Close to victory against MAD censorship bill—the Greens must also reject it

Call on the Greens and Independents to watch Professor Anne Twomey’s explanation of the bill and vote “no”.

As of the weekend, exactly half of the Senators are publicly declared as opposed to the MAD (Mis-And Disinfo) social media censorship bill, by which the government will censor political opinions online.

If the Senate remains deadlocked at 38-38, the bill cannot pass… unless one or two Senators on the “no” side mysteriously fail to make it to the chamber in time to vote.

The bill is scheduled for consideration in the Senate next week, after it returns from the legislation committee inquiry the government rushed, allowing barely a week for public submissions (which was swamped with over 16,000 submissions anyway).

The most certain way to stop the bill is to convince the Greens to join the majority of Independents and vote against it.

Every Australian committed to protecting the principle of free speech should call or email the Greens Senators this week in Parliament to insist they vote against the bill.

Email each of the Greens Senators constitutional expert Professor Emerita Anne Twomey’s explanation of the bill on her Constitutional Clarion YouTube program: https://youtu.be/owTfkg_Rcj8?si=WDQqIQeL7MAk4A10

Censoring political opinions

Professor Twomey explains that while the bill includes useful provisions to make the algorithms of the big social media platforms more transparent—so people can know the basis for the tech companies’ decisions to censor certain posts, and have an official complaints process—the devil is in the detail of the definitions of mis- and disinformation.

And the most devilish detail is hidden in the bill’s Explanatory Memorandum (EM), which explains the intent behind the provisions.

The EM makes it crystal clear that the intention of this bill is to censor political opinions, not just verifiably false statements presented as facts.

It cites examples from other countries, where it blames election outcomes in Germany and Italy on mis- and disinformation, including the election of the current Italian prime minister.

The fact that the EM would cite such examples is stunning, and reveals an anti-democratic outlook that seeks to de-legitimise election outcomes simply because they disagree with the result.

It confirms that one of the motivations for this bill—which was initially bipartisan until the Coalition dropped its support—is the two major parties wanting to suppress the free exchange of alternative information and policy discussions that is contributing to the decline in the major party vote and the increase in the number of crossbenchers in Parliament.

(Labor and the Liberals have just demonstrated again how panicked they are about their declining vote, by combining to push a new bill through Parliament on electoral reform, which shamelessly rigs the rules to favour them over the minor parties and independents.)

Prof. Twomey shows that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will have ultimate authority to determine what is truth, and so the social media platforms will have no choice but to use algorithms to pre-emptively blanket censor entire political topics covered by the bill’s definitions, to avoid incurring hefty fines.

This will achieve the suppression of free-flowing political exchange on social media that the major parties hope, so their mates in the mainstream media can once again control the narrative in a way that suits the two party duopoly.

Greens and Gaza

The Greens should have been the first party to reject the MAD social media censorship bill, simply based on their advocacy for the Palestinians in Gaza.

Since it became clear that Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack was extremely disproportionate, to put it mildly, becoming a mass-slaughter of innocent civilians, mainly thousands of children and women, apologists for the extremist Netanyahu regime in the United States and Australia have hysterically attacked social media, especially TikTok, for sharing the images of the genocide with the world.

The apologists have blamed social media for the global wave of protests against Israel’s war policy.

If those who attack the protests had their way, they would mass-censor everything from social media that exposes the horror of what the Palestinians are being subjected to.

Because of their position on this issue, the Greens should not vote for this sinister bill which would empower the government to establish such a censorship regime.

The bill will be emphatically defeated if the Greens do the right thing and vote no.

What you can do

1. Starting today, and for the rest of the week and early next week, call and email the Greens Senators to ask them why they haven’t opposed a bill that would be used to cover up the truth about Gaza.
2. Email the Greens Senators Professor Towmey’s explanation of the bill and ask them to justify why they would vote for a bill that would censor political opinions.

Click here for the Greens Senators: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian_Search_Results?q=&sen=1&par=295&gen=0&ps=12

Click here for the list of Independent Senators: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian_Search_Results?q=&sen=1&par=290&gen=0&ps=12