More of your submissions to ACMA in opposition to their plans to silence Australians
Please keep them coming - we're having a positive effect as shown by their extension of the deadline for submissions to August 20th!
Once again, this post is too long for email so if you want to read all of the amazing ACMA submissions that have been shared with me, click on the link to read them on Substack. I haven’t been able to thank all of these correspondents personally - life has just been too busy! But please accept my sincere gratitude - everyone who has sent one of the messages listed below and those who haven’t sent me copies but have written to ACMA.
Again, information for how to write to ACMA is below:
Have your say
The submissions are in no particular order
I believe that freedom of speech is a right of every human, whether verbal, written or digital. There are many things I have heard or read that I choose not to agree with. History has shown that church, politicians, anyone in positions of power, are not necessarily correct in their beliefs. I do not support censorship nor do you believe that ACMA or governments are capable of or entitled to determine what is misinformation or disinformation, which are not, and likely cannot, be clearly defined. What disagrees with any person's opinion is not a valid position to refer to other opinions as misinformation or disinformation. Please refuse this potential legislation.
To whom it may concern.
The last three years have been the most frightening and stressful time of my life. I am a Registered nurse of forty-three years…extremely passionate about evidence-based medical and nursing care and have strongly advocated for my patients if I see a lack of care or medical mistreatment. I have been commended for standing up for my patients when a misdiagnosis has been made….and it happens more frequently than the public could imagine!
Then came COVID…. watching the China videos of people dropping dead in the street was terrifying but my medical knowledge made me doubt their authenticity and the fact that there was never a medical debate about how a virus could kill so quickly in an obviously symptom free person was concerning!
From then on, this deadly scenario became the basis for what appeared to be a respiratory flu like virus that was affecting the elderly and people with multiple co morbidities, not unlike the seasonal flu.
The China videos caused the politicians to go into over drive…. lock downs, masks, lack of community medical treatment (GP clinics closing) patients told to stay at home until they could no longer breath…. which left no time once in hospital to treat, only to resuscitate i.e., ventilation (even oxygen and nebulizes were banned due to risk to the health care workers) … naturally without treatment… steroids, high flow oxygen. nebulizers etc the patient died! this was called a COVID death!...
Some Intensive care doctors were speaking out and some nurses but they were censored. Still lack of debate with the treating doctors on the ground, the only narrative came from the WHO and government Chief medical officers who have not been involved with direct patient care for many years. The directive to cancel as misinformation all advise from doctors at the coal face treating patients before they needed hospital care with well-known cheaply available drugs and supplements with success…they were silenced!
The only hope according to Anthony Fauci, the WHO and Bill Gates was a warp speed experimental vaccine using an mRNA technology that had previously killed the lab rats and was deemed too dangerous to be tested on people unless they were at end of life.
All medical professionals were contacted by AHPRA and told that we were obligated to support the Government narrative for the vaccine or lose our licence and even face six months in jail. I was sacked for not taking the vaccine as were thousands of healthcare workers around Australia.
Today we now know the vaccine is useless, it does not prevent infection or transmission and the vaccinated are developing increased risk of hospitalisation with COVID, cardiac and neurological issues. We know that Zinc Vitamin C and Vitamin D and Ivermectin can help fight the virus…. many of us knew this information right at the beginning but as it did fit the narrative we were cancelled as spreading misinformation! yet an experimental vaccine was not allowed to be debated with medical experts including the inventor of the mRNA technology! How many lives could have been saved if they were all allowed to debate?
A worldwide community of cancelled doctors and medical experts has joined together… sharing their knowledge online to help treat COVID, long COVID and vaccine injured and preparing for future Pandemics. But even knowing that they made serious mistakes with the treatment of COVID the WHO and politicians are continuing to ignore their advice…planning for the next pandemic and the next vaccine! and part of the Pandemic plan to silence the dissidents and prevent their so-called disinformation and misinformation from reaching the public forum.
The science is never settled! and the best science results from vigorous debate from multiple independent specialist…the internet allows for their arguments to be broadcast to the public who would otherwise only have the Government and MSM to educate themselves. And as the Government is exempt from the disinformation and misinformation laws this information is unreliable!
In a Democratic country the people have a right to free speech and to decide for themselves what information they wish to follow!
Kind Regards
To Whom it may Concern
Submission in response to a proposed legislation amendment giving the ACMA new
powers to combat misinformation and disinformation.
It is with great concern that I have become aware of the Commonwealth of Australia (the Commonwealth) government's intention to amend legislation regarding the combatting of misinformation and disinformation in the media. I think most people will agree that certain forms of misinformation and disinformation are present to some extent everywhere in the world. It always has been and, perhaps, always will.
Promotion of certain idealogical agendas by governments and government agencies, private corporations, vested interest groups, and individuals is always present. As adults we should be able to think critically about information we are presented with on a daily basis and discern for ourselves whether it is worthy of our consideration. This can only be done if the information is made freely availablefrom multiple sources.
Information is just information. It is neither good nor bad in and of itself, much like a knife, or a rifle. It is only when information is used by an individual, an organisation or, perhaps, a government or government agency to nudge, steer, coerce or otherwise interfere with public opinion that it becomes a problem.
There have been many cases in history where information has been misrepresented in order to have people behave in a certain way, often with disastrous results. It is only with the benefit of hindsight many years later that we see the corrupt objectives of the perpetrators.
Deciding that information is misinformation or disinformation for the sake of the common good/public safety (which has ominously Marxist/socialist overtones) and, supposedly, to help protect people from harm, where harm is not well defined is a potentially dangerous agenda for the government to pursue.
