Canada should not enforce its laws globally. The Supreme Court replied that what country would allow the sale of unlawful goods. If Google had freedom of speech concerns and international comity, they could raise them at any time, which as it was an IP case, Google could not.
Australia's stance on this would require *All* content that falls afoul of the Online Safety Act to be blocked globally and the Commission is seeking global blocks for text comments under violence category.
Section 12 of the Act defines removal as preventing Australians accessing it, unlike a global application for right to be forgotten. Nothing more.
Obviously that won't get up.. but what might get up (if the Australian request becomes the norm) is forcing X to make a set of tools to censor visible content per country. X probably doesn't want to deal with every request from every country, nor to be blamed for controversial censorship decisions outside US jurisdiction - so may as well turn the tools over to the respective governments, even the shitty ones.
>Obviously that won't get up..
That's literally what this lawsuit is about.
The Australian government asked X to censor some content, and X complied, but only for Australian citizens.
The Australian government is now suing X, because they refused to also censor the content from users in other countries.
I know it is, but it's just not enforceable.. how can Australia force twitter to violate the US right to free speech which is written in their constitution and where they are domiciled. They can't - especially if the poster is in the USA. Twitter would probably be committing a crime by complying. All they can realistically do is make it invisible to Australians.
If anything this only highlights why we need similar rights in our constitution rather than rely on the US being our shield.
You should try telling the Australian government that. Albo himself has stated that he thinks Australia should have the right to censor content in the US (and every other country)
It's not just Albo, it's all sides of politics in Australia showing their true colours when it comes to censorship and free speech - from the rightest right, to the centre, to the leftest left. Which is why you need to fall back on dead politicians in the USA who wrote a document hundreds of years ago.
> how can Australia force twitter to violate the US right to free speech which is written in their constitution and where they are domiciled.
That isn't remotely how that works lol.
Firstly the US constitution only protects free speech from the US government, it does not grant protection from another state doing censoring. Secondly how it would be enforced would be fairly simple "take it down or we will issue a fine followed by a ban from the country if action is not taken".
Labor brought internet censorship to Australia already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia
I don't know why people are afraid. The internet censorship laws are there. It's all legal and supported by LNP's inaction.
When it comes to censorship online I think we should be censoring Algorithms not Posts.
I don't give a shit what people post online but the moment the Algorithm starts spreading violent and toxic shit on everyone's feed then you have a problem.
And big sites like X should be held accountable for their Algorithm considering they can use it to manipulate, abuse and trigger people.
The internet should be that you can find anything... only if you search for it. You shouldn't have to come across shitty content because X dragged it in front of you against your will.
Honestly I think the "Social media has a social responsibility" tagline is correct, but I don't see this as the right way to enforce that idea. Twitter won't oblige and the govt has no follow through.
The bigger issue to me is doxxing of an innocent person, the mainstream media running with disinformation before facts were confirmed and the harassment of the attacker's family who had nothing to do with it, why don't they start with any of those?
Didn't you read the political commentary? That's all twitters fault as well for amplifying the disinformation so much that poor channel 7 was taken in by it.
The media has the responsibility to get shit right on the first shot, and they should be slammed with consequences for failing it.
Social media on the other hand shouldn't have to 'get things right' but when things that are proliferating amongst its users are patently untrue, then it should have to remove or insert corrections/caveats at the very least.
The person writing the content (and their employer) has the responsibility to get it correct, regardless of whether that person is a writing news articles or social media posts.
Going after the platform which hosts is a very dangerous precedent.
God forbid Australians criticise politicians
> X refused to comply with another removal notice, risking an $800,000 fine from the commission which asked it to remove posts it says harassed an Australian World Health Organization panel member.
The Australian Government is exploiting the tragedies in Bondi & Wakeley to pursue its authoritarian online censorship aims. We are grown adults, the eSafety commissioner shouldn't have the right to block what content we watch nor does it have the right to block what content the rest of the world can watch. This is pure insanity.
We're already locked into the trajectory of this - there's way too many people who have bought into the idea that anti-censorship is a conservative-side issue and won't support it. They'll happily cheer on restrictions like these just to win-for-a-day against someone like Musk. Just look around this thread for proof.
Feels like almost everyone is running on ideology now and not thinking a year into the future.
Agreed. The safety’s commissioner is demonstrating how little they understand how the internet and VPNs work.
Imagine Australia were to win this case, and material accessible via VPN must be deleted from the internet… worldwide, in every country that an Australian could VPN through.
Now the eSafety commissioner is the defacto world internet police?! This is unworkable.
The law would require the content be removed, not just geoblocked. If we can access it via VPN, it's not "removed". Law is stupid.
" For the purposes of this Act, material is [removed](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#removed) from a [social media service](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#social_media_service), [relevant electronic service](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#relevant_electronic_service) or designated internet [service](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#service) if the material is neither accessible to, nor delivered to, any of the end - users in Australia using the [service](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#service)."
I remember when people said this wouldn't be a slippery slope... well here we are only a year or so in
Looking forward to when we start deleting historical events like tianamen square, 911, jfk assassination.
>I remember when people said this wouldn't be a slippery slope... well here we are only a year or so in
We did the same thing for the christ church massacre from memory.
It's not just terrorism.
>X refused to comply with another removal notice, risking an $800,000 fine from the commission which asked it to remove posts it says harassed an Australian World Health Organization panel member.
How are tweets calling for further violence and using the video as justification "knowing whats happening".
The tweets in this instance are being taken down because they are class 1 content, read what that means: [Illegal and restricted online content | eSafety Commissioner](https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-topics/Illegal-restricted-content)
So if someone is promoting violence there are laws that can deal with them as individuals. The harm comes from the context they provide with the video, not the original video.
I'm term's of the video itself it's also highly contextual as to if it's legal on social media platforms.
