This week, Australia’s Labor Party reintroduced its misinformation and disinformation bill. I did a deep dive into the bill last May. Among its many flaws, the biggest is its very origins.
As Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said in Parliament on September 12th, “This bill seeks to strengthen the voluntary code by providing a regulatory backstop.” That code was co-written by First Draft, participants in the Aspen Institute’s coordinated effort to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.
If that story is new to you, the Twitter Files revealed that in August 2020, the Aspen Institute organised a “table-top” exercise with Twitter, Facebook, First Draft and a host of media organisations including the New York Times and Washington Post, that ran through a day-by-day playbook of how they would respond to the release of Hunter Biden’s laptop. The story didn’t break publicly until October, so how did the Aspen Institute know two months in advance?
Mark Zuckerberg thought the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story was so egregious he recently issued a sort of apology.
To be even more explicit, the bill extends the code, which is written in part by an organisation that worked to suppress a true story of major historical significance. It should be dead on arrival. It tells you all you need to know about the real aims of the bill.
But the Labor Party is adamant they want it passed, and they can likely count on the Greens and independents in the Senate to pass it. It was after all the Greens that recently teamed up with Labor to pass the Digital ID bill.
Predictably, Rowland cited the Bondi Junction attacks and the riots in the U.K. as part of her justification for the bill. Perhaps the most significant disinformation spread about the Bondi stabbing was reporting done by mainstream media. In such cases, there are already defamation laws that can deal with such issues. Interestingly, professional news organisations remain exempt in the updated version of bill.
Regarding the U.K., as I have recently written, misinformation is a convenient scapegoat for what is actually a massively complex problem that has its foundations in material reality, not in people’s perceptions.
Interestingly, the bill’s relaunch comes a week after failed U.S. Disinformation Czar Nina Jankowicz visited Canberra. Did she meet with any politicians and advise them on setting up Australia’s own Ministry of Truth? I’d ask her, but she has blocked me last week, despite us never having interacted.
That conversation platformed Guardian columnist and paragon of Leftism, Van Badham. Does Van Badham understand that Nina works closely with security and intelligence agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security? DHS used to be a stock standard foe of progressives during the War on Terror for its hyper-surveillance of Muslim communities and many an alleged civil liberties violation. Now its former employees are just the right people for Leftists to share the stage with.
The best place to get the details on the changes to the bill is via Rebekah Barnett’s recent story (which she also interviewed me for), though I offer a few other quick comments…
There are some mild improvements to the bill, including specifications that “harms” should be “serious”, “imminent” and with “significant and far-reaching consequences”. However, the fundamentals remain the same. The bill outsources truth policing to social media platforms on pain of having to pay up to 5% of their annual revenue if they fail to comply. The result is sure to be a massive chilling effect.
Content only has to be “reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive”, but who is doing the verification? Anyone who followed the Covid debacle knows that what is “false” today in a few months becomes plausible, and a few months after that it becomes true – whether that was the theory that the virus may have originated in a lab, the collateral of lockdowns or that the vaccines would stop transmission. In the future, questioning government authorities on these issues will be against the law. In fact, it is stated so explicitly. Harm is to question “the efficacy of preventative health measures”.
For progressives thinking of supporting this, the Right will take power again, whether in the next election, the one following or the one after that. If you are on the Palestine side of the Israel-Gaza conflict, make no mistake, these laws will come for you.
This is not about defending Musk or Zuckerberg, though that is how they are trying to frame it – goodies vs baddies – this is about defending fundamental civil liberties that go beyond Left and Right. Other than dealing with criminal behaviour, the government has no business policing speech.
I hope progressives can grasp that quickly because we don’t have much time.
Andrew Lowenthal is a Brownstone Institute fellow, journalist and the founder and CEO of liber-net, a digital civil liberties initiative. He was co-founder and Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific digital rights non-profit EngageMedia for almost eighteen years, and a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and MIT’s Open Documentary Lab. This article first appeared on his Network Affects Substack.
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Thanks for this interesting take on the matter.
“Quite why the rich and financial institutions are so intent on grabbing agricultural land, I don’t know.”
I don’t claim to know why they are, but it’s not exactly surprising, is it? I mean, we all need food so if you own the land the food comes from then you control the food supply. Why would you not want to do that? Also, land is the classic limited commodity – if you can, why not corner the market, at a knockdown price.
The real interest of all the people is that a Land Value Tax is implemented so as to give much of the inherent value to the community leaving the added value for the owners.
Assuming you mean that this would replace most/all other taxes, I think the idea has some merit.
