Musk’s ‘X’ fight against Oz censorship outcome uncertain

LAST WEEK, we reported on Elon Musk’s challenge against censorship in Australia. It involved a post on X by Chris Elston (aka @BillBoardChris) being targeted by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, who demanded that the post be removed or Musk would have to pay an $800,000 fine. The post has since been geo-blocked in Australia, but Elston, backed by Musk’s X, ADF International and the Australian Human Rights Law Alliance, has filed for an appeal against the decision at the Administrative Review Tribunal in Melbourne.

The tweet in question was shared in February 2024, with Elston adding these comments to a Daily Mail article about Teddy Cook, a transgender activist appointed as a ‘trans expert’ by the World Health Organisation:

‘This woman (yes, she’s female) is part of a panel of 20 “experts” hired by the @WHO to draft their policy on caring for “trans people”.’

‘People who belong in psychiatric wards are writing the guidelines for people who belong in psychiatric wards.’

The post was reported by Cook, and this was swiftly followed by a takedown order from the eSafety Commissioner.

The hearing is ongoing, with Elston defending his right to free speech. He has explained on the witness stand that the first sentence refers directly to the article, whilst the second was ‘intended more broadly, to make a political comment about the ideological bias present amongst those in positions of power and influence when it comes to writing gender policy around the world.’

He added: ‘It’s damaging to teach children they are born in the wrong body […] children are beautiful just as they are. No drugs or scalpels needed.’

The eSafety Commissioner is attempting to prove that, in accordance with Australia’s Online Safety Act 2021, Elston’s post consisted of ‘cyber abuse material directed at an Australian adult’, including that it ‘was likely that the material was intended to have an effect of causing serious harm’. The ADF, backing Elston, has stated that ‘freedom of political communication is protected as an implied right under the Australian Constitution’, and Elston’s words are being subject to ‘state-enforced censorship’.

Expert witness, consultant medical psychiatrist Dr Jill Redden, testified that using biologically accurate pronouns for somebody identifying as transgender would not likely cross the statutory threshold to constitute ‘serious harm’. When asked how long serious harm would be expected to affect a potential victim, Dr Redden posited ‘several months’. A post by Cook, made just nine days after Elston’s X post, stated that they were ‘living my best life’.

Meanwhile, the expert witness called on by the eSafety Commissioner was Professor Rob Cover of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, a Professor of Digital Communication. Professor Cover used words like ‘offensive’ and ‘anti-science’ to describe the use of biologically accurate pronouns when referring to a person who identifies as transgender, while claiming his own personal view to be ‘informed by science’ and ‘the truth of the person which wishes to be identified in that way in accordance with their reality.’

Vice President JD Vance’s and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s concerns about ‘censorial’ foreign governments is manifest in Australia. So is the ludicrously contradictory thinking of their ‘experts’.

Robert Clarke, Director of Advocacy for ADF International, says ‘speaking up for free speech is critical at this juncture, and (that they are) proud to be backing Billboard Chris as he does just that.’

If the Tribunal rules that using biologically accurate pronouns online is grounds for censorship in Australia and elsewhere, then the fault lines between America and the rest of the West will just get deeper and wider with the rest of West becoming, increasingly, in the eyes of the USA, pariah States.

Members of the public are invited to support Chris’s legal case here.