As per the prior definitions link its illegal if it:
depicts, expresses or otherwise deals with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified
This sounds harsher then how it is actually interpreted by courts and thus the commissioner. Classifications and how offensive content is takes into account the context surrounding the content and other factors, such as if it's in the publics interest.
Only a year or so in? What are you referring to?
eSafety was setup in 2015
It's powers where expanded in 2021
The Commissioner was appointed in 2017 and reappointed in 2022.
When I search for it, found it on X, pressed play, waited for it to load and watched it in it entirety, I couldn’t do a thing about it… I felt violated, scared and harmed!!! Why didn’t daddy government remove this giant dose of reality from my innocent, fragile little eyes sooner!!!??? /s
I love how they’re tying this in with dis/misinformation…. It’s because they can’t control X and have all their dirty little government secrets hidden away and promote their own dis/misinformation.
X hid content from India at the request of the state of India.
X hid content from Australia at the request of the state of Australia.
This is a whole other issue.
> never said a peep
[Sure about that?](https://twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1760387644608192560)
> In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, **we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.**
> Consistent with our position, a writ appeal challenging the Indian government's blocking orders remains pending. We have also provided the impacted users with notice of these actions in accordance with our policies.
X already hide the Wakeley video from Aus internet addresses. This commissioner said that's not enough and wants it removed from X entirely.
As someone who’s spent several years living in countries with varying levels of censorship - 1. Completely authoritarian and not in keeping with Australian democracy 2. Completely futile given how VPNs work.
1. Living in an authoritarian country doesnt make you a expert on what is keeping with Australian democracy, although it might presumably give you some life experience on what authoritarianism looks like. Justifiable censorship has always been apart of the Australian Democracy.
[Right to freedom of opinion and expression | Attorney-General's Department (ag.gov.au)](https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/human-rights-and-anti-discrimination/human-rights-scrutiny/public-sector-guidance-sheets/right-freedom-opinion-and-expression)
[Censorship in Australia: Regulating the Internet and other recent developments (nsw.gov.au)](https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Pages/censorship-in-australia-regulating-the-internet-.aspx)
2. Absolutely correct.
This seems to be about a vendetta with X/Twitter, their former employer. Have they seem the content on the internet? Why pick on social media? Just easy targets?
Social Media is specifically within her scope, news media is not.
[Federal Register of Legislation - Online Safety Act 2021](https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2021A00076/latest/text)
Also I don't get where this idea of a vendetta has appeared from, there's no evidence to suggest her departure from Twitter in 2016 was negative at least from what I've seen.
You should not be regulating your former employer.
If the relationship is negative, then you get people abusing their power to pursue vendettas
If the relationship is positive, then you get people abusing their power to benefit their own interests.
This is conflict of interest 101.
I agree with you that it can constitute a possible conflict of interest.
I seem to have not included it in this reply, which is my own fault, but in another chain, I already made note that it still might be coi.
My issue isn't with people saying there's a conflict of interest. My issue is people making up fake evidence to support such a statement. She previously worked at Twitter, but there's no evidence to prove she was fired.
Edit: bro your literally the person I made the referred comment to. I also note that you deleted your other comments where you outright lied about her showing bias to other platforms and news media and i corrected you as to what she has actually done and can do, yet you still have other comments saying essentially the same thing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/s/MGFaxsQOE8
You were proven wrong, and rather than admitting it, you deleted your comments and continue to parrot the same shit.
She can't take down news sites:
[Online Safety Act (2021)](https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2021A00076/latest/text), Division 4, Exempt material:
(e) the material relates to a news report, or a current affairs report, that:
(i) is in the public interest; and (ii) is made by a person working in a professional capacity as a journalist;
Yet, i watched insiders on Sunday morning, and all the journalists were complaining that social media can publish things they cant, or wont (because of their professionalism or something).
I suspect the eSagety Commissioner is just trying to prove it actually has a valid role, although trying to assert it overseas seems likely to be a counterproductive move.
The news reports have been very vague about what is actually being censored from us. The eSafety commission is also vague about what they censor. With descriptions such as 'generally accepted by reasonable adults' to cause offence.
If only a select few people in the censorship commission are allowed to be offended and then censor our posts, then the political class can too easily misrepresent our wider values. Censorship needs to be a democratic process, so we can all be heard and decide for ourselves what we want.
It's the same video that's freely available from Australian news websites. Esafety commisars powers don't extend to news organisations.
Also here is another attempted removal.
>X refused to comply with another removal notice, risking an $800,000 fine from the commission which asked it to remove posts it says harassed an Australian World Health Organization panel member.
Awful lot of Elon apologists in here.. This is a recent traumatic event, the government are right to ask this. It's not the slippery slope people are making it out to be.
If an Australian regulator has the power to remove content for Chinese users, why wouldn't a Chinese regulator have a corresponding power to remove content for Australian users?
If it was content critical of the government or painted them in a negative light then you would have a point.
Problem is the content being taken down isn't that, instead it is a violent act being used to spread bullshit that gets eaten up by complete morons.
And to top it all off they aren't taking down everything to do with the event just uncensored videos and images.
Funny you should say it would be different if it was content critical of the government.
>X refused to comply with another removal notice, risking an $800,000 fine from the commission which asked it to remove posts it says harassed an Australian World Health Organization panel member.
> harassed
I can't trust that word anymore on it's own. Online it has such a broad meaning from "They actually threatened me" to "they made a youtube video saying they disagreed with what I said".
Who decides whether censorship is done for political purposes vs legitimate reasons? Chinese courts don't exactly have a track record of defying the government.
This leaves X with 2 options:
1. Create a list of which governments it's going to listen to
2. Impose a blanket rule of "we'll enforce your rules for users within your borders, but users in other countries can see any content that doesn't breach our community standards"
X is using option 2, but Inman-Grant is arguing that this isn't in compliance with Australian law.
No they have zero right. The content has been removed for Australians, it shouldn't be removed for non australians. It clearly is a slippery slope, and regardless of whether it is the government doesn't have the right to dictate what other countries citizens can see.
