New Australian law, if passed, will make the gov’t the sole arbiter of truth’

The main purpose of the legislation is to silence critics of the Australian government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis. What they have done instead is demonstrate that Australia does not have adequate protection for free speech, nor is it a democracy.

In a crushing blow to free speech in Australia, the lower house of federal parliament has passed an amendment, known as the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. It imposes obligations on digital communications platform providers to prevent the dissemination of content “that contains information that is reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive, and is reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm of a specified type (misinformation and disinformation).”

Several dissenting politicians have expressed outrage and incredulity at the legislative move. Nola Marino, a member of the right-wing opposition Liberal Party said that she did not think that Australia, a liberal democratic society, would ever be “debating a bill that is explicitly designed to censor and silence the Australian people.”

National Party member Keith Pitt described the legislation as a “yawning chasm that is incredibly … dangerous to this country.” He expressed shock that the amendment was being put forward, adding that Western democracies such as Australia have been built on freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Such principled objections were ignored, however. The legislation now has only to pass in the Senate (the upper house) to become law.

The first and most obvious criticism of the law is that it puts the government authority, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in the ridiculous position of deciding what is and isn’t “false” information. That is not only absurd – how could ACMA, for example make judgements on subjects like vaccines or viruses – it means that the law cannot be applied universally.

Governments routinely put out false information, arguably more often than they put out true information. Will they be penalized? Of course not. Advertisers present information that is false. Will they fall under his law? No. It will only be directed at people who are saying things that the government does not like, especially in relation to health policy. It is politics, not law.

When governments distort the law for political ends, it inevitably ends up in badly crafted legislation, and that is what has happened here. The law depends for its integrity on clear semantics, words whose definition is clear. But two key words, “misinformation” and “disinformation” are misleading at best.

They are variants of the word “information”; the prefixes “dis” and “mis” have been added to create the impression that what is at issue is objective truth (“information” being something objectively observable). It is a diversion. What is happening instead is that the law will target the intent of the writers.

Disinformation is defined as information that is “intended” to mislead and to cause harm. With misinformation there is no such intent; it is just an error, but even there it requires determining what is in the author’s mind. The aim is to outlaw thinking that is not congruent with the governments’ official position.

Pointing out this definitional slipperiness could be the basis for an effective rebuttal of the legislation. Courts are very poor at establishing intent.

A second problem: How do we know what meaning the recipients will get? Glance at the comments on social media posts and you will see an extreme array of views, ranging from approbation to intense hostility. To state the obvious, readers think for themselves and inevitably derive different meanings. Anti-disinformation legislation, which is justified as protecting people from bad influences for the common good, is not merely patronizing and infantilizing, it treats citizens as mere machines ingesting data – robots, not humans. It is legislation that is not just aimed at controlling the thoughts of the producers of the content, it is targeted at the thoughts of the recipients: two layers of absurdity. The result would be like targeting the “thought crimes” depicted in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four.

Censorship regimes operate on the assumption that if a sufficient proportion of the available content is skewed towards pushing state propaganda, then the audience will inevitably be persuaded to believe the authorities. But what matters is the quality of the content, not the quantity of the messaging. Repetitious expressions of the government’s preferred narrative eventually become meaningless, while sound analyses will cut through.

The main purpose of the legislation is to silence critics of the Australian government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. The aim is to ensure that in future health authorities and the political class are immune from scrutiny and criticism. It is unlikely to be effective. What they have done instead is demonstrate that Australia does not have adequate protection for free speech, nor is it genuinely a democracy.

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TikTok on the Clock: US Appeals Court Hits the “Ban” Button

Published on December 6, 2024

Todayville

By Christina Maas

The winds of Washington are blowing icy cold for TikTok this December. A federal appeals court panel handed down a ruling today that could send the app packing— or at least force it into a kind of corporate divorce.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has today declared the law threatening TikTok’s existence to be totally constitutional, leaving the platform to fight for its digital life. In short, TikTok has until mid-January to break ties with its Beijing-based parent, ByteDance, or risk an outright ban in the United States.

TikTok responded with the following statement:

“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.”

The Free Speech Shuffle

TikTok played the First Amendment card, arguing that banning the platform would stomp on Americans’ free speech rights. But the court wasn’t having it, throwing in a little verbal aikido about protecting actual freedom.

“The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” the court wrote, presumably while straightening its tie in a metaphorical mirror. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”

Translation: TikTok, it’s not you — it’s China.

TikTok has been accused of being influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.

ByteDance’s Legal Tango

TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, is already planning to appeal to the Supreme Court because apparently, they’re gluttons for punishment. And hey, why not? When you’re staring down a deadline that could nuke your entire US business, you either fight or fold.