Representatives in the federal government have been elected to their positions by the people of the Commonwealth, are paid by those same people, and are expected to create legislation for the betterment of those people, not to their detriment. I foresee the strong possibility that, if this legislation is passed in its current form, it could be used nefariously to attempt to silence dissenting opinions of government policy, even more than is currently occurring.
As a side note, I am reminded of the recent court ruling in the United States of America prohibiting the federal government there from being able to influence social media companies. It seems to me that the Commonwealth government would like to conduct the very same kind of interference that this ruling prohibits.
The digital platforms used by people wanting to speak and write freely of their opinions on various topics are, by and large, operated by companies outside the Commonwealth. This brings into question the reach of Commonwealth legislation across national borders. Surely this behaviour will not be permitted by other countries' laws. Threats of penalties for non-compliance with the legislation by these companies would also seem fraught with potential international problems.
I believe that it is each person's individual choice to read, listen to or watch whatever they please without government interference. As consenting adults we are blessed with the ability to think critically. It is not the role of government or a government agency to proscribe what information we may, or may not, be exposed to. The same goes for any opinions that we may wish to express (obviously, things like incitement to violence and similar well-described crimes should not be allowed - legislation already exists to deal with these instances).
Freedom of speech is paramount in a fully functioning democracy. The free exchange of ideas is what brought this country to where it is today (notwithstanding the constitutional problems of government overreach since 2020).
In summary, it is unnecessary to introduce more top-down authoritarian legislation telling us what we can and cannot say, hear, see or listen to. We should, instead, be educating and encouraging people to engage all points of view in order to let them make up their own minds about issues of the day.
Yours Sincerely
TO:
The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts
RE:
Feedback on an exposure dra of the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023
As a nearly 60yr old proud Australian with at least 3 generations of family born in this country I am deeply perplexed and unsettled with the poor and unsupportive leadership every Government has shown for more years than I can recall. What authority does any democratic Government have to remove the basic rights of its sovereign cizens to own land, grow food for consumption, contain & consume clean uncontaminated water, use natural medicines & praconers, visit whom they like when they like, choose what medicaons they are exposed to and speak freely in private or public about any topic they deem worthy including in the written word. You do not have the right to censorship or to determine what is misinformation and disinformation and I will never condone, accept nor comply with such a ridiculously communistic approach to Governing.
Regards,
New ACMA powers to abuse “the people” restricting their right to free speech and effectively deal with Government misinformation and disinformation
To whom it may concern,
As an example of misinformation and disinformation there can be no better example than the so-called “Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 and fact sheet”. Many of the reasons given for the bill are opinions masquerading as fact, and “Misinformation and disinformation” themselves. I just call it for what it is deception and lies.
The statement “Misinformation and disinformation spread via digital platform services is a major issue worldwide” is an opinion masquerading as fact because that statement implies that the lies and deception only come from those who are not on their so called trusted sources list. This is reinforced by the list of “list of excluded content for misinformation purposes.”
Government exempts itself
This legislation exempts the government itself, bodies funded by government and organisations with a vested interest from scrutiny. This is immoral and a breach of the ICCPR let alone the constitution and our common law rights.
The list of excluded content for misinformation purposes means any of the following:
a) content produced in good faith for the purposes of entertainment, parody or satire;
b) professional news content;
c) content produced by or for an educational institution accredited by any of the following:
i. the Commonwealth;
ii. a State;
iii. a Territory;
iv. a body recognised by the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory as an accreditor of educational institutions;
d) content produced by or for an educational institution accredited:
i. by a foreign government or a body recognised by a foreign government as an accredited of educational institutions; and
ii. to substantially equivalent standards as a comparable Australian educational institution;
e) content that is authorised by:
i. the Commonwealth; or
ii. a State; or
iii. a Territory; or
iv. a local government.
Government, Government agencies and Departments - Lies and Deception
Government, Government Agencies and Departments and our political leaders are inherent liars.
They are the spreaders and sources of deception, misinformation and disinformation. It doesn’t take much to find a myriad of examples even though google tries to suppress such searches:
One cannot get over the abuse by governments in Australia of “the people”. The federal government and federal health authorities enabled that abuse, and Labor obviously supported that abuse as we see in all Labor states. All based on lies, and the lies still continue.
Another example of the lies is given in this article below. How many people got vaccinated? I look at my own personal experience and people I know, and compare that with the statistics produced by government, but then news.com.au does a survey, only 45% had any sort of COVID-19 vaccination.
Here is yet another example of lies. Here is our beloved Prime Minister lying.
“Powering Australia will create 604000 jobs by 2030. Five out of every six of them in Regional Australia reducing power prices by $275 by 2025, $275 dollars a year, $275 a year. We'll get power prices down by 275 dollars a year.” Anthony Albese and various government speakers from
“Anthony Albanese made it into government from ‘lies’”
BmjaFVE 3:20 mark.
There are many such lies. Government makes a habit of it. There are web sites dedicated to it:
• https://www.laborlies.com.au/
• https://www.crikey.com.au/dossier-of-lies-and-falsehoods/
It’s not just politicians that lie. Government departments are full of lies and misinformation. The Bureau of meteorology, Climate Change advocates puts out new lies and misinformation at least monthly. There is always the latest scare campaign. They even distort the information to ‘validate’ their claims, and there is plenty of evidence to support that.
• https://wattsupwiththat.com/
• https://climatediscussionnexus.com/
The list of examples is endless.