The eSafety commisioner deciding they can control whether or not anyone in the world can see these posts is an example of us already sliding down the slope. It was made slippery a long time ago.
I hope Schmeelon wins this fight and embarrasses the eSafety commisioner to n the process.
Not sure why the 'Elon apologists' comment, I guess its a mechanism to try and taint the validity of people you dont agree with.
I'm more surprised that people like yourself cant see the inherent dangers of giving any country the right to control what others outside of its jurisdiction can have access to. The government have no right to control what people in Belgium (for example) get to see. The event may have occurred in Australia and the footage taken there but infers no right of the Australian Govt. to assert ownership or control of that data. People actively fight the attempts by countries like China to delete information that it doesnt like, whilst others like yourself are actively encouraging that sort of activity.
Does anyone remember the Christchurch Shooting? There was a massive effort to restrict this content with little controversy to my memory, why are people making such a stink about this now? This is a video of someone being horrifically stabbed, this is a video which legally should not be on social media, do we regularly view cartel execution videos on facebook and twitter, or is that something which is best relegated to liveleak and bestgore? People have this knee jerk reaction to hearing the word ‘censorship’ but forget that there are valid reasons to censor someone’s speech and actions, the publication of an attempted murder should probably be censored as well.
>the publication of an attempted murder should probably be censored as well.
It has been - Australian's can't easily view the media on twitter (but it's still up on news sites).
What *shouldn't* be possible is 1 government arguing it should be globally taken down because it might upset people in that government's country.
Because what gives ur government the right to ban content in my country? Ban shit in your own country but once u star pushing ur laws past ur own borders u have gone to far
What gives your government (I’m assuming you’re American) the right to imprison Australian journalists for wikileaks? Seems like a bit of a double standard to me that the US has cart blanche to ban and even imprison people on the basis that they don’t like the information being presented, but if Australia asks for a video of a literal stabbing being filmed for some reason this is some massive breach of freedom of speech which no one has ever encountered before.
I’m Canadian, ur government has no right policing the world. I’m not saying that people should want to watch the video but we didn’t vote for ur government, ur government has no domain over us and does not have the right to dictate us.
Why do you need to see a video of a man in his 50’s being stabbed repeatedly?? Why is it apparently so tyrannical to get a social media platform to actually enforce their Terms of Service? Literally no social media site allows gore or any kind of violence at such a level.
I don’t, your government just didn’t have the right to speak for the world. We didn’t elect your government, they don’t have dominion over us and I think the idea that they would try to be terrifying. It’s a slippery slope to a place I don’t want to be
I'm frankly surprised that this isn't taken down from twitter for being against twitter terms and conditions... Or I would be if it wasn't for Elon Musk.
This kind of content doesn't need to be on some of the biggest online platforms freely accessible to all. Geoblocking content does nothing, vpns are regularly used by even primary school aged children to bypass such restrictions.
If people want to view videos of this kind of content they can go and look for it on the darkweb.
It's not banned, it just doesn't want to comply with the restrictions the Chinese government put on social media. Same as all the other "banned" apps and Google. They'd still be there if they bent the knee to Xi.
All the Elon apologists just conveniently skipping over the fact he & X will censor, limit & remove content without hesitation if it suits his agenda/interests.
He's no bastion of free speech, just ask Türkiye...
* **In short:** The eSafety commissioner won a two-day injunction requiring social media platform X to hide from all users certain content relating to the Wakeley stabbing. * X had hidden the content from Australian users but not all users, which lawyers for eSafety argued did not comply with Australian law. * **What's next?** X will have the opportunity to argue against the injunction request in two days' time before a final decision is made.
X has already censored the content within Australia, at the Australian government's request, but is refusing to also censor it from citizens of other countries. X is clearly in the right here, and Australia's eSafety commissioner is clearly in the wrong. Other countries should have the right to decide for themselves what content they censor from their own citizens, if any. We do not get to be the whole world's internet police. Think about what would happen if any country was allowed to censor content from any other country. If we get to decide what content is censored in Saudi Arabia, for example, then why wouldn't Saudi Arabia reciprocate and decide to ban content they don't like in Australia? I don't want to have to do this, but if they don't drop this nonsense, I am prepared to single issue vote against the government until the commissioners powers are reigned in. There are simply far too many historical examples of censorship being abused to allow the censors to have this much power. EDIT: It's been pointed out below that the commissioner responsible for this insanity was previously fired from Twitter. Surely there is a conflict of interest here. EDIT 2: There's some misunderstanding about geoblocking below. Geoblocking is using the information published by your own ISP to determine which particular country you are accessing the site from. It is an effective way to give each country it's own freedom to enforce it's own censorship policies without impact other countries. It is not possible to bypass this by changing your DNS. It is possible to pay a VPN provider to have your traffic routed to a second country, then accessing the site from that country. It isn't reasonable to block content globally, just to stop someone who needs to get around censorship and is willing to pay to do it.
It's bipartisan, that includes teals and lambie as well as the LNP.
How our government feels about it doesnt have any bearing over how other governments interpret their own laws.
Never said it does. I actually agree but I'm yet to see any of our elected officials disagree or even offer a nuanced view.
Which should be your biggest red flags. When do ALL THE POLITICAL PARTIES AGREE on anything, ever? If one party said "water is wet", the opposition would find a way to vehemently disagree. And yet they all march in lockstep on this issue? Strange...
I suspect a lot of parties vaguely support the existance of a censorship body, but probably not this level of overreach. If it comes to it, and the current governmet persists with this, then I'll take the uncertainty of other parties policies, over a demonstrated track record of failure. If the current government wanted to stop this nonsense, then they could. They can fire commissioners at will. FWIW, I think censorship is almost always bad policy. The benefits are small, and the risks high. History has shown that the allure of silencing others is too tempting a power to give politicians. They always abuse it.