Follow the money, follow the power, follow the control. Classic operational Master of the Universe mentality. Masters (and Mistresses) of a kind master and mistress together.
Also known more prosaically as Headmaster and/or Head Girl Syndrome.
Resist!
Mass governmental run (wef,un,nato,who,blackrock) industrial food production for the masses = complete overarching control that beats communism out of the ball park! All this to be done nice and slowly and patiently so as not to enrage the prolls! if anyone mentions what’s happening just call it, say.. mis or disinformation!
I wonder what blue chips bought many of the Dutch farms before they voted in that new party that saves their ass! A few committed suicide because of being forced off their land because if these fake nitrogen initiatives. Evil WEF psychopaths pushing this with the Build Back Better mantra.
It is so they control the food supply. And if you control the food supply, you control the people (you allow to live).
All part of the CONTROL and depopulation Agenda.
M. Zermansky’s “Declined” looking more and more like our future.
“Quite why the rich and financial institutions are so intent on grabbing agricultural land, I don’t know.”
Crikey, I’ve been banging on about how the Davos Deviants wish to destroy the country pretty much since the Scamdemic started. The intention to steal our farmland is part of this destruction. Our farmers are the backbone of this country, hard-working, enterprising, entrepreneurial and committed, qualities which must be eradicated in order to destroy Britain and its people – not discounting hordes of muslim Gimmigrants of course. And once organisations take control of land which they will not have a clue how to manage the food shortages are built in. Starving populations are of course much easier to manage.
Useless solar and wind farms are simply cover ups for taking good agricultural land out of the food production chain so let’s not be kidded by this crap.
Quite why David Craig fails to see the obvious is beyond me.
The aim of the globalists / Davos Deviants is the destruction of Great Britain. Simple as. Stealing farmland from farmers is but one part, albeit a massive part of the equation.
Agreed, those who control the food supply control the people. We will be subjected to food which has high levels of chemicals, where the prices are controlled by cartels of producers, who as they do in the States fund the political party that looks after the best interests of the corporate heads.
When the Dutch farmers were being turfed out on a massive scale, people were theorising what the purpose of all this is; we know the excuse was nitrogen fertilizer but what was the real reason. People like Dr Dave Martin talked about plans to merge some cities with towns etc with the development of ‘Smart Cities’, others talked about large Food Hubs including the Dutch PM at the time.
Chemicals, AND the mRNA clot-shots of course.
I do see the obvious. But rather than state it, I preferred to let readers come to their own conclusions. My point with this article was to do the research to expose Labour’s corruption, as not a single mainstream media journalist seems to have noticed the way abrdn have used Labour to enrich themselves at our expense.
Thanks for your response.
I’d assume they cosied up to the other half of the Uniparty before Labour had a go…
I remember arguing with a farmer who was not that clued up in the DD Globalists; He told me people have no business in looking into why Bill Gates is buying up so much farmland in the US because he is a private citizen. I hope that particular person has changed his mind on that, because being a small farmer, he is the turkey that would vote for Christmas.
He would have a point had Gates not made it clear his desire to meddle in our lives and as such negate his right to privacy.
Well the first five of us to comment on this article have all come to the same conclusions. No surprise there then.
It’s reasonable to assume this chap would also concur…LOL;
A Labour Party activist is ill advised to knock on this man’s door.
“Labour can f**k off, Labour have fucked this country right up, full of f**king Muslims & all this sh*t. This country is f**ked”.
“F**k off Labour scum”.
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1879479134356979977
Now that chap should be on the honours list!
I suspect he’s a Reform voter, personally.
Quality Mogs. Quality.
A gentleman of fervent perspicacity and admirable loquaciousness!
Top video, made me chuckle!
As government and bureaucracy has ‘blossomed’, there have been two serious implications for national government, neither of which are desirable
One. It has been possible for ‘leaders’ to avoid leading, by abdicating power upwards. A prime example of this is the EU. We could pay 650 British MP’s just to keep their rubber stanps inked, and meanwhile to amuse themselves [at our expense] chasing libidinous SPADs around Westminster. There was no longer a need for them to even pretend to manage anything, even though some tried very hard to give the impression that they did [Hancock, BoJo, Covid]. The Climate Change Act was another egregious example of this, in fact anything involving the WHO
Two. There has been a proliferation of rules, laws and requirements introduced below the level at which MP’s can intervene. 20mph in Wales; everything in Scotland. MPs are saved the hassle of having to manage matters, they just leave it to others, policies are enacted which have never been debated at Westminster.
And if you are not qualified for the job but get dumped into HM Treasury as a stooge, what better than adopting the thinking undertaken by others [Demos] and making it your very own policy? Follow the money on that one, though….
