The Australian parliament pushes through a bill that will now control access to social media. Like most censorship and prohibition acts it is done under the guise of child protection, the fear mongering used has been constant. Children can be groomed, manipulated and infected with information and contacted by predators if only not for these measures. We are told, again.
What does it likely mean?
Given that social media will now be banned by anyone under the age of sixteen, it will require a proof of ID to access. The digital ID that has been avoided and rejected by most people is now a closer reality. Soon digital ID will be needed not just to access and use social media and online platforms and services but could be made a requirement across for banking, entitlement services, medical treatment, registration, licensing and employment. The State has control with its regulation and monopoly powers to lean into the service providers with its power to ensure that they comply.
It means that people will be unable to use anon accounts, and have to be themselves which has repercussions for employment. Those working government or corporate jobs can’t say or share things online for fear of punishment. This is why a lot of people divorce their online avatar from their real self. Not all are trolls hiding behind a digital mask to shitpost. This can include non-traditional social media platforms such as fetish, gaming and political outlets where anonymity is preferred. Digital ID also makes finding personal information such as place of employment and address easier to access for stalkers, given the States track record with the retention of such information in the past.
What is Social Media?
We think of Facebook, X(Twitter) and Snapchat along with the much hated by governments TikTok as social media platforms but this can include online forums, YouTube or any platform where there is a comment section, that has an interaction interface. Not to mention messaging apps that allows for the creation of groups such as encrypted ones like Signal, Telegram and Whatsapp.
TikTok has constantly come under attack because of it’s association with Andrew Tates rise to fame among young males, to the allegations that it is controlled by the Chinese government but the reality is that it’s used to get information out from conflict zones like Palestine without fear censorship. It also does not allow for the US government or its allies to access user data. While other social media platforms have to comply with the US and other governments to give up their information and privacy, TikTok is not controlled by such, just yet.
The same goes for encrypted messaging services. Which is why the owner and founder of Telegram has been a man of interest, foreign governments have threatened and imprisoned him in an attempt to force him to give them access to the platform. Why would they want to do that?
Naturally the naive think of criminal networks or even terrorists would be the main focus of such government surveillance but consistently the focus is on journalists, whistle blowers and human rights activists. And foreign users. Telegram for example has been used by those reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war giving raw and uncensored access in dedicated channels, both combatant nations want to stop this. Telegram has also been used by dissident groups inside of repressive regimes to keep information and news flowing in and out. While also used by journalists for information dumps.
The same goes for the other encrypted chats. Not to mention the fact that individuals may like to have intimate and private conversations between themselves without pervert spying. Spying which has been used to blackmail and abuse those messaging in the past for no other reason other than they were having a conversation with a lover or lovers that did not need to be public knowledge.
What is misinformation?
There is a lot of bunk online, always has been and always will be. Heck there is a lot of junk in magazines, books, on television and coming from peoples mouths. That’s something we have learned to navigate. The concern is that any information that is not APPROVED or controlled can no longer be shared or expressed. This information may be very factual and come from credible sources but it it is contrary to the State or a regimes ambitions then it is to be banned. Anything that challenges the control and influence of legacy mainstream media or the government has and is to be labelled as mis-dis information or harmful speech.
Both traditional forms of media are waning and have been avoided for some time. People have lost trust in them and look to alternatives whether they happen to be long form podcasts, journalists directly expressing information via social media or the many other independent news groups online. Many times those sources can be wrong and found to spread disinformation, they lose their reputation and need to work hard to regain trust. That is how a free market on information works. BUT legacy media outlets and the State have also been found to lie and spread nonfactual information that has been proven to be false. When they have the monopoly on authority there is no need for them to concern themselves with reputation or the notion of credible ethics because alternatives are banned.
The new Australian law makes it possible to go back and look at a person or organisations previous posts to punish them. This may include anything that challenges foreign policy, prosecutions against whistle blowers, handling of the COVID pandemic, or any conversations that may challenge the approved narrative in that time. This would include the sharing of Wikileaks and the many cables that exposes government and corporate evils which harm millions the world over.
Ultimately public servants in a government department will determine what a fact is. They will determine for you what information you are allowed to know and what you should be allowed to know. These public servants will also determine what opinion you are allowed to express and hear. The public servants will determine what information suits any given reigning political regime, meaning it has the potential to change at the whim of each and every election. It can also influence the public outcries of corruption that leads to Royal Commissions, or potentially what the findings are of such a Commission itself is.
It can punish academics, intellectuals, medical practitioners and scientists from having public debates and discussions which are crucial for the progress of each field. Limiting the conversation to echo chambers of elitism and removing the inclusion of such conversations from online platforms. Not to mention it will go after political and philosophical dissent, any one who does not have a homogenised world view. The believers of democracy boast that government is supposed to represent the people and be an extension of the mobs will, rather than determining what the public can think. This includes religion itself as that will suffer under such measures.
Many public servants especially those who aspire to such positions have a tendency of not understanding nuance, humour or the ability to see outside of their own self interested perspective. These are the experts who will be reviewing and disseminating what is allowed. The legacy and State media are exempt from punishment along with approved officials. This creates an information hierarchy determined by the State. The irony is that this Bill was pushed because legacy media outlets themselves spread misinformation themselves without fact checking.
Whose kids?
Even if this all remains specifically isolated to prohibiting anyone under the age of sixteen from using online services and platforms, why is it that the State can assume it has these parental powers? How is it that the State constantly can determine the rights of parents and what their kids can and can’t do. It is another example of the human ownership that government assumes over those who are born and live inside the borders of its taxation zone. There will be many who welcome this step with the belief that children are already drowning in screens and this will be a means of getting them outside and away from the digital predators or distracting influences of non-approved media.
Is that not for the parents and family to have this influence and to set those parameters?
Is it not enough that main stream television, print media and the radio are all heavily regulated by what can and can’t be expressed. Is it that those realms will now need to be more child friendly and inoffensive in their challenge of approved narratives or with the concern of triggering the most sensitive? Just as concerning is that the internet allows us to directly read Bills, studies, findings and reports without it being digested and ‘broken down’. Rather observe debates and challenges to dogma and doctrines that assume to influence and control us all?
Let’s not forget that the justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was based on lies, all since admitted. This has been the cast with other past wars such as the US-Vietnam war. The legacy media and State outlets went along with the narrative and snuffed alternatives out through the control of the informationspace. Now we have the opposite where the common person can witness through their screens an ongoing genocide in visceral clarity and can challenge the narratives, to the point that legacy and State media react by switching on how they report as a response to the widespread disdain for what is occurring. The awareness of what was occurring coming about because of access to many forms of media which granted an accurate depiction of events. Rather than a one sided version.
Censorship has been an obsession to curtail free expression using all forms of slurs ranging from hate speech, to dis-misinformation. We all should have the right to chose what we wish to hear or see and not hear and see. Even if the most obscene extent of potential for these laws are attained, government mercenaries will enforce them regardless, the market and those with a dissident spirit will find a way to defy. But for the mob who don’t challenge or seek alternatives they will be drunk in the miasma of lies that the government feeds them. The sad truth is in the many who wish to trample the flower of speech that pushes through the pavement of the dreary, rather than to appreciate it for what it is. But the spirit of truth will push through, shame on those who continue to poison it with the pesticide of lies and oppression.