But here’s where it gets interesting: the same President-elect Donald Trump who once tried to fire TikTok like it was a contestant on The Apprentice now says he’s against a ban. Trump has promised to swoop in and “save” the platform during his second term.

The law itself was signed by President Joe Biden in April, marking a rare bipartisan moment in a town otherwise allergic to cooperation. For years, Washington has been gnashing its teeth over TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government, accusing the app of being a national security threat disguised as a dance challenge factory.

Of course, critics argue this is about power. TikTok’s cultural dominance has made it an unpredictable disruptor, threatening not only Big Tech’s grip on social media but also giving the average American teen more clout than your local senator.

Government officials argue that the app’s voracious appetite for user data could lead to sensitive information, from browsing histories to biometric identifiers, being vacuumed up by the Chinese communist government. But the main issue? The proprietary algorithm, that magical machine-learning potion that keeps you scrolling at 2 a.m., is painted as a weapon of influence — a subtle but powerful propaganda tool ready to tweak your feed for Beijing’s benefit.

Except, there’s a catch: a good chunk of the government’s evidence for these claims is locked behind classified curtains. TikTok’s attorneys — and by extension the American public — are left in the dark.

More than 170 million Americans use TikTok.

TikTok Fights Back

TikTok has steadfastly denied being a Chinese Trojan horse, insisting that no evidence exists to prove they’ve ever handed over data to Beijing. As for the algorithm? TikTok says any suggestion of manipulation is pure speculation. Their legal team hammered home that the government’s arguments rely on what might happen in the future — a slippery foundation for ripping apart a platform that’s glued to the cultural zeitgeist.

But the Department of Justice isn’t just playing futurist. It has hinted — vaguely and ominously — at unspecified past actions by TikTok and ByteDance in response to Chinese government demands. The key word here is “unspecified,” because whatever receipts the DOJ might have, they’re conveniently out of reach for TikTok’s lawyers, the media, or anyone else.

A Courtroom Tango: First Amendment vs. National Security

The appeals court panel, a politically mixed trio of judges, seemed as torn as the rest of us about how far Uncle Sam can stretch its First Amendment arguments to justify banning an app with foreign ties. Over two hours of oral arguments in September, the judges volleyed tough questions at both sides.

Can the government really shut down a platform just because it’s foreign-owned? the judges asked, channeling TikTok’s core argument. On the flip side: What happens if this platform turns into a covert disinformation campaign during wartime? they wondered, invoking wartime-era laws restricting foreign ownership of broadcast licenses.

Both sides twisted themselves into legal yoga poses. TikTok’s lawyer, Andrew Pincus, argued that a private company — even one with foreign owners — deserves constitutional protections. The DOJ’s Daniel Tenny countered that the government has a duty to head off potential foreign interference, even if the threat isn’t fully realized yet.

$2 Billion in Data Defenses

TikTok itself hasn’t just been sitting back while lawyers spar. The company claims it’s invested over $2 billion to fortify its US data, including setting up Project Texas — a heavily marketed initiative to store American user data on servers managed by Oracle. ByteDance has also floated the idea of a comprehensive draft agreement that it says could have eased Washington’s fears years ago.

But according to TikTok, the Biden administration ghosted them, walking away from the negotiating table without offering a viable path forward. The DOJ insists the draft didn’t go far enough, but skeptics wonder if the government’s hardline stance is less about national security and more about flexing control over Big Tech.

Divestment Drama

Washington’s solution to the TikTok dilemma sounds deceptively simple: ByteDance should sell the US arm of TikTok. However attorneys for the company argue that such a divestment would be a logistical and commercial nightmare. And without TikTok’s algorithm—intellectual property that Beijing is unlikely to let go of—the app would lose its magic. Imagine TikTok without its eerily intuitive feed: it’d be MySpace 2.0, a ghost town for millennials waxing nostalgic.

Still, some sharks smell blood in the water. Billionaire Frank McCourt and former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have rallied a consortium with over $20 billion in informal commitments to snap up TikTok’s US operations.
A Perfect Storm of Lawsuits

TikTok isn’t going down without a fight and it’s bringing allies to the battlefield. The company’s legal challenge has been bundled with lawsuits from several content creators, who argue that losing the platform would gut their livelihoods, and conservative influencers who claim a ban would silence their political speech. TikTok, ever the sugar daddy, is footing the legal bills for its creators — a savvy PR move if ever there was one.

The Clock is Ticking

If TikTok’s Hail Mary appeal to the Supreme Court fails, it’ll be up to President Trump’s Justice Department to enforce the ban. That means app stores would have to scrub TikTok from their offerings, and hosting services would be barred from supporting it.