World’s most valuable farmland? Ukraine.
World’s most expensive real-estate land?
1. Maui. Up for sale after devastating fire.
2. Palm Beach. Up for sale after devastating fire.
3. Pacific Palisades. Up for sale after devastating fire.
I hesitate to comment, as my brain is starting to feel like a broken record, but we now have another connection between Labour and ‘the bosses’ wanting to destroy the structure of the country. Now if it was the Tory party, I could understand the dotted line from party, through think tank to evil globalists, but this is the workers’ party, the party of the downtrodden, and here’s where I become the broken record – who are the 25% still supporting this lawyer run, capitalist supporting, globalist lackey political party?
The Civil Service, wider Public Sector, University Sector, “Charity” Sector, large proportion of ethnic minorities, esp Muslims, welfare claimants and many in the traditional working class Labour-voting areas “cos we all vote Labour.”
Down to 25% in the polling. I reckon they could go down another 5% as some in the traditional working class Labour vote and Muslims abandon them.
20% will be rock bottom.
I suspect it’s because they know that the current western economic structure is likely to collapse at some point. At that point the fundamental truth will emerge: you still have to eat.
In contrast, other assets, like your latest fancy iPhone, will not necessarily be that useful.
“And around 1800 the Government started a Hat Tax. Each hat had to have a stamp sewn into it to show that it was legal. The penalty for forging these stamps was death”
Reminds me of the book ‘London’s Underworld’. Three Centuries of Vice & Crime. In it he mentioned that you could also get the death penalty of the stealing of Hops! suppose they liked their beer, and mead!
The WEF “you will own nothing” quote, was it just a prediction or an intention. There are National Plans here in the UK that they never talk about, apart when Stanley Johnson says the quiet bit out loud.
Whatever their motive it’s certainly sinister, and certainly bodes ill for normal people.
With arch globalist 2TK in downing street it’s hard to see how this ends eny time soon.
How many more families’ livelihoods will be destroyed before these people are stopped?
Anybody’d think the Great Taking was really a thing…
Makes my f@cking blood boil.
In a crowded field this lot are going to be the most unpopular government in history, and they’ve only been in 6 months, 11 days and 14 3/4 hours…
What the late Christopher Booker used to call “A sledgehammer to crack a nut that completely misses the nut”
Unless the nut is completely different from what they say it is.
Their behaviour is based on the assumption that there will be very few of us left. You need a base number, say 800,00, just to keep the infrastructure going. Making sure that nuclear power plants don’t melt down etc. Believe me they want us out of the way. The tightening of the financial noose is just a harbinger of what is to come. Everything is being strangled, fertiliser production for example. You can easily glean the effect of massive fertiliser production reductions and they have done it so that at least a third of the world population will have nothing to eat. Just in case you have a hard time in thinking of these people as ruthless.
Perhaps we should view our political leaders as “farmers” and the populace as “livestock”?
Or Prize Pigs and the other animals.
Yes, the “useless eaters” statement explains Agenda and therefore their behaviour.
Good article by David Craig, with useful information about Gates’ huge landholdings, also mentioning Stalin and the Kulaks, and asking about the reasons. Here are a few reasons:
1) Bill Gates, speaking for the Globalists, vowed to “Abolish Animal Agriculture”, including dairy and fishing, to force us all to be Docile Vegans Eating Bugs. Hence the decimation of the UK fishing industry.
2) Famine. Depopulation Agenda 21, set for 2030. Holodomor II.
3) “The Hunger Games”.
Sounds much like the continual destruction of “prime property” in the USA. Hawaii, California, which state is next? Only our financial institutions that keep getting mentioned are Blackrock and vanguard. Reminds me of the NWO…you will own nothing and be
. You will eat bugs. Up until a few months ago, the feds were harassing a famous Amish farmer who was selling unpasteurised milk to his many customers. I can tell you right now, the new administration has many battles ahead, but when President Trump says he will address the tax system in the USA, it is coming.
What I don’t understand is how all of us Global Vegan Serfs will be eating bugs, which are technically “animals”, and therefore not vegan.
Bill Gates’ plan to “Abolish Animal Agriculture” must also include abolishing “Insect Farming”, Eating Bugs and his much-vaunted Fake Bug Meat, because they are also “Animal Agriculture”.
And to think of all that money he’s invested in Bug Meat, all to be abolished under his own plan!
A farm is probably worth an awful lot in carbon credits, so ditching the fiat currency for land that will work in the new technocratic world order is very sensible for these financial only institutions.
The benefit that it gives more leverage on the people because you control the food supply, that is probably just an added bonus.