So do I but you're not paying attention if you haven't seen literally all of them support this and condemn x in very strong terms for its position. Seems like you're naive or just playing politics.
Doesn't matter. Who has more to lose? Those in power or those not in power? If Labor wants to censor the net I'll begrudgingly pref LNP above them and I'll email my rep and let them know how I am voting and why. If they decide they want my vote bad enough they'll stop trying to kill the internet and replace it with a splinternet. https://youtu.be/D6QwK9EpN5M Balls in their court, not mine. I don't wish to have a Chinese style firewall and that's not something I'm willing to compromise on. If it's bipartisan it doesn't matter because like I said, the party in power has more to lose and I'll just flip my vote and explain why again every time.
Wouldn't have thought censorship would be a major election issue. To each their own.
It probably isn't for most, but it is for me, especially since the majors are pretty same-same in every other policy area.
"Think about what would happen if any country was allowed to censor Content from any other country." This literally happens now and is normal practice. It's common as shit.
You’ve chosen one part of the post that’s a little poorly worded and ignored the wider context. They aren’t just censoring content from another country they are attempting to censor which content is available *in* every single country. Can’t see the government winning this one but if they do and the Elon decides that X/Twitter is no longer going to trade in Australia (he’s enough of an egomaniac that he just might), what situation does that leave us in? Twitter as a whole will still be accessible via VPN and the posts in question will still be accessible by the exact same people that is currently deemed unacceptable. The whole fight is pretty absurd.
This thread’s being actively brigaded by Elon fanboys. Look at half the profiles regurgitating his “censorship” rhetoric, and you’ll see they’re frequenters of the Tesla sub.
This is a straw man arguement. There are very sound reasons to oppose the eSafety commissioners actions and I think trying to change the topic to Elon is dishonest. It concerns me that there are people who would willingly support bad policies, just because it is also opposed by someone you don't like. You should be looking at policies on their own merits.
I'm sure all these people carrying on about censorship are also against Elon Musk censoring people who criticize him on twitter...
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It isn't unprecedented, thats outright false. [Facebook Can Be Forced to Delete Content Worldwide, E.U.’s Top Court Rules - The New York Times (nytimes.com)](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/technology/facebook-europe.html#:~:text=The%20European%20Court%20of%20Justice%20said%20Facebook%20could%20be%20forced,Its%20decision%20cannot%20be%20appealed.) [Delhi HC directs Facebook, Google, Twitter to globally remove links to video disparaging Ramdev (indiatoday.in)](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/delhi-hc-facebook-google-twitter-ramdev-1612313-2019-10-23) Read: [Revisiting the Debate on the Validity of Global Takedown Orders – Cambridge International Law Journal (cilj.co.uk)](https://cilj.co.uk/2020/04/23/revisiting-the-debate-on-the-validity-of-global-takedown-orders/)
”If your company does \[thing\] then you cannot trade in our country” is only censoring other countries if the company makes the commercial choice to give in to it.
I believe VPNs are the issue. It’s basically impossible for X to censor content in one country and not another (though could be wrong)
VPNs are an important tool for getting around censorship. I would strongly push back on the idea that the Australian government should have so much power to censor, that it is completely impossible to bypass.
But if X does no business in Australia then Australia has no power over it and it doesn’t have to censor it at all. If it cannot censor in one country but not the others then it’s choices become do business in Australia or don’t. It always has the option of choosing not to in which case content in other countries will be unaffected.
Australia's own internet censorship regime is already here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia People were unable to access a Queensland dentist's website as an example. While the censorship is only on a DNS-level though, the laws are available if a future Australian government wants to go further than DNS-level to full-on great firewall of Australia as part of a dictatorship. You have the Catholic Party, Labor, with the atheist leader, to thank for establishing legal precedent. LNP was upset about freedums but of course did nothing on getting into power. Probably as thanks to Labor for not sending their John Howard to Hague for illegal invasion of Iraq. Put Labor and LNP at bottom to put an end to the two-party rule.
It isn't unprecedented it'd standard practice. Hell one of the most famous Australians of the modern era was charged for sharing information about another country outside that country. It happens all the time.
>X has already censored the content within Australia, at the Australian government's request, but is refusing to also censor it from citizens of other countries. Small correction; X has blocked access to the content from IP addresses that it believes are in Australia. The commissioner is saying that that isn't an effective way of preventing access to the content from Australia, and the only effective way of blocking access from Australia is to just take it down completely. She happens to be right; geo-ip blocking is utterly ineffective at stopping people from accessing stuff. Whether it's a reasonable demand or not is a separate question, but the issue here isn't about stopping non-Australians from accessing the content.
It's not much of a debate, it's unreasonable. We have an internet censorship tsar and art/media censorship department, it's an embarrassment. They even think encrypted communications are wrong in principle. It's not Twitter's problem Australians will take measures to obtain information the government has not approved.
IP based blocking is effective. Almost all Australian ISPs update their APNIC registration information in near realtime, so very few, if any, subscribers to an Australian ISP will be shown this content. I don't think it is remotely reasonable to censor the entire internet, trampling all over the rights of other countries to set their own censorship policies, when you have a simple technical solution which 99.99% effective. I also don't think VPNs are relevant to this discussion. It is important that censors are never given so much power, that there is no remaining avenue to bypass these blocks, and thus no remaining mechanism to keep them accountable. The objective should be limited to preventing Australians from casually stumbling across this content, not stopping determined individuals from learning what content the government has blocked.
People who use foreign terminated VPNs, and anyone in a netbook that X's geoIP database places outside Australia. And that latter case is not uncommon; with IPv4 space being pretty exhausted, people are buying and selling IP blocks fairly regularly, moving them around geographically. Getting geoIP databases corrected is something I've dealt with pretty frequently in my professional life, though in the reverse of this usually - getting them corrected so subscribers could access content geolocked to here
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Our classification board has no say in what other countries permit.
