Does this new law mean that Albanese is Australia's "Chief Sensor"? Thanks ttbn- censorship is an extremely important issue in so called modern society.I suppose Albanese will also try and ban our objections to his ban. Anyway censorship means that the electoral process is perverted. When you can't even talk about the pro's and con's of whether multiculturalism is good for society you know you're no longer in Kansas, Dorothy.

Welcome back, Canem Malum.

To get you up to speed, the bill is not about censorship and is in no way analogous to Orwell's 1984. (It used to be the left over-referencing that book, now it's the right.)

//Does this new law mean that Albanese is Australia's "Chief Sensor"?//

This question has already been answered. There are no censors, and certainly no chief sensor. Fact-checking would be done by independent bodies.

As I pointed out earlier, it would be incredibly stupid and short-sighted to appoint the prime minister (or even the government) of the day a "chief sensor" given that the governing party changes every few years.

You lot really need to get a grip.

CM

Good to hear from you. The thread has descended into a pissing contest between two people. I don't think that I'll bother to provide a playground for unrelated arguments and bruised egos any longer.

The most sensible (the only?) Chief Medical Officer during the Covid atrocity, Nick Coatsworth, has called for the censorship Bill to be scrapped in its entirety, saying that it would “lead to the suppression of legitimate debate, causing even greater harm”.

Coatsworth had the guts to admit that he and his colleagues (the no-guts ones) got it wrong during Covid. In other words, they spread misinformation, and have now been proved to have done so.

Authorities, experts and fact-checkers are fallible, guaranteeing that true information will be suppressed under the Albanese regime’s Censorship Bill; and there is no indication that a Coalition government would remove the Bill. It was their idea in the first place, remember!

Tony Abbott has asked if, under the Albanese Censorship Bill, Albanese's own we-will-lower-electricity-prices-by-$275 nonsense be misinformation, disinformation, or just a plain old lie.

ttbn,

One thing the covid pandemic showed us is that fact-checking and debunking misinformation isn’t enough to tackle the rapid spread of misinformation via organised misinformation campaigns, and this is what Nick Coatsworth isn’t taking into consideration.

You yourself are walking proof of this.

Coatsworth also isn’t against the idea of managing misinformation, he’s concerned about overreach and unintended consequences. You’ve mischaracterised Coatsworth’s concerns.

//Coatsworth had the guts to admit that he and his colleagues (the no-guts ones) got it wrong during covid. In other words, they spread misinformation, and have now been proved to have done so.//

Coatsworth et al. were not the ones who spread misinformation. They provided the best possible information available at the time - a small portion of which, in hindsight, turned out to not be the best. They had no intention to deceive, which is an important element. Early mistakes (such as underestimating the airborne nature of covid) weren’t the result of bad faith but of limited information at the time.

It was the ones you believed, and still believe, who spread misinformation and disinformation.

Conversely, Coatsworth's willingness to admit mistakes reflects the transparency and accountability that’s essential in public health communication. This wouldn’t be affected by the bill in its current form.

Mistakes will happen in any crisis, but that's very different to allowing harmful misinformation to spread unchecked.