Today, two more senators publicly declared their opposition to Australia’s censorious misinformation and disinformation bill. In the words of another senator, the bill is “cooked”.
Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe this morning stated that the "broad and vague definitions in this legislation allow too much scope for suppression of dissenting voices” and that "neither ACMA nor overseas tech companies are appropriate arbitrators on questions of 'truth'." David Van, a conservative senator, dramatically reversed his previous position and has come out against the bill. Whilst Thorpe and Van weren’t necessary to defeat the bill, their positions ensure it cannot be passed in its current form. The strong defeat also sends a message that hopefully the Labor Party will heed.
Disappointingly the Greens stayed on the fence and failed to take a clear position and demonstrate their civil liberties credentials. This is obviously not surprising given the Green’s authoritarian drift over the past several years, but one still hopes. The Greens claim they were awaiting the outcome of the inquiry due November 25th, however, the failures of the bill are baked in and clear enough to see. The fact that the inquiry was to be released the same day as the vote was to be held should have made it clear that it was not a serious inquiry.
There is some suggestion the bill won’t be brought to a vote next Monday given the overwhelming opposition. It is possible that the bill could come back in another form, several senators indicated that they are open to passing it with significant amendments, but it is unlikely to happen this year. With any luck the Labor Party has understood how unpopular it is and won’t risk retabling it with the federal election next year. However, I expect a bird that never quite clicks and forever flails and butts its head against a closed window.
There is also a swathe of other free speech-related bills that have either been passed or are pending, including the child social media ban, digital ID, doxxing, and the eSafety Act, to name just a few. 2024 has seen a massive attack on the free internet in Australia. Done and dusted with the attacks on digital civil liberties we are not.
However, the conversation has shifted. With progressive senators now publicly opposing the often progressive-led digital authoritarianism, the “anti-disinformation” cabal and digital rights field might have to actually debate these issues, rather than writing off all opposition as “far right”, “tech bros” or any other pejorative. Even the socialists came out against the bill.
The “anti-disinformation” industry has gotten another bloody nose and free speech is on the ascendancy.
Australia’s misinformation bill is on the ropes
The Australian Labor Government says that the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation is an urgent problem and is seeking to pass new legislation to force social media platforms to clamp down on what it says are mistruths.
Thankyou Andrew! Great work. I have been terribly worried about this Bill...the WORST in our history I say..Boy oh boy...what a relief! But I think we need to stay very vigilant
Even though it is Labor that are the baddies in this story, I had a strong feeling during the 2022 election that having the Liberals out of power would be generally good for freedom on the internet, and this last year-and-a-half fighting this bill has confirmed it.
In power, the Liberals would have proposed probably a much worse bill (as their communications minister at the time Paul Fletcher was threatening). The Labor party in opposition would have been spineless as usual and let a Liberal party-proposed mis/disinfo bill sail through as they did with all the other freedom-stifling legislation the Liberals proposed when they were in power (eSafety, TOLA/Access & Intercept, Metadata Retention).
I had a feeling that in opposition the Liberals would take some inspiration from the anti-censorship movement in the US and return to their roots on the topic of censorship & this has mostly been confirmed.
I worry about the election next year that if the Liberals are returned to power that they will revert to their pre-2022 stance and we will be left without proper opposition on internet freedom legislation.
Thankfully in Australia there is preferential voting, and so we can vote for minor parties that are better on these issues (e.g. the Libertarian party) in the hope they can be a spoiler in the Senate, while still having a say in the outcome if they don't get up.