And what happens to the millions of creators, small businesses, and teenagers who’ve turned TikTok into a cultural juggernaut? Well, they’ll probably migrate to Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts—platforms that coincidentally happen to be owned by US tech giants who’ve been salivating at the thought of TikTok’s demise.

This is far from over.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

World Economic Forum pushes digital ID for global metaverse governance: report

Published on December 6, 2024

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe

Apart from tracking every interaction, another major part of this digital ID scheme for the metaverse includes an agenda for complete traceability of all transactions. They call this empowerment.

Under the banner of establishing global governance in the metaverse, the World Economic Forum (WEF) is pushing digital ID for all users, so all blended reality interactions and transactions can be tracked-and-traced.

Published on November 19, the WEF report, “Shared Commitments in a Blended Reality: Advancing Governance in the Future Internet” expresses the desire to establish global governance in blended reality, which requires digital identity for all users to keep track of their interactions and transactions:

Digital spaces have long been a forum for pronounced cyberbullying, harassment, abuse, exploitation, privacy violation, etc. Physical-digital blended spaces will see exacerbated forms of these issues.

When it comes to future interactions in the metaverse, the report asserts that some people will behave badly and that some people won’t know how to deal with what they experience, and for those reasons, digital ID should be a prerequisite under a global governance framework to ensure user safety.

According to the report, “In blended reality, people cannot ‘unsee’ or ‘un-experience’ interactions. While people cannot unsee or un-experience reality today, the types of spatial experiences an individual could be exposed to bring dynamic, evolving, palpable and visceral experiences. This underscores the urgency of refining and implementing a set of guiding commitments.”

The unelected globalist desire for global governance over the future of the internet is exemplified by what they call “fragmentation” when it comes to how each nation chooses to govern, whether it be a mandate from the people or from authoritarian regimes:

Hardware devices – such as smartphones, biometric and IoT sensors, and XR headsets – play a pivotal role in this transformation by reshaping how individuals interact with the internet and each other. These technologies are blurring the line between online and offline lives, creating new challenges and opportunities that require a coordinated and informed approach from stakeholders for effective navigation and governance.

One example of fragmentation has to do with how different regions regulate data collection and privacy, with a particular focus on the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) scheme.

Using GDPR as a starting point, the WEF report says, “Fragmentation of national frameworks can hinder the efficiency and effectiveness of global internet governance and the ability to address transnational issues such as cybercrime, digital trade, online harms, secure and trusted cross-border data flows, and the protection of intellectual property.”

All roads lead to digital ID; this is also true for financial transactions in both the physical and digital worlds, including where they overlap.

The WEF report recommends eight commitments that “stakeholders” should apply to global governance in the metaverse – stakeholders being governments, academics, and civil society – the latter of which consists of NGOs like the WEF itself.

These commitments don’t come from the will of the people; they come from unelected technocrats looking to influence policies from the top-down:

Rallying behind these governance commitments will enable technically and jurisdictionally appropriate governance guardrails to be put in place as individuals start to engage in blended reality experiences and move around immersive spaces – bringing with them their identity, money and digital objects.

Source: WEF “Shared Commitments in a Blended Reality: Advancing Governance in the Future Internet“

It is crucial to explore considerations around addressing the provenance, authenticity and protection of physical and digital assets. This includes data, identity and intellectual property (IP), and other forms of assets to ensure possession, access, transactions, transferability and accountability for individuals, entities and common resources.

Central to global governance in the metaverse, once again, is digital ID, which is also referred to as “identification management” in the WEF report.

According to the report, identification management “involves enabling appropriate and suitable identity access management measures of individuals interacting with information technology (IT) systems to enable governance through such systems. This might include, as necessary, aspects of personal identity, digital identity, entities or digital assets and their associated ownership.”

The authors claim that digital identity is necessary for:

Employing traceability and visibility mechanisms to implement appropriate enforcement, redress and remediation.

In this way, digital ID is being pushed forth as a something that will protect individuals, rather than addressing all the ways it can enslave them.

Apart from tracking every interaction, another major part of this digital ID scheme for the metaverse includes an agenda for complete traceability of all transactions.

They call this empowerment.

Empowerment through traceability and control: This involves enabling the attribution of lineage and authenticity of digital and physical interactions and assets.

Keeping in mind that total traceability and control is not just for the digital realm, but also the real world and where the two intersect, the WEF report says that “tracing the ownership and transfer history of assets through mechanisms like distributed ledger technology or digital certificates” will create a chain of custody.