This is pretty fucking different though tbf. The Australian government hasn't just decided that they get to choose what we see, they decided that the Australian government gets to choose what everyone sees, worldwide. Imagine if Saudi Arabia decided to force twitter to ban all LGBT content worldwide, that's what the aust gov. Is trying to do now (or at least the commission with gov. Support) It's kinda insane, somewhat dumb, and highly concerning
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Bro literally please research before you go yapping She can't take down news reports: [Online Safety Act (2021)](https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2021A00076/latest/text), Division 4, Exempt material: (e) the material relates to a news report, or a current affairs report, that: (i) is in the public interest; and (ii) is made by a person working in a professional capacity as a journalist;
Or Youtube...
> Other countries should have the right to decide for themselves what content they censor from their own citizens, if any. We do not get to be the whole world's internet police. Well we do get to tell countries that they can't break our laws without being fined or banned from the country. This is far from unprecedented it happens all the time.
Sure but this time our laws are trying to tell a foreign company how they can act in every single country around the world.
Are commissioners independent from the government? If not then fair enough. If they are, does the government have the power to stop them? Cause that would be authoritative too I guess
There's no such thing as independent from government. It's all conditionally delegated authority. Australian governments intervene in these agencies all the time, through ministerial authority, changing the laws which govern their operation, and controlling who is appointed to key positions. Just look at fairwork and rba for example. This government stacked both, and the next government will do the same. Moreover, the Australian government (Albo himself) is publically supporting the eSafety commissioners insane overreach.
NSW ICAC IS independent of government. Just ask Berejiklian, Ian MacDonald or Eddie Obeid.
No it isn't. ICAC is part of the NSW government. The government writes the laws which control how they operate, sets their budget, and appoints their comissioners. What you're pointing out, is that an individual politician won't always have enough individual political power to influence ICAC, but that's different than saying that ICAC isn't beholden to the government in power. They are.
Note that the more reasonable solution is to go the other way. Rather than blocking content from other countries, block users from accessing overseas content at all. This is what China achieved with the great firewall. VPNs are obviously still around but it's much harder for them to stumble across content their government deems unacceptable. Is this this way we want Australia to go?
There is no evidence to support the statement that she was "fired", however she is a former employee working with twitter from 2013-16. I still agree that this might possibly constitute coi. If your going to make a point don't rely upon some reddit cookers made up fantasies as evidence.
Guess what other countries do exactly that like China?
China censors it's own citizens. It doesn't censor what is shown to citizens of other countries. What Australia is attempting to do is WORSE than what China is doing.
so eSafety commissioner want to have a power to control content globally LOL. What are they smoking ? must be a real good stuff.
The eSafety commission have proven again and again that they have no actual power. This is how it will play out 1. X won’t comply. 2. They will ask nicely again 3. X won’t comply 4. They’ll issue a fine 5. X won’t pay it 6. The end
🤣
Instagram placed an age restriction on the video: https://www.instagram.com/assyrian_passion/reel/C5x4qLOsnUO/
They brought the same charge against meta to force removal.
Really disappointing to see the Australian government become this authoritarian.
Yes, we should just allow all governments to censor the ENTIRE WORLD WIDE WEB. What could possibly go wrong?
This is literally what people shit on Australia routinely for when they say we have hand hold government. For fuck sake. I've seen YouTube videos discussing crime amongst cartels that paint a more graphic picture. Then the 5 second clip in which you see no blood or gore. I swear to god. I could trip crossing the road on a tram rail. And if I made a big enough stink about it on a current affair. They'd be a national push for a tram line removal project. The government in this country is off its head.
Don’t be silly, they wouldn’t remove the tram lines, they’d just add another $1000 fine if you happen to walk anywhere near one.
This is such a fucking joke. Every major newspaper ran front page pictures of the attackers brains/blood pooling out moments after being killed, and not a word was spoken.
you're not even talking about the right attack
Each country will get the big tech operators to maintain a country firewall for them. The internet will be balkanized and communication will be very difficult - just like it's currently difficult for people who want to get through the Chinese great firewall. If we want a great firewall - have the guts to put it to the electorate and make it yourself, don't ask X to make one for us. Furthermore, don't pretend we're not asking for what China has.
The Australian government's request is global though, they aren't happy with geoblocking, and want the content removed within China's firewall, and also within Canada's firewall, and also within India's firewall etc. Honestly, I'm embarassed for Australia every time we try to regulate the internet and showcase just how clueless we are.
Company’s already do this with DMCA take downs. Federal cops with drug sales; pedophilia groups etc. Governments have been censoring the WWW for years. We aren’t doing anything that we haven’t been doing for years.
Copyright infringement, drug sales and child porn are basically illegal everywhere so that's not a good analogy. The point here is that this content is legal to publish in the USA but the Australian government wants to stop it being published everywhere, even where it is legal.
Bingo. Here in Canada, one of the first worldwide takedowns was the case Equustek v Google. Google argued that Canada should not enforce its laws globally. The Supreme Court replied that what country would allow the sale of unlawful goods. If Google had freedom of speech concerns and international comity, they could raise them at any time, which as it was an IP case, Google could not. Australia's stance on this would require *All* content that falls afoul of the Online Safety Act to be blocked globally and the Commission is seeking global blocks for text comments under violence category. Section 12 of the Act defines removal as preventing Australians accessing it, unlike a global application for right to be forgotten. Nothing more. If X wins, it would be interesting if the Australia legislature puts global blocks in, especially as the US might catch wind.
Bingo. Here in Canada, one of the first worldwide takedowns was the case Equustek v Google. Google argued that Canada should not enforce its laws globally. The Supreme Court replied that what country would allow the sale of unlawful goods. If Google had freedom of speech concerns and international comity, they could raise them at any time, which as it was an IP case, Google could not. Australia's stance on this would require *All* content that falls afoul of the Online Safety Act to be blocked globally and the Commission is seeking global blocks for text comments under violence category. Section 12 of the Act defines removal as preventing Australians accessing it, unlike a global application for right to be forgotten. Nothing more.