Discrimination on the basis of religion, political or other opinion
In the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR) Australia agreed that each State Party to the Covenant would undertake to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the present Covenant, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
But here the Australia Government is doing exactly the opposite. The Albanese government is enacting laws to discriminate against those who are of a different religious, and political or other opinion.
You can’t argue that we won’t do it if it’s not a lie, when the Government promotes lies on a continuous basis.
The Commonwealth Government agreed when they ratified the ICCPR “to where not already provided for by existing legislative or other measures, each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take the necessary steps, in accordance with its constitutional processes and with the provisions of the present Covenant, to adopt such laws or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights recognised in the present Covenant.” The Commonwealth Government has consistently refused to do this. Even those laws they have implemented apply to others and governments in Australia exempt themselves. This legislation is a point in fact. It applies to others and not to itself. It dismantles free speech.
We have no effective remedy
The federal government has not ensured ensure that any person whose rights or freedoms as recognized in the ICCPR which have been violated have an effective remedy, notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity. This legislation is such an example. The court system as it currently stands in Australia rarely if ever stands for justice when it comes to imposed legislation, whether it conflicts with the constitution, other law, or agreements such as the ICCPR. Furthermore the court system is so costly it in itself inhibits justice.
This legislation only allows appeals on things the government says are reviewable. As specified in Schedule 9, which I cannot find. Administrative Appeals tribunals are often just a tool of government and once again we get down to the opinion of a single person. Again it is one person against the might of government and the situation is inherently biased in favour of government and what ever they want versus what the people want.
The court system and the Administrative Appeals Tribunals in Australia are a far cry from the courts envisaged in the constitution:
Sect 80: Trial by jury:
The trial on indictment of any offence against any law of the Commonwealth shall be by jury, and every such trial shall be held in the State where the offence was committed, and if the offence was not committed within any State the trial shall be held at such place or places as the Parliament prescribes.
Public health responses
The citing of “disrupted public health responses” is one of the most offensive things in the fact sheet. Governments in Australia mandated coercive laws, had whole states effectively under house arrest, lied to us about “safe and effective”, and our society is still suffering the effects of those so called “safe and effective vaccines”, when they were anything but. They lied about the necessity for lock downs and restriction of travel. They lied about the supposed severity of the so called COVID- 19.
My Basic Response:
My basic response to this legislation especially after the last three years is one of anger and contempt.
• Governments of Australia are untrustworthy and corrupt.
• Governments of Australia no longer (if they ever did) serve the people.
• The governments of Australia are consistent and practised liars.
• The courts cannot be trusted
• The police cannot be trusted
We reject this legislation. We do not agree. We do not consent. We will not comply with such outrageous self serving “laws”. We will do everything within our power to ensure that people are free, free from government continuous breaches of human rights and our rights as free men and women.
Sincerely
Free speech is an all-or-nothing concept; there are no gradations where it can be slightly limited. When governments start determining what can or cannot be expressed, regardless of its veracity, society loses its openness and freedom.
The most effective way to combat misinformation or disinformation is through public debate, where ideas are openly discussed and the public decides what they believe to be true. In the digital age, the internet and its platforms have become the modern town square, a space that must remain unaffected by government influence. It should be left entirely to the people to use as they see fit, with very limited hindrance. The level of hinderance should also be decided by the people and not by the Government.
Governments have frequently erred by disseminating information they initially deemed true, only to have it debunked in real-time. However, the heavy censorship imposed by Big Tech, acting on behalf of governments worldwide, has created a highly biased and conflicted flow of information. As a result, people have been deprived of the ability to make informed decisions regarding critical matters such as bodily autonomy.
If the government starts dictating what can or cannot be discussed online, both publicly and privately, our democratic society would transform into an authoritarian regime. Furthermore, governments tend to increase their powers and rarely relinquish them. Therefore, we must tread cautiously and not allow any governing body, regardless of its intentions, to decide what topics are acceptable for discussion. This principle holds true for any genuine democracy.
It is crucial to remember that words themselves are not acts of violence, and feeling offended is subjective. These factors should not serve as excuses to trample on the fundamental human right of freedom of speech.
The Australian people need to develop resilience and confront ideas they may find disagreeable. They should not shy away from engaging in open debates to test their thoughts and beliefs, allowing their peers to either validate or challenge them.
Dear Committee members,
Submission
Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023.
I propose that the old adage, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, be heeded and that this Bill be rejected in its entirety. It is important to note that the Government itself is excluded from the proposed laws and I would argue that, if the purpose of the Bill is to support democracy, the Bill needs to be reversed so that applies only to the Government and its bureaucracies. Our Governments and bureaucracies have become far too dictatorial as is currently being demonstrated in the VOICE debate and previously demonstrated during the ‘COVID’ period. Their powers to control debate should be reduced not expanded.
For all previous referendums, the Government of the day acknowledged that the decision was not the Governments and was strictly for the people to make and sought only to ensure that the people were fully informed on the case for YES and on the case for NO so that they were able to make a balanced decision. In the case of the Voice, many normal protocols had been abandoned with the Government first offering tax relief for expenditure only for the YES case and at first refusing to provide a YES/NO pamphlet and whilst these bad decisions may have been reversed the Government continues to push hard for only the YES case. In addition, the Government has refused to give details against legitimate enquiries preferring to provide only an emotional response in calling the enquirer a racist working on misinformation and it now seeks to cap debate through this new Bill.
