Andrew L. Urban
Instead of doing what parliament wanted, this agency (the eSafety Commission) has eroded freedom of communication and damaged public trust in an agency of the federal government, writes Chris Merritt, Vice President of the Rule of Law Institute.
Writing in The Australian, under the headline How Australia’s online safety watchdog has silenced free speech, Merritt says “When parliament enacted the Online Safety Act it did not want the eSafety Commission to be some sort of ayatollah of online morality, free to roam the internet and strike down anything it does not like.
“… parliament weighed the conflicting goals and gave the commission limited authority to order the removal of postings on social media that meet a tight definition of “cyber-abuse”.”
But it was the Commission that did the abusing … of its power. It should have known better.
“That definition means a reasonable person would conclude the material in question was intended to cause serious harm. It must also be menacing, harassing or offensive,” writes Merritt.
“Mere offence, without the intent to cause serious harm, is not enough – which is just as well because reasonable minds will differ on whether particular statements are offensive.
“The Online Safety Act makes it clear that the commission is not empowered to strike down online content that merely triggers ordinary emotional reactions such as distress, grief, fear or anger.
“But on February 18, the Full Federal Court handed down a judgment showing the eSafety Commission sought the removal of material from social media that it knew was outside the definition of cyber abuse.
“The material in question was a posting by children’s rights activist Celine Baumgarten who complained about “queer theory” being taught to primary school children in Melbourne.” The Commission not only knowingly abused its powers but did so against a mother striving to protect primary school children being taught “queer theory”. Now there’s a subject we all want our kiddies taught, eh? What fools …
“The Full Federal Court unanimously upheld a ruling by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal that had sided with Baumgarten.
“This affair has unmasked a pattern of behaviour in which the commission has been using informal tactics to interfere in communications.
“The evidence in the Baumgarten case shows the commission had sent just three or four formal removal notices to social media providers in the past year.
“But it had sent “a few hundred” informal complaint alerts including the alert that prompted the removal of Baumgarten’s post outlining her concern about the teaching of “queer theory” to children.
“Remember, the commission knew Baumgarten’s post was not cyber abuse.
“Without a full accounting of all the other informal complaint alerts that were sent by the commission we might never know how many of those “few hundred” matters were also outside the commission’s jurisdiction.
“We might never know, in other words, how much unjustified damage this agency has inflicted on freedom of communication. The Online Safety Act provides guidance for the commission’s employees on what they can and cannot do.” While bullying Australians, it is making a fool of its entire Commission and its Commissioner.