From the time when NZ PM Jacinda Ardern made the outrageous statement (at least it should have been considered outrageous to anyone still capable of independent thought) that the government was to be the single source of truth, it was obvious that controlling our ability to independently hear or speak about anything was going to be severely restricted.
Now, we have ACMA in Australia wanting to tell social media companies that they consider to be mis or dis-information and to ensure that nobody will ever be able to speak, write or think freely about anything that goes against government policy.
And similar legislation is being debated in parliaments around the world as you can see from the clip at the top of this post.
According to this article from November 2020, extremely aggressive internet censorship is spreading to the world’s democracies. We could have told them this! Australia, New Zealand and Canada are 3 of the worst abusers of the human right of free speech in the developed world.
This article from 2021 published by none other than the United Nations, talks about whether moderating online content represents a fight against harm or a silencing of dissent. The irony meter is about to explode!
But even countries like the United States that have codified that right in a Bill of Rights are ignoring and riding roughshod over free speech.
And this article from Poynter.org discusses which countries are looking at introducing legislation restricting online mis and disinformation. Be warned - there are a LOT of them. What a coincidence!
We only have another 3 weeks to file our submissions to ACMA (link above) telling them that we do not want to be silenced. Please do take this opportunity to have your say while you still can and to send copies of your submissions to me at admin@myinformedchoice.com.au if you are able.
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