On what basis could anyone make an unbiased decision on what is misinformation particularly since many of the details that are of interest to the people will not be determined till after the referendum? Even when the details are known, there is frequently a conflict of interest and decisions made by such bodies as ACMA are not necessarily unbiased. Some history behind my concerns follow:
1. APRA still refuse to acknowledge that bail-in exists and that Banks can convert ordinary deposits into shares without the permission or knowledge of the owners of those assets and it also denies the occurrence of de-banking where a corporation or individual is denied access to any banking services whatsoever. Why were those that fought against bail-in considered to be conspiracists and spreaders of misinformation despite the mountain of evidence in Government documents? In New Zealand, bail-in at least is known to all and people have an option of protecting their deposits by banking with the government owned Kiwibank while only few Australians are aware of bail-in and have no access to a secure government bank.
2. Why did AHPRA attempt to cut-off any and all discussions regarding ivermectin and ban its use as a treatment for COVID despite that (a) ivermectin is listed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a very safe drug, (b) it received a Nobel Prize, (c) it was used 4 billion times for human treatment since 1987 and (d) it had been a major success in the treatment of COVID in India, Japan, Mexico and Peru? Given ivermectin’s history, doctors should have been free to discuss its potential with their patients but instead they faced fines and loss of license under a claim of misinformation?
3. The ‘official line’ at the start of COVID included a statement that masks were not effective against the virus but this changed to being effective indoors and later, in some jurisdictions, people were fined for failing to wear masks even at beaches and other outdoor venues. Why did the ‘official line’ encourage the branding of persons as ant-vaxxers and spreaders of misinformation for simply pointing out that the manufacturers of surgical blue masks stated on the packaging that the product “is not a respirator and will not provide any protection against COVID-19 (Coronavirus) or other viruses or contaminants. Wearing an ear loop mask does not reduce the risk of contracting any disease or infection”?
4. When Prime Minister Albanese states in parliament that VOICE is a very modest request and then states the opposite to VOICE proponents, how would ACMA determine which or both are misinformation when these messages are spread in the media. In my view, both statements should be widely available to the general public so that the people are able to give appropriate weight to the claim and to the credibility of the Prime Minister.
5. Would those that provide links on social media to statements made by elders from an aborigine tribe in WA and others from a tribe at or near Uluru that they intended to vote NO be considered to be Racist working with misinformation? I believe that this is likely since it is against the ‘official’ government line as was the case in the APRA and AHPRA examples above.
I am absolutely convinced that the public would be best serviced by a media that is essentially free from censorship particularly when it comes to discussions of the policies of the government and their bureaucracies and that the “Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023” should be rejected in its entirety’
Yours Faithfully
ACMA BILL
Short summary:
I strongly oppose the bill and the attempt to shut down 'disinformation' through a bureaucratic mechanism in collaboration with private media organizations. Free speech curtailment only occurs when the state seeks to become more authoritarian. My submission raises two major issues, namely what impact disinformation has on the audience and discussion on how one decides whether speech constitutes disinformation. I am happy to provide validation of all the claims made in my submission.
My submission discusses the way misinformation applies to the last three years of the Covid pandemic, which I claim provides evidence of misinformation being provided by public authorities and politicians. In support of this claim, I have included the comprehensive report, 'A Big Pile of Covid Misinformation', which shows the evidence really clearly that the disinformation was being promulgated by hoodwinked governments, and the true story emerged from the dissidents, independent scientists and researchers not captured by big pharma. The misinformation narrative has now virtually collapsed, eclipsed by the real world data showing that the worst disinformation spreaders were not private citizens. Any legislation which removes government from scrutiny will be a disaster.
Submission:
Over the last three years, the subject of misinformation and disinformation has become much publicised by various players in the public square. The reference is made to harms being foisted upon the hearers from information which is said by the speaker to fall into one of these categories.
I believe there are two major challenges in considering the proposed bill and its move towards a dystopian future in which something approaching George Orwell's Ministry of Truth appears to have become a desirable goals for the drafters of this bill. The first problem is a definitional one. In my view, information is an abstract concept referring to something which is transmitted from the mind of another person to the minds of any audience. The receiving mind will process the information, making all sorts of decision on the fly regarding the style, the content, the accuracy, the credibility and the potential for complementary information which a person might wish to follow up. This process happens as the non-physical level, essentially an intellectual and emotional exercise. Given this, I fail to see how by any reasonable definition this can be defined as something which may cause harm.
The impact of disinformation
To cause harm requires a physicality that words cannot achieve. Throughout history, the arguments and principles contained in bills like this, have always been used by particular forms of government where control over narrative has overridden basic freedoms of expression. The extreme forms occur in fascist governments like Germany in World War 2. They also occur in totalitarian governments such as the Soviet Union, or Cambodia during Pol Pot’s reign. Yet they have crept into modern democrasies as well, using the ‘fear of harm’ principle.
Perhaps the best two example currently are the situation in the UK and more recently in the United States. In the UK example, we have the bizarre situation where the Police can come knocking on a person's door in response to a complaint about words they wrote on a social media app. these are referred to as 'hate crimes', even though (usually) they do not result in prosecution. this is chilling and directly correlating with Orwell's 1984 and should never occur in a modern, open society. British citizens clearly didn't make sufficient fuss to prevent this from occurring. Once implemented any draconian restriction is difficult to repeal.
The second and more egregious example is the deep collusion exposed by the Twitter Files through the independent journalists Elon Musk invited in to the company to investigate. During the Covid era vast numbers of private citizens, public intellectuals, scientists and medical specialists wrote about what they believed was really happening in relation to the Covid countermeasures, including vaccines, lockdowns, social distancing, quarantining, vaccine passports etc. However, governments around the world were unhappy about this freedom of speech expression.
