READERS of this site are already fully aware of Vice President JD Vance’s and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s concerns about ‘censorial’ foreign governments and the impact of their online censorship of American-based social media platforms. Theirs have not been mere words. Next week’s free speech challenge, put forward by Elon Musk’s X and Canadian children’s safety campaigner and internet sensation ‘Billboard Chris’ at a Melbourne Tribunal, may well be a taster of things to come for EU and British censors. Musk, it looks like, won’t be taking any censorship of X lying down.
With Chris Elston (aka @BillBoardChris) he is bringing a case against the Australian ‘eSafety Commissioner’ over his decision to censor an online post on X criticising gender ideology across Australia.
On February 28 2024, @BillBoardChris took to X to share a Daily Mail article titled ‘Kinky secrets of UN trans expert REVEALED’. The article, and his accompanying tweet, criticised the appointment of Australian transgender activist called Teddy Cook to a World Health Organization ‘panel of experts’ set to advise on global transgender policy. Cook then complained about the post to Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, who obediently requested that X remove the content. The Daily Mail subsequently reported this news, explaining why, according the Commissioner, ‘this “disparaging” post about an Aussie UN trans expert who plugs bondage, bestiality, drugs, and taxpayer-funded sex-change ops must be taken down – or billionaire Elon Musk will cop an $800,000 fine’.
The social media platform initially refused, but following a subsequent formal removal order from the Commissioner, it geo-blocked the content in Australia. X has since filed an appeal against the order at the Administrative Review Tribunal in Melbourne, which is set to take place next week. Chris Elston, with the support of ADF International and the Australian Human Rights Law Alliance, alongside Elon Musk’s X, is appealing the violation of his right to peacefully share his convictions. ‘Gender ideology can only thrive under censorship – when we are deprived of shining a light on the madness’, he says. He is right
The case demonstrates the tangible reality of JD Vance’s global censorship concerns. So does Ofcom’s muscle flexing over GAB, an American social media platform with no legal presence in Britain – which it has threatened with ruinous fines unless it complies with the UK’s repressive Online Safety Act. The British media regulator has shown straightaway that it fancies itself as a global censor. But GAB thankfully is having nothing of it. Its reply to Ofcom was not polite. It was cold, clinical and lethal. Through its lawyers, the Spectator reported, ‘Gab told Ofcom – with legal precision and unmistakable clarity – to get lost’.
Battle lines are being drawn. If Ofcom has any sense and will listen to Vance’s wise words, that while ‘we want to ensure the internet is a safe place’, restrictions on online content should focus on protecting children from predatory abuse, rather than preventing ‘a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation.’
The actions of the Australian eSafety Commissioner demonstrate that this lesson is yet to be learned. It revealed an alarming confidence that he could censor Canadian citizens on an American platform while preventing Australian citizens from hearing and evaluating information about gender ideology.
The case will be heard in Melbourne for five days on the week beginning March 31. Members of the public are invited to support Chris’s legal case here.
