The stories coming out of Australia during the COVID nuttiness were legion for being draconian, tyrannical, and almost unbelievable. If there was some way to oppress the people, the government was willing to listen. Years later, we know with certainty that there was a lot of lying about the virus, from origin to threat to response.
Do Australians not know this because their government is advancing hate speech legislation inspired by COVID-era efforts to prevent people from contradicting the government? If passed, it would deputize online social media companies and require them to enforce its speech restrictions.
In a crushing blow to free speech in Australia, the lower house of federal parliament has passed an amendment, known as the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. It imposes obligations on digital communications platform providers to prevent the dissemination of content “that contains information that is reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive, and is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm of a specified type (misinformation and disinformation).”
The enforcement issues are many. Someone has to arbitrarily decide what the truth is; never something you want the people with all the guns deciding. There are also, very often, matters where the truth still needs to be clarified, or the truth people take away is varied and unpredictable. It cannot be overstated that the government is frequently wrong about many things and often deliberately misinforms the people, who then repeat this. Just look at COVID.
The approved narratives were almost universally incorrect, while people reporting what was—in fact—the truth (begrudgingly acknowledged years later, if at all) were pilloried by public and private actors, many terrorized into repeating lies to avoid mistreatment.
The truth becomes subject to ideological filters that change with every election. Opinion must necessarily vanish, ending open debate. And if you can’t be wrong, how do you then find a path to truth, ever? How do you think outside the box in which you’ve been placed?
A society increasingly run by men and women who cannot imagine any power greater than themselves (or their faction) is doomed. Not just human liberty. That can’t possibly survive the capricious whim of our temporal masters. We see the weight of it stressing the foundations of our Republic. Disagreeing gets you canceled. Something as simple as a meme could get you arrested. Our cities are overrun by foreign invaders, but not until after those who claimed a monopoly on public safety swore that policing was an injustice.
Even science, the foundation of rationalism, must be of the proper pedigree and toe the “party” line, or it is blaspheme.
Wrong thinking is the problem, but before you can have such a thing, someone with power and influence must decide what it is that is right.
Innovation outside of state control effectively ends, creating a cultural space in which you become a slave to its opinion.
In America, we are fortunate to have something no other country has: a First Amendment prohibition on what Australia is doing. What England had done, where you can get arrested and detained over a Facebook comment – something the political left in the US wants very badly, not for any of the reasons they claim.
It is about control. Ensuring the endless string of missteps go unchallenged. That those in power retain the advantage. That “authorities and the political class are immune from scrutiny and criticism.” A perch from which every other tyranny follows.
It is a bullet you must repeatedly dodge, even here, because tyranny never rests. They will nibble at the edges (hate speech laws) until they find a way over, through, or around. And that persistence doesn’t make nearly enough people suspicious.