The US government in particular was very unhappy about so many people disagreeing with their official narratives. So, they instituted an illegal collusion with the Big Tech companies, established regular communication across around a dozen agencies, and provided lists of social media accounts which they wished to see throttled through shadow banning or simply extinguished.
Although there was a degree of pushback from the social media companies, in particular from Twitter, given the strong bias within that organization against conservative or libertarian views, tens of thousands of users had their accounts closed down.
Professor Jay Bhattacharya – global expert characterized as disinformation spreader
Two examples of these misinformation spreaders are highly pertinent to this issue. Professor Jay Bhattacharya is a Professor of Medicine from Stanford University Medical School. A world leading expert in public health and epidemiology, one would imagine that he is someone who would have an informed view, which might be of interest in shaping opinions in the marketplace of ideas.
The good professor along with two colleagues wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, advocating for focused protection of the elderly and vulnerable, whilst allowing the majority of society to go about their business without any restrictions.
Yet, Dr Bhattacharya became a target and was labelled a disinformation spreader by none other than Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Frances Collins, two of the most senior executives in the US Federal health agencies. In fact they agreed that there needed to be a ‘takedown’ of Dr Bhattacharya immediately. We know this because an FOI exposed the email correspondence disclosing this conversation. Dr Bhattacharya was described as a ‘fringe epidemiologist’ by the two senior executives. Nothing could be further from the truth.
However, requests were made to Twitter to shut down the doctor’s account on the basis that he was spreading disinformation and harming the public. And so it came to be, that he was first shadow banned, meaning that no one could see his posts and then his account was terminated.
The irony of this example, is the fact that Dr Bhattacharya was advocating what had been established science and indeed WHO policy for pandemic responses. A policy that was overturned in the Covid panic.
Was Dr Bhattacharya’s communication misinformation or disinformation or for that matter malinformation? He certainly didn’t believe so. And until five second ago, the WHO had shared a similar view as had all western country’s pandemic policies, of which Australia’s had only recently been finalized.
It is now self-evident to most that Dr Bhattacharya’s recommendation to protect the vulnerable and let everyone else get on with normal life, was clearly a more sensible, less costly and catastrophic policy. Respiratory viruses mutate to become more infection and less dangerous, which is exactly what has transpired.
Perhaps the best objective real world evidence showing Dr Bhattacharya’s position was the right approach is what Sweden did. They did not lockdown, allowing normal life to continue, although with some focused protection for the elderly. They did not close churches and schools. Yet their results overall regarding deaths were better than the majority of EU countries.
So, had Dr Bhattacharya’s freedom of speech been maintained, perhaps more of the population may have lobbied for this approach. Perhaps not. Regardless, his crime as it now appears obvious in hindsight was simply that he disagreed with the officially sanctioned orthodoxy. This was not disinformation. It was simply Orwellian ‘wrongthink’.
This illegal collusion between the state and powerful corporate entities in the most powerful country on earth, shows how by instilling fear and hysteria in the population and ruthlessly censoring any ‘dissident’ views, even sophisticated modern republics like the United States can fall into a form of totalitarianism. Where the state colludes secretly with major corporations, this is typically referred to as fascism. Not the fascism of the Italian Mussolini, but a modern version of fascism, where freedom of speech is seen as the enemy of the powerful.
I expect the majority of the accounts shut down by Twitter were probably like this example. The broader point here is that the government set out its claims of truth about Covid, and the countermeasures. The public is entitled to test these claims and make their own determination. The role of the media has for decades been to keep government honest and hold it to account.
Yet in the Covid era, in most western countries, the media become a tame compliant marketing arm of governments. They were throttled by the massive advertising spend for public marketing campaigns promoting mass vaccination. They were controlled by global alliances like the Trusted New Initiative, which censored and critiqued any views critical of the official narratives, firstly on the US Presidential elections in 2020 and then on Covid measures.
Dr Mary Makary, a US surgeon testified in the Congressional hearings about this collusion between the US Federal government and Twitter. He stated that the greatest source of misinformation during the pandemic was the US government. The evidence is readily available that this is an accurate assessment.
There were dozens of claims made by governments, which purported to be true statements. These include that the vaccine was highly effective at stopping infection and transmission. It was stated that natural immunity was inferior to vaccine immunity. The vaccines were claimed to be safe for pregnant women. Lockdowns were used as ‘three weeks to flatten the curve’. The use of repurposed drugs such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine and others were said to be either harmful or ineffective, and in Australia, were banned from being prescribed by doctors.
All of these ‘facts’ have subsequently been exposed as false, untrue, totally incorrect, deceptive, misleading and just plain wrong. The evidence was overwhelming, published in peer reviewed literature and widely discussed in online media where censorship could not reach.
Most Australians were oblivious to this however, as the current state of affairs in the media coverage of Covid matters is so poor.
Naomi Wolf – persona non grata and disinformation pariah
The second example is the censorship of another ‘disinformation spreader’, US writer Naomi Wolf. Author of a number of best sellers, including the recent book about Covid, ‘The Bodies of Others’, Ms Wolf is a feminist writer and regular columnist in many popular global news outlets. She is a Democrat and served on the Clinton campaign as an advisor.
She is also an investigative journalist with an interest in women’s issues. Women were getting in touch with her reporting disturbing disruptions to their menstrual cycles. Wolf wrote about this, and as a result, incurred the ire of the US government, who colluded with Twitter to shut her down for spreading misinformation. Except it wasn’t misinformation, it was true information. Women were experiencing major disruptions to their menses. It was not clear what the cause was, although there was suspicion that it was related to the Covid mRNA vaccines.