This chain of custody includes:

Authenticity: establishing proof of personhood and humanity, especially in the context of AI-generated assets and digital representations
Proof of value: establishing verifiable and quantifiable value for both physical and digital asset
Proof of ownership: clear assignment and verification of ownership
Proof of transaction: comprehensive records for transaction history and settlement

In other words, there is to be no distinction between the physical world and the digital one when it comes to buying and selling.

Every transaction, every change of ownership, everything of value must be digitally tracked and traced and tied back to a person’s digital ID.

Another way in which digital ID is essential to the unelected globalist agenda is to deal with what they call misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech, which is lumped in a category for the metaverse called “experience moderation.”

Experience Moderation – Content and conduct moderation: Prioritizing thoughtful content and conduct moderation that respects human expression while addressing the challenges of harmful content, harassment, misinformation and disinformation, and other harms while ensuring user safety and championing algorithmic accuracy and transparency

But what type of content do these unelected technocrats consider to be harmful?

For starters, if you question any official narrative having to do with climate change, you are spreading hateful and harmful misinformation and disinformation.

If you don’t agree with public health mandates, you are expressing views that harm user safety.

And with a digital ID, if you don’t comply, you can be shut off from goods and services, like we saw with vaccine passports.

Then, in a strange turn of events, the report also mentions the right of the people to not participate in this digital scheme.

The authors call this “Preservation of Choice”:

Preservation of choice: This involves endorsing the development of governance that respects digital autonomy, emphasizing that everyone has the fundamental option to limit or abstain from digital engagement without facing exclusion from essential services such as healthcare, education, utilities, means of communication, emergency response, transport, etc.

But how can an individual have “preservation of choice” when digital ID is required for all interactions – be they online, offline, or in between?

The authors say, “Championing the dignity of choice for nondigital interactions and ensuring that this choice does not preclude access to essential services – this may be accomplished through modernizing infrastructure for processes that enable members of society to reap the benefits of emerging technologies without necessarily needing to interact with them.”

They also add, “Recognizing and affirming the rights to autonomy, agency, mobility and access to information as fundamental human rights in both digital and physical spaces. This includes the right to move and choice of residence, and the ability to seek and impart information through any media, regardless of frontiers (Article 13 and Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights).”

However, all this talk about being able to opt-out of the digital gulag system, along with having the right to move about and having the right to access information, is completely contradicted by everything the WEF and other unelected globalist entities have been pushing for over the years when it comes to digital ID:

This digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access – or, conversely, what is closed off to us.

Digital identity is the nexus to an interoperable metaverse. It enables accountability and the capacity to traverse worlds with minimal friction.

Apart from acknowledging that digital ID is exclusionary in nature, the WEF flat-out admits that vaccines passports are a form of digital ID.

According to the WEF report, “Advancing Digital Agency: The Power of Data Intermediaries,” published in February, 2022, “The COVID 19 pandemic has led to a heightened focus on the power of medical data, specifically so-called vaccine passports.

“These [vaccine] passports by nature serve as a form of digital identity.”

Getting back to the metaverse, the WEF has stated time and time again that digital ID will be central to your daily life and that digital ID will be the “nexus to an interoperable metaverse.”

“A person’s metaverse identity will be central to their day-to-day life.”

If your metaverse identity is supposed to be central to your daily life, and if digital ID is supposed to be the nexus to an interoperable metaverse, how in the hell can they claim there is still a “preservation of choice” for those wishing to opt out?

In a weak attempt to give some consolation to the paradox they invented, the unelected globalists at the WEF are saying in the latest report that there should be a system in place that allows for the deletion and erasure of an individual’s private data after having gone through a process of review, updates, and transfers.

The report describes this with the acronym RUTDE:

Review, update, transfer, deletion and erasure (RUTDE): Enabling comprehensive architecture, processes and privacy controls facilitates:

Building IT systems to support the review, update, transfer, deletion and erasure of individuals’ information

Providing documentation, structured processes and supporting information for individuals to manage their digital footprints, including the option to request, review, update, transfer and delete personal data from platforms

But wait a second! Why should we have to manage our “digital footprints” if we have already chosen to opt-out in the first place?

Why would we need to request, review, update, transfer, or delete our personal data if we never consented at the outset?

The whole thing reeks of public-private partnership overreach.

They say we can opt-out of the metaverse digital ID data collection scam while simultaneously telling us that doing so would be close to impossible.

It’s the same type of logic that said nobody forced you to take the experimental gene therapy jab, but if you didn’t, you could lose your job, your freedoms, your livelihood – all of which runs contrary to all previous human rights agreements.

When it comes to digital ID, there is no public consensus, only collusion.

There is no choice; only coercion and contradiction to confuse our cognition towards total control.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.