Brownstone Institute
The Tragedy of the Brooklyn Literary Scene
From the Brownstone Institute
I recently came home from a visit to Hipster Brooklyn.
I had found that Brooklyn — alongside literary Manhattan — was oddly frozen in an amber of denial and silence.
First, there is that restored state of freedom, that no one will discuss.
I’d wandered the cute little boîtes and trendy underground hand-pulled-noodle postmodern food courts, with mixed emotions.
There were the chic young moms with babies in strollers, both of them breathing freely in the chill just-before-Spring air. There were slouching Millennials, with every demographic likelihood of having been mask-y and COVID-culty, now enjoying their freedom to assemble at will, to flirt and to window-shop, to stroll and to chat and to try on new sweaters in person at Uniqlo.
Many of these folks, no doubt, would have been repelled from 2020 to the present, by people like my brothers and sisters in arms, and by me; as we struggled in the trenches of the liberty movement.
Some of them may have called us anti-vaxxers, extremists, insurrectionists; selfish, “Trumpers,” or whatever other nonsense was the epithet of the day.
Some of them may have wanted to lock down harder, and lock us down harder.
My brothers and sisters in the freedom movement, though we lost employment, savings, status, and affiliations, fought every day — for these very folks; we fought for everyone; we fought so that some day, these young moms could indeed stroll with their babies, breathing fresh air; so that these slouching Millennials could one day indeed wander at will, not “locked down” still, not “mandated” any longer, and not living in fear of an internment camp.
It was bittersweet, seeing this demographic so chill, so relaxed, so back to “normal” — many of whom had been once so oblivious of, or so actively disrespectful of, the sacrifices we on the outside of society had waged for their very freedom.
Who knows where they would be now, if it were not for our combat on their behalf?
Still without their rights regained, like Canada? Still “mandated,” like Canada? Still scared to speak, scared of having bank accounts frozen, scared of losing licenses, scared of being beaten in protests, forbidden to travel without dangerous injections — like Canada?
We are not entirely free again in the US, but we regained many of our freedoms. Not because the evildoers wanted to give them back; but because my brothers and sisters fought hard, strategically, bitterly and furiously, for all of this liberty that I witnessed in front of me, on that almost-spring day on the crowded, tumultuous Fulton Avenue.
It was bittersweet to know that these people would never witness us, or acknowledge what we did for them and their children; let alone thank us; let alone apologize to people like me for the years in which they were just fine with folks such as us banished to the outer edges of society, to eat in the cold streets of New York like animals, or made jobless, or ostracized.
In addition to the dissonance of seeing people who had been perfectly okay with discriminating against the very people who had fought to return to them the liberties they now enjoyed, I suffered a sense of disorientation at realizing that there was a giant cognitive hole in the middle of contemporary culture.
The staffers at the Brooklyn branch of McNally Jackson Bookstore, an independent bookstore which had for years been a stalwart outpost of free-thinking publishing, were still masked, against all reason. I walked in with some trepidation.
Peacefully, faces covered, three years on, they stacked books on the shelves.
I was astonished, as I wandered the well-stocked aisles. Independent bookstores usually reflect the burning issues in a culture at that given time.
But — now — nothing.
It takes about two years to write a book, and about six months to publish one. It was surely time for the new important books from public intellectuals, about the world-historical years through which we had just lived, to appear.
But — no.
In the center of an altar to literate culture, it was as if the years 2020-2023 simply did not exist and had never existed.
This can’t be possible, I thought. This all — the “pandemic,”
lockdowns, denial of education for children, forced masking, forced vaccinations, “mandates” — a crashed economy — globally — this all, as an aggregate, was of course the most important thing ever to have happened to us as a generation of intellectuals.
I kept on searching the stacks. Nothing.
I checked the Top Ten Nonfiction Books in Time.
None had to do with the pandemic policies or the “lockdowns” or the mandated mRNA injections into billions of humans.
I surveyed the lanes lined with books, perplexed and saddened.
Surely the wonderful novelists of my generation, astute observers of the contemporary scene — Jennifer Egan, Rebecca Miller — would have written their Great American Novels about the mania that swept over the globe from 2020-2023 — one which provided once-in-a-century fodder for fiction writers?
No — or at least, not yet.
Surely Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, the distinguished nonfiction observer of group dynamics, would have tracked how a psychotic delusion intoxicated nations?
No, nothing.
Wouldn’t Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide have exposed the pandemic policies that sent millions of children into starvation unto death?
Nothing.
Of course Michael Eric Dyson, brilliant and brave commentator on race in America, author most recently of Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, would have written an excoriating expose of how pandemic policies in the US drove brown and black children into even greater learning deficits, and drained millions from small business owners of color?
No, nothing at all.
How about Susan Faludi, respected feminist author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women? She would have addressed how decades of women’s professional advancement were overturned by “lockdown” policies that drove women out of the workforce because someone had to watch the kids stranded at home?
No.
Undoubtedly Robert Reich, longtime champion of working people, author of The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It would have analyzed the greatest wealth transfer in modern history?
Nothing there.
Certainly Michael Moore, author of Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American, who for decades amplified the voices of working men and women left behind in rustbelt America, would have likewise assailed the flow of wealth in the “pandemic” era from the locked-down, “distanced,” forbidden-to-work working class, to tech CEOs and Pharma shills and their oligarch friends?
Nothing to see.
I could go on and on.
From some of the other important public intellectuals whom I know or whom I have followed for decades — and I do not mean to shame anyone needlessly, so I won’t name them — there were indeed some new books.
There were books on walks through the city.
There were books on “difficult conversations.”
There were books on growing up with unusual parents.
There were books on how meaningful animals are, and how wondrous is their world.
Public intellectuals produced a lot of new books on eating more vegetables.
The bizarre thing about this moment in culture is that the really important journalism, and the really important nonfiction books about the history, the racial and gender injustice, the economics, the public policy, of the “pandemic” years — are being written by — non-writers; by people who are trained as doctors, medical researchers, lawyers, politicians, and activists.
And their books are not displayed or even stocked in bookstores such as McNally Jackson.
So there is a massive hole in the central thought process of our culture.
The courageous non-writers have stepped in to tell the truth, because the famous writers, for the most part, can’t.
Or won’t. Or, for whatever reason, didn’t.
This is because the public intellectuals are by necessity, for the most part, AWOL to the truth-telling demands of this time.
You cannot be a public intellectual whose work is alive, if you have participated in manufacturing, or even accepting quietly, state-run lies.
The work of the cultural elite of every tyranny, from Nazi Germany to Stalin’s Russia, reveals this fact.
Participation in lies by the artist makes the creation of a vibrant cultural text impossible.
Nazi art is bad art. Socialist-realist Soviet fiction is bad fiction.
Journalism in a tyranny; that is, written by state-approved scribes, is always going to be a mess of cliches and obsequiousness that no one wants to read, and that cannot stand the test of time. It vanishes like snow into the cauldron of the future — even