No matter, Ms Wolf was extinguished online. But it got much worse than that. Mainstream media outlets who had sought her commentary for years, pulled back from even contacting her, based on ‘disinformation’ spread through various critical media coverage. Lies were told about her, and several outlets described her as crazy. Eventually all her contacts dried up and she became a social pariah. So, the ‘disinformation’ which became dangerous and harmful was perpetrated by mainstream media outlets rather than the woman herself.
As it turned out, we had not heard the last from Ms Wolf. She is also CE of a tech company called Daily Clout, which published a website featuring material regarding various campaigns on topics of public interest. By chance, she linked with the US doctors who had lodged a Freedom of Information request to obtain the documents the FDA used to approve the Pfizer vaccines. Following a massive court battle, a judge compelled the release of these documents in tranches of 50,000 per month commencing in 2022. This led to the formation of a team of volunteers to analyse this material. The results were published in a 500 page book called the War Room Daily Clout Pfizer documents report.
What this showed was that Ms Wolf was correct about there being problems with female fertility and disruption to women’s menses. Pfizer knew about all this and in fact had studied it extensively. They knew that it caused a drop in the fertility of women, leading to a downturn in population over time, assuming vaccines continued to be administered. The report also showed massive overrepresentation of women in adverse events, such that around two third of reports were from women and about 20% of the adverse events were fertility related. Highly disturbing also was the revelation that in the first 90 days of the global rollout, Pfizer was advised of around 1200 deaths attributed to the vaccines, and hundreds of thousands of adverse events. The documents further revealed the incredible fact that the number of adverse events was so vast, General Dynamics, the company contracted to manage the reporting, had to employ 2400 staff just to manage the volume and necessarily sought additional funding for this purpose. This is without precedent.
So, Ms Wolf was in fact a champion of free speech and truth, just as she had been when she exposed the risks with silicone breast implants decade earlier. The mRNA products have now been exposed as the most dangerous pharmaceutical product in human history. Yet, the disinformation continues by organizations with a stake in not revealing these facts to the full public, perhaps in fear of the disastrous impact this would have on public confidence in the health sector.
Misinformation does not stop the truth from emerging
Misinformation was developed, massaged, promulgated and disseminated by the pharmaceutical companies in league with public health administrators and promoted as the single source of truth. Except it wasn’t true. It was false. Most Australians have worked out that the vaccines don’t stop infection or transmission, so the mandates were unethical and ineffective. This means that the statements by Chief Medical Officers and Prime Ministers about these wonder products were not true. It is now evident from testimony in the European Parliament by a Pfizer executive, that the company did not in fact test for infection stopping in the clinical trials. So claims made by Australian and other public health professionals was at best wishful thinking.
Many are aware that adverse events were many times greater than Australian authorities would admit. However, Australian media provided no coverage whatsoever of the bombshell revelations in the Pfizer documents, which in a normal world would have made front page news for weeks, and probably triggered a Royal Commission to investigate what went wrong.
Instead, the misinformation continues to be promoted as truth, with the best example being the Australian government recommendation to ‘stay up to date’ with Covid vaccinations.
Other government stop peddling misinformation
This misinformation from government is what should stop. However, since it’s coming from the state, I doubt that it will. Meanwhile, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom and other places have all pulled right back from the total advocacy of these products. In Sweden the vaccines are not available except under specific circumstances, and doctors have been advised they bear the legal liability for injury.
Dr Naomi Wolf’s and Professor Bhattacharya’s experience shows how important it is to not have censorship in any society and to allow the free market of ideas. People will make up their own minds what is plausible, accurate, factual, sensible or wise.
Assessment of what will be described as misinformation.
The proposed legislation seems to be based on the view that whatever the government says is true must by definition be true. As shown above, there was a huge amount of disinformation during Covid, much of it spread by government. How can government agencies thereby be the final arbiter of truth. In fact they cannot. That can however be the arbiters of what is permissible to say, which is a quite different matter.
There will always be debate about what is true. Sometimes its black and white and easily established. Other times, its ambivalent. In the early days of the Covid vaccines, those claiming the vaccines didn’t work were castigated as moral reprobates, conspiracy theorists and quacks. It was inconceivable that the vaccines, worked on at high speed, apparently safety tested to usual standards and developed by the largest pharma companies on the planet, could be ineffective.
Yet, data began to show a phenomenon called ‘breakthrough infections’, where vaccinated people were getting Covid. This turned into a torrent of infections until it became impossible to ignore any longer. People voted with their feet and turned down subsequent boosters once it became apparent that the vaccine failed to stop infection or transmission. But claims were made that at least it prevented hospitalization and death. And then that one became shakier, as the data from the NSW hospital system showed that increasingly it was the vaccinated in ICUs and dying compared to the unvaccinated.
Then the concept of ‘negative efficacy’ entered public awareness. This was very embarrassing and naturally never admitted by Australian health officials, despite the fact they no doubt were aware. Perhaps the most embarrassing exposure of this was the Cleveland study performed in the latter part of 2022 and early 2023. The Cleveland Clinic is the largest chain of healthcare services in the US. The study included 50,000 employees and shock horror, they found that the most injections a person had the more likely they were to catch Covid. Those who remained unvaccinated has the lowest rates of Covid infection and those with four or more shots fared the worst.
So, the disinformation was the claim about the vaccine stopping infection, when the truth was it did not. The disinformation was the claim it stopped transmission, when the truth was it did not. The disinformation was the claim that at least it kept people out of hospital, when the truth was that the vaccinated were worse off.