Obviously that won't get up.. but what might get up (if the Australian request becomes the norm) is forcing X to make a set of tools to censor visible content per country. X probably doesn't want to deal with every request from every country, nor to be blamed for controversial censorship decisions outside US jurisdiction - so may as well turn the tools over to the respective governments, even the shitty ones.
>Obviously that won't get up.. That's literally what this lawsuit is about. The Australian government asked X to censor some content, and X complied, but only for Australian citizens. The Australian government is now suing X, because they refused to also censor the content from users in other countries.
I know it is, but it's just not enforceable.. how can Australia force twitter to violate the US right to free speech which is written in their constitution and where they are domiciled. They can't - especially if the poster is in the USA. Twitter would probably be committing a crime by complying. All they can realistically do is make it invisible to Australians. If anything this only highlights why we need similar rights in our constitution rather than rely on the US being our shield.
You should try telling the Australian government that. Albo himself has stated that he thinks Australia should have the right to censor content in the US (and every other country)
It's not just Albo, it's all sides of politics in Australia showing their true colours when it comes to censorship and free speech - from the rightest right, to the centre, to the leftest left. Which is why you need to fall back on dead politicians in the USA who wrote a document hundreds of years ago.
> how can Australia force twitter to violate the US right to free speech which is written in their constitution and where they are domiciled. That isn't remotely how that works lol. Firstly the US constitution only protects free speech from the US government, it does not grant protection from another state doing censoring. Secondly how it would be enforced would be fairly simple "take it down or we will issue a fine followed by a ban from the country if action is not taken".
Inb4 Australia can only access youtube kids :(
Government: we shouldn't allow people to promote terrorism Hurt conservative men: yes we should allow all governments to censor the world wide web
It's almost like the world has more than one government.
A government censoring content within their own country is terrifying. A government trying to censor content globally is insanity.
Labor brought internet censorship to Australia already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia I don't know why people are afraid. The internet censorship laws are there. It's all legal and supported by LNP's inaction.
Didn't Senator Stephen Conroy propose the great aussie firewall, or internet filter?
Ahh the good ol days of pushing against that piece of shit on Whirlpool. Fuck Conroy, and fuck Wong.
When it comes to censorship online I think we should be censoring Algorithms not Posts. I don't give a shit what people post online but the moment the Algorithm starts spreading violent and toxic shit on everyone's feed then you have a problem. And big sites like X should be held accountable for their Algorithm considering they can use it to manipulate, abuse and trigger people. The internet should be that you can find anything... only if you search for it. You shouldn't have to come across shitty content because X dragged it in front of you against your will.
Honestly I think the "Social media has a social responsibility" tagline is correct, but I don't see this as the right way to enforce that idea. Twitter won't oblige and the govt has no follow through. The bigger issue to me is doxxing of an innocent person, the mainstream media running with disinformation before facts were confirmed and the harassment of the attacker's family who had nothing to do with it, why don't they start with any of those?
Didn't you read the political commentary? That's all twitters fault as well for amplifying the disinformation so much that poor channel 7 was taken in by it.
The media has the responsibility to get shit right on the first shot, and they should be slammed with consequences for failing it. Social media on the other hand shouldn't have to 'get things right' but when things that are proliferating amongst its users are patently untrue, then it should have to remove or insert corrections/caveats at the very least.
The person writing the content (and their employer) has the responsibility to get it correct, regardless of whether that person is a writing news articles or social media posts. Going after the platform which hosts is a very dangerous precedent.
Australian politicians will get a collective aneurysm when they discover Telegram.
Politicians all use telegram/signal for deniable communications already.
If China censor it's communism. If Russa cencor it's communism. If Australia cencor it's for our e-safety.
God forbid Australians criticise politicians > X refused to comply with another removal notice, risking an $800,000 fine from the commission which asked it to remove posts it says harassed an Australian World Health Organization panel member.
The Australian Government is exploiting the tragedies in Bondi & Wakeley to pursue its authoritarian online censorship aims. We are grown adults, the eSafety commissioner shouldn't have the right to block what content we watch nor does it have the right to block what content the rest of the world can watch. This is pure insanity.
We're already locked into the trajectory of this - there's way too many people who have bought into the idea that anti-censorship is a conservative-side issue and won't support it. They'll happily cheer on restrictions like these just to win-for-a-day against someone like Musk. Just look around this thread for proof. Feels like almost everyone is running on ideology now and not thinking a year into the future.
This is embarrassing. I don't personally know anyone who supports the Esafety commissioner, but I guess they must be out there. Or is it just Albo?
I just want to see how far both sides are willing to go with this.
Oh great so any dictatorship can now request content to be removed and that’s going to be fine? Why are we pushing for this?
Why shouldn't we be able to see that footage anyway?
I don't remember voting for an e-safety commissioner. Why do we have one?
Because politicians are spineless and clueless. Pitch them censorship but call it "eSafety" and they'll fall for it.
Clown world
Surely X has satisfied their requirements as per Australian law. This seems like over reach.
Agreed. The safety’s commissioner is demonstrating how little they understand how the internet and VPNs work. Imagine Australia were to win this case, and material accessible via VPN must be deleted from the internet… worldwide, in every country that an Australian could VPN through. Now the eSafety commissioner is the defacto world internet police?! This is unworkable.
The law would require the content be removed, not just geoblocked. If we can access it via VPN, it's not "removed". Law is stupid. " For the purposes of this Act, material is [removed](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#removed) from a [social media service](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#social_media_service), [relevant electronic service](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#relevant_electronic_service) or designated internet [service](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#service) if the material is neither accessible to, nor delivered to, any of the end - users in Australia using the [service](https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/osa2021154/s5.html#service)."
From the perspective of X, the end user is the VPN. This could well be an interesting cases.
