The Australian Human Rights Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, is the latest critic of Albanese's "deeply flawed Misinformation plan". (The National Tribune).

Ms. Finlay reports that authorised government content is "excluded from being deemed as misinformation", failing to acknowledge the reality that misinformation and disinformation can, and does, come from the government. (Just do some revision on the Covid 'truths').

But, in this Bill, government content can never be misinformation, but content critical of the government produced by political opponents might be misinformation disinformation!

The "overly broad" definition of the words, plus 'harm' risk unpopular or controversial beliefs being labelled and censored.

'Harm', for heaven's sake, just has to be "reasonably likely to cause harm or contribute to serious harm". By whose definition?

There are risks in giving a single body (ACMA, e,g) power to decide what is misinformation; power which could be used to restrict public debate and censor unpopular opinions.

All of which some of us already knew.

Albanese is our leading 'misinformer'. A year ago he spruiked the Voice referendum for 3%"of the population as a "unifying moment". And just look at us now! He has told lie after lie about the whole shemozzle: lies, proven to be lies, by some of the very people behind the Voice.

And, this is the bloke who wants to muzzle and censor us! This is the bloke who is part of the political class that spread lies and fear during Covid. We can no longer believe our politicians; and we certainly cannot sit back and allow them to dictate what we can say or not say. The gall of Albanese and his plans to censor us appalling.

I speak only for myself, but I never imagined, at even the lowest point of my disgust with Australian politicians, that we would ever be landed with a PM like Albanese and the totalitarian stunts he has been trying to pull in the last twelve months or so.

For ttbn.

Do you think censorship is an issue for debate on moral grounds, or is the issue strictly one of political ideology.

There was a time in the recent past when our more theocratic rulers endorsed censorship, and most citizens complainingly accepted it.

DD

It's what you think about it that should be important to you.

The current bill is directed solely at encouraging digital
platform providers to have robust and transparent systems
and measures in place to address what
the platforms consider misinformation and
disinformation on their services.

It does not involve the ACMA directly regulating individual
pieces of content.

To be clear, the ACMA will not have the power to request
specific content or posts be removed from digital platform
services. The Bill puts the onus on the platforms.

The Bill is not a threat to free speech. The opposition not
only misunderstands the Bill's nature but also illustrates
a naive understanding of the threats to our society and
our democracy.

There's more at the following:

http://afr.com/politics/federal/making-big-tech-combat-disinformation-is-no-threat-to-free-speech-20230724-p5dqoy

To ttbn

Ok: if you like myself (and you seem to), think living under the undemocratic rule of our constantly appalling Governence is not so far removed from living in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban Government, than I think it’s important to analyse the mentality of the oppressors.

I understand this forum is open for debate on such subjects as herein you raised.