This is on top of the disinformation that the mRNA products were ‘safe and effective’, when in fact they caused more adverse events than any vaccine in history, even though the Therapeutic Goods Administration continues to maintain the ‘three monkeys’ perspective, of see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.
This is why even if one accepts that disinformation caused harm, which I refute, in practical terms, controlling speech, based on what a government department rules is a nonsense.
Justification for censorship of misinformation
The only reason a government would seek to curtail those rights is if they feel threatened by criticisms. Given the draconian restrictions placed on the lives of Australians which now seem quite ludicrous since every man and his dog caught Covid anyway, the only other justification in the mind of the government is likely to be that an unpopular agenda is about to be pursued for which they need to silence criticism.
This will be an extraordinary and dangerous retrograde step for the Australia we all love, if this legislation is passed. I am not surprised that politicians who want to push their own agenda and wish to stifle criticism, may seek legislation to enable this level of control.
The danger of course is that such legislation will tilt this country towards a much darker future, creeping ever closer towards some kind of totalitarianism, where ‘wrongthink’ can cost you dearly, perhaps even your freedom or your life.
Conclusion
If this consultation process is genuine, my hope is that thousands of Australians will speak out against this retrograde move. If however, the process is a stacked deck, where consultation is not more than a cursory nod, then I guess whatever will be will be.
There is nothing good that can come out of legislation to censor, regardless of what name is used to describe this. During the last three years, there were a few examples of disinformation I came across. They did not hurt me, and I was not unduly troubled by them, as the evidence did not exist to support the claims being made. The vast majority of those described as spreaders of disinformation were in fact proven correct over time. Politicians such as Craig Kelly were saying true things during a time when both sides of politics didn’t want to hear it. He has subsequently been proven correct on virtually every claim he made. It was just that they were inconvenient truths because they were peddled by a naïve public service who had swooned at the foot of big pharma and the FDA, with their glossy reassuring PowerPoints. But they forgot to do their own due diligence, which then fell to citizens and independent scientists who have now exposed the Covid mess for the unfortunate and deceptive sham that it is.
The freedom to say what one thinks is the life blood of a modern open society like ours. Removal of that right will slowly strangle the opinions of those who disagree, but it will not silence them. Instead, they will find other ways to express themselves. They could even go back to that good old-fashioned practice of writing books and holding public meetings. Perhaps if the government is successful in forcing through this legislation, they might like to consider a new policy of book burning. I understand that has been highly successful at various points in history. Good luck with that.
I strongly believe that everyone should have the right to speak and debate any topic, at any time with anyone. No one should be censored from voicing an opinion, however how wrong or miss-informed it may be. The ability to debate any issue can only lead to improvement in knowledge by everyone debating the issue.
The appointment of Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to regulate what is now termed misinformation and disinformation (or the CIA invented the term conspiracy theory many decades ago) is akin to appointing the "Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's 1984. It's analogous to the Gestapo in Nazi Germany and the and the NKVD in communist Soviet Union (these were special police units). Who decides what is the truth on anything? Certainly the Government has an incredibly awful record of misinformation & disinformation with corrupt politicians with vested interest that will only enforce their truth, which they want the public to digest. Their truth, more often than not, is a lie or a miss-representation of the truth.
In a free democratic society everyone should have the freedom and ability to speak their mind. ACMA will have the opposite effect of the stated goals of protecting our democracy, society and economy. ACMA will inevitably lead to authoritarianism, a one party state and is inherently undemocratic.
SUBMISSION
Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023.
Freedom of speech is crucial to any free and democratic society. The proposed Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023, is an attack on freedom of speech. It must not be allowed to proceed.
There is no Government, Politician or government official, who is qualified to rule on which opinions and arguments should be censored and which should be promoted. In any free society, people have differing points of view, which change over time. Ideas must be allowed to be shared, regardless of how abhorrent they seem to some parts of the community.
History shows us that censorship has preceded every transition towards totalitarian / authoritarian government. History has also clearly identified that while some individuals might be trusted, Government and Bureaucracy as a whole can never be trusted as the arbiter of truth. Such organisations are always subject to influence from ideology, politics, money and self preservation.
It wasn’t that long ago that homosexuality was illegal and homosexual acts were considered abhorrent and immoral by most of society. Under the proposed legislation, the Government of that day would have censored all speech regarding homosexuality and lgbtqia+ activities (the Government of those years, did in fact censor a good deal of communication on these topics). Yet, in today’s society the current Government celebrates all things lgbtqia+ and actively promotes all associated topics. Who decides?
There are lies (misinformation and disinformation) spread every day through legacy and new media channels. Most Media is privately owned and funded. People understand that Media promotes ideas and shares news that supports the owners political and financial interests. The ABC is run by individuals who influence the news and information shared through its channels. Politicians are famous for lying. Who do we trust to decide what is truth and what is disinformation?
Recent history has shown that the Australian Federal and State Governments are already adept at censoring information they don’t want shared. The covid era provides many examples of material that was considered disinformation and actively censored, which was eventually proven to be accurate or at least a worthy argument to be considered.
· The covid Lab leak theory was actively censored, but is now largely considered to be correct.
· Arguments that the covid vaccines were less effective than claimed were censored, but it is now clear that vaccine effectiveness is limited.
· Claims that covid vaccinated people could still catch and spread covid were called misinformation by the Australian Government and Health authorities, yet it quickly became evident that those claims were true.
· Blood clotting issues with some covid vaccines were initially denied by Government, until eventually they were grudgingly acknowledged.
Trust in Government, Politicians, and Mainstream Media is at an all time low. And for good reason.
The people of Australia do not trust the government or any bureaucrat to make decisions about what information we can and cannot consume. Free speech is too important. I strongly stand against the proposed Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023.
Submission To ACMA 27.6.23
I am a highly experienced Chemical Engineer and have worked in Research as a Research Engineer, and so know how to read and interpret research and papers detailing this research.
Throughout history many scientific discoveries that have been made have been made by dedicated people going against the prevailing thought – and in nearly all cases their theories would have been classed as “misinformation” at that time.
And it is truly astonishing, and worrying, that legislation is being proposing to suppress “misinformation” yet much of this so called misinformation has a very solid scientific basis. I will firstly cite some examples from very recent history, here in Australia, during the Covid era where government policy was mostly complete misinformation, and tragically many have been sickened, maimed and killed as a result of these recklessly wrong policies, which were unjustified and are now acknowledged by many as misinformation.
There is every reason to believe that if this legislation is passed that our government will again silence those putting out “misinformation” whilst all the while actually misinforming and misleading, and as a result wrecking livelihoods, hurting, damaging or worse the Australian people.
Some relevant recent examples.
Masking
Masking was pushed by all levels of government across this country during the covid period, yet there is no randomised control trial showing masks effective against viruses, but plenty that show they are not. There are also plenty of peer reviewed studies I can point to which show all sorts of harms coming from masking in terms of significant reduction in concentration (yet people were urged to drive whilst masked…), headaches and reduced oxygen impacting on the immune system.
When I posted this peer reviewed science and questioned the prevailing (wrong) government policy I was removed from a social media site as I was “misinforming” people. It is now a matter of record that in fact I and others citing the same research were completely correct, and the government totally wrong to enforce this ineffective and dangerous policy.
Lockdowns
With lockdowns it was similar where study after study showed them ineffective and highly damaging, yet to question lockdowns during the covid era was “misinformation”. My posts at a leading newspaper website, citing this peer reviewed research were constantly removed. Then the Shergold enquiry in 2022 laid bare that lockdowns and border closures were of little to no effect on covid 19 , yet devastating to countless businesses, and wasted hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars on unjustified policies.
Again, here we have the government itself ignoring countless scientific studies and peddling misinformation and in the process ruining countless businesses and creating a tsunami of mental health issues, all the while claiming that those, like myself, who questioned lockdowns were the problem.
Some older examples.
Albert Einstein, one of the pre-eminent scientists of the modern age was in his early days in Germany ridiculed and his theories continuously attacked. No doubt many of those attacking him would have accused him of peddling “misinformation” with his theory of relativity. In fact the book “One Hundred Authors against Einstein” was published in 1931, denouncing Einstein and his theories.
Nowadays it is totally clear that these “experts” who accused Einstein of misinforming people were in fact completely wrong, yet at the time it was the prevailing wisdom that Einstein was misguided and pushed falsehoods.
Michael Crichton, the late famous author and also qualified medical doctor, was well known for his concerns about the “consensus of science” which is a term which is getting increasing currency these days. This has been particularly used by government bureaucrats and politicians when pushing policies which all too frequently are unjustified and where there is little actual basis. Those who question these govt policies are accused of “misinformation”
In 2003 Crichton gave a lecture on “consensus” in science where he cited many examples in history of where the prevailing scientific notions throughout history were frequently dangerously wrong, and those who sought to overturn them with clear evidence were often ridiculed and accused of misinformation.
The examples he gave were nearly all in the medical area and two examples were that firstly that in 1795 it was discovered that women dying in childbirth were dying of infections. The discoverer could treat women and avoid these needless deaths, but he was pilloried and attacked, yet it was slowly realised that in fact his “misinformation” was in fact totally correct and millions of womens lives have been saved as a result.
A second example related to pellagra, a disease that impacted on tens of thousands of Americans in the 1920s. At the time it was claimed it was an infection, but a researcher showed that it was linked to poor diet. He was accused of peddling misinformation, and it took years to realise that he was in fact correct, and nowadays we know that a niacin deficiency causes pellagra, not an infectious disease. Many lives and much suffering is now avoided.
One further example from today. It was only up until recently that homosexuals were regarded very negatively and government policies backed this up. Homosexuals were thought of as dangerous and frequently physically attacked, with little action against the perpetrators taken. Those who spoke out against this were shunned and would probably have been accused of “misinformation”. Fortunately we have moved away from those benighted times, but just remember that if the proposed legislation was in place the movement out of that era would have been far more difficult, and may not have occurred.
In closing, we have the very recent examples in the covid era, and I can provide even more examples, if necessary, of wrong policy in that era that was in fact misinformation. Then we have, as Michael Crichton touches on, many many examples throughout history where those questioning established policy, often pushed by governments, are accused of misinformation, when in fact they were correct.
The proposed legislation is extremely dangerous as it will stifle needed debate on government and other policy. The fact that this will put significant government resources into removing voices frequently citing sound science and demonstrating good research is a disaster as this will entrench bad policies and make it far more difficult for us to make our way out of problems created by reckless and wrong government policy.
As we saw with covid, this wrong policy has ruined many lives, wasted huge sums of money and if entrenched by this legislation it is very likely this will occur yet again.
The answer here is that we do not need to have those questioning to be labelled as peddlers of misinformation and silenced. We need to actively welcome debate and differing opinions. Wrong ideas, when aired and properly discussed, will be seen for what they are and wither naturally.
We need freedom of speech, not some government entrenched censorship as proposed by this legislation.