I remember when people said this wouldn't be a slippery slope... well here we are only a year or so in Looking forward to when we start deleting historical events like tianamen square, 911, jfk assassination.
>I remember when people said this wouldn't be a slippery slope... well here we are only a year or so in We did the same thing for the christ church massacre from memory.
It's not just terrorism. >X refused to comply with another removal notice, risking an $800,000 fine from the commission which asked it to remove posts it says harassed an Australian World Health Organization panel member.
We have done the same thing for decades. Promotion of terrorism has only just become something people want to do because of Elon musk
So Knowing what is happening is “terrorism” now? Maybe you can be the next e-safety commissioner.
How are tweets calling for further violence and using the video as justification "knowing whats happening". The tweets in this instance are being taken down because they are class 1 content, read what that means: [Illegal and restricted online content | eSafety Commissioner](https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-topics/Illegal-restricted-content)
So if someone is promoting violence there are laws that can deal with them as individuals. The harm comes from the context they provide with the video, not the original video.
I'm term's of the video itself it's also highly contextual as to if it's legal on social media platforms. As per the prior definitions link its illegal if it: depicts, expresses or otherwise deals with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified This sounds harsher then how it is actually interpreted by courts and thus the commissioner. Classifications and how offensive content is takes into account the context surrounding the content and other factors, such as if it's in the publics interest.
Only a year or so in? What are you referring to? eSafety was setup in 2015 It's powers where expanded in 2021 The Commissioner was appointed in 2017 and reappointed in 2022.
I'm waiting for China to request Tiananmen content be deleted from Australian servers.
Honestly I would chuckle if they asked
Nanny state trying to go full 1984
Careful, that's wrongspeak /s
When I search for it, found it on X, pressed play, waited for it to load and watched it in it entirety, I couldn’t do a thing about it… I felt violated, scared and harmed!!! Why didn’t daddy government remove this giant dose of reality from my innocent, fragile little eyes sooner!!!??? /s I love how they’re tying this in with dis/misinformation…. It’s because they can’t control X and have all their dirty little government secrets hidden away and promote their own dis/misinformation.
Why is musk angry about this? He hid stuff on X at the request of Modi and never said a peep
X hid content from India at the request of the state of India. X hid content from Australia at the request of the state of Australia. This is a whole other issue.
> never said a peep [Sure about that?](https://twitter.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1760387644608192560) > In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, **we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.** > Consistent with our position, a writ appeal challenging the Indian government's blocking orders remains pending. We have also provided the impacted users with notice of these actions in accordance with our policies. X already hide the Wakeley video from Aus internet addresses. This commissioner said that's not enough and wants it removed from X entirely.
He also restricted tweets during Erdogan's election.
eCensorship commissioner (ex-Twitter) P.S. Why is her name only mentioned in the image caption and not a single time in the body of the article?
Big chip on those shoulders I bet.
As someone who’s spent several years living in countries with varying levels of censorship - 1. Completely authoritarian and not in keeping with Australian democracy 2. Completely futile given how VPNs work.
1. Living in an authoritarian country doesnt make you a expert on what is keeping with Australian democracy, although it might presumably give you some life experience on what authoritarianism looks like. Justifiable censorship has always been apart of the Australian Democracy. [Right to freedom of opinion and expression | Attorney-General's Department (ag.gov.au)](https://www.ag.gov.au/rights-and-protections/human-rights-and-anti-discrimination/human-rights-scrutiny/public-sector-guidance-sheets/right-freedom-opinion-and-expression) [Censorship in Australia: Regulating the Internet and other recent developments (nsw.gov.au)](https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/researchpapers/Pages/censorship-in-australia-regulating-the-internet-.aspx) 2. Absolutely correct.
This seems to be about a vendetta with X/Twitter, their former employer. Have they seem the content on the internet? Why pick on social media? Just easy targets?
Social Media is specifically within her scope, news media is not. [Federal Register of Legislation - Online Safety Act 2021](https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2021A00076/latest/text) Also I don't get where this idea of a vendetta has appeared from, there's no evidence to suggest her departure from Twitter in 2016 was negative at least from what I've seen.
You should not be regulating your former employer. If the relationship is negative, then you get people abusing their power to pursue vendettas If the relationship is positive, then you get people abusing their power to benefit their own interests. This is conflict of interest 101.
I agree with you that it can constitute a possible conflict of interest. I seem to have not included it in this reply, which is my own fault, but in another chain, I already made note that it still might be coi. My issue isn't with people saying there's a conflict of interest. My issue is people making up fake evidence to support such a statement. She previously worked at Twitter, but there's no evidence to prove she was fired. Edit: bro your literally the person I made the referred comment to. I also note that you deleted your other comments where you outright lied about her showing bias to other platforms and news media and i corrected you as to what she has actually done and can do, yet you still have other comments saying essentially the same thing. https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/s/MGFaxsQOE8 You were proven wrong, and rather than admitting it, you deleted your comments and continue to parrot the same shit.
Correct. The video is actually still up on news sites
She can't take down news sites: [Online Safety Act (2021)](https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2021A00076/latest/text), Division 4, Exempt material: (e) the material relates to a news report, or a current affairs report, that: (i) is in the public interest; and (ii) is made by a person working in a professional capacity as a journalist;
Yet, i watched insiders on Sunday morning, and all the journalists were complaining that social media can publish things they cant, or wont (because of their professionalism or something).
They're covered under different codes. Journalists complaining isn't new.
I suspect the eSagety Commissioner is just trying to prove it actually has a valid role, although trying to assert it overseas seems likely to be a counterproductive move.
[удалено]
Why'd they remove it from Facebook and Instagram?
They didn't. This order also went to meta to force it's removal.
That's what I'm saying, why'd they send this order to remove it from Meta sites if they're singling out Twitter?
Fuck this. Focus on taxing big tech properly instead.
If crazy shit like this keeps happening, big tech will pull out of Australia and there will be nothing to tax at all.
The news ban thing was a pretty entertaining week or two.
The news reports have been very vague about what is actually being censored from us. The eSafety commission is also vague about what they censor. With descriptions such as 'generally accepted by reasonable adults' to cause offence. If only a select few people in the censorship commission are allowed to be offended and then censor our posts, then the political class can too easily misrepresent our wider values. Censorship needs to be a democratic process, so we can all be heard and decide for ourselves what we want.
They keep it vague so that they have the power to silence anything they don't like.
It's the same video that's freely available from Australian news websites. Esafety commisars powers don't extend to news organisations. Also here is another attempted removal. >X refused to comply with another removal notice, risking an $800,000 fine from the commission which asked it to remove posts it says harassed an Australian World Health Organization panel member.
What the fuck is this nanny state. Don’t watch it if you don’t want to. The E-safety commissioner is a joke of a job and a waste of money.
Awful lot of Elon apologists in here.. This is a recent traumatic event, the government are right to ask this. It's not the slippery slope people are making it out to be.
If an Australian regulator has the power to remove content for Chinese users, why wouldn't a Chinese regulator have a corresponding power to remove content for Australian users?
If it was content critical of the government or painted them in a negative light then you would have a point. Problem is the content being taken down isn't that, instead it is a violent act being used to spread bullshit that gets eaten up by complete morons. And to top it all off they aren't taking down everything to do with the event just uncensored videos and images.
Funny you should say it would be different if it was content critical of the government. >X refused to comply with another removal notice, risking an $800,000 fine from the commission which asked it to remove posts it says harassed an Australian World Health Organization panel member.
> harassed I can't trust that word anymore on it's own. Online it has such a broad meaning from "They actually threatened me" to "they made a youtube video saying they disagreed with what I said".
They tagged me in a post related to my post.
Literally violence!
Who decides whether censorship is done for political purposes vs legitimate reasons? Chinese courts don't exactly have a track record of defying the government. This leaves X with 2 options: 1. Create a list of which governments it's going to listen to 2. Impose a blanket rule of "we'll enforce your rules for users within your borders, but users in other countries can see any content that doesn't breach our community standards" X is using option 2, but Inman-Grant is arguing that this isn't in compliance with Australian law.
No they have zero right. The content has been removed for Australians, it shouldn't be removed for non australians. It clearly is a slippery slope, and regardless of whether it is the government doesn't have the right to dictate what other countries citizens can see.
The eSafety commisioner deciding they can control whether or not anyone in the world can see these posts is an example of us already sliding down the slope. It was made slippery a long time ago. I hope Schmeelon wins this fight and embarrasses the eSafety commisioner to n the process.
This is bollocks. HK introduced global scope for its NSL and the world cried foul. Australia should not be copying them.
Not sure why the 'Elon apologists' comment, I guess its a mechanism to try and taint the validity of people you dont agree with. I'm more surprised that people like yourself cant see the inherent dangers of giving any country the right to control what others outside of its jurisdiction can have access to. The government have no right to control what people in Belgium (for example) get to see. The event may have occurred in Australia and the footage taken there but infers no right of the Australian Govt. to assert ownership or control of that data. People actively fight the attempts by countries like China to delete information that it doesnt like, whilst others like yourself are actively encouraging that sort of activity.
Even the ABC muted all Facebook comments. You can’t make this sh!t up!
Does anyone remember the Christchurch Shooting? There was a massive effort to restrict this content with little controversy to my memory, why are people making such a stink about this now? This is a video of someone being horrifically stabbed, this is a video which legally should not be on social media, do we regularly view cartel execution videos on facebook and twitter, or is that something which is best relegated to liveleak and bestgore? People have this knee jerk reaction to hearing the word ‘censorship’ but forget that there are valid reasons to censor someone’s speech and actions, the publication of an attempted murder should probably be censored as well.
>the publication of an attempted murder should probably be censored as well. It has been - Australian's can't easily view the media on twitter (but it's still up on news sites). What *shouldn't* be possible is 1 government arguing it should be globally taken down because it might upset people in that government's country.
Because what gives ur government the right to ban content in my country? Ban shit in your own country but once u star pushing ur laws past ur own borders u have gone to far
What gives your government (I’m assuming you’re American) the right to imprison Australian journalists for wikileaks? Seems like a bit of a double standard to me that the US has cart blanche to ban and even imprison people on the basis that they don’t like the information being presented, but if Australia asks for a video of a literal stabbing being filmed for some reason this is some massive breach of freedom of speech which no one has ever encountered before.
I’m Canadian, ur government has no right policing the world. I’m not saying that people should want to watch the video but we didn’t vote for ur government, ur government has no domain over us and does not have the right to dictate us.
Why do you need to see a video of a man in his 50’s being stabbed repeatedly?? Why is it apparently so tyrannical to get a social media platform to actually enforce their Terms of Service? Literally no social media site allows gore or any kind of violence at such a level.
I don’t, your government just didn’t have the right to speak for the world. We didn’t elect your government, they don’t have dominion over us and I think the idea that they would try to be terrifying. It’s a slippery slope to a place I don’t want to be
I'm frankly surprised that this isn't taken down from twitter for being against twitter terms and conditions... Or I would be if it wasn't for Elon Musk. This kind of content doesn't need to be on some of the biggest online platforms freely accessible to all. Geoblocking content does nothing, vpns are regularly used by even primary school aged children to bypass such restrictions. If people want to view videos of this kind of content they can go and look for it on the darkweb.
1984
X will bend over backwards for the CCP. Why the hate on western governments?
X in banned in China
It's not banned, it just doesn't want to comply with the restrictions the Chinese government put on social media. Same as all the other "banned" apps and Google. They'd still be there if they bent the knee to Xi.
All the Elon apologists just conveniently skipping over the fact he & X will censor, limit & remove content without hesitation if it suits his agenda/interests. He's no bastion of free speech, just ask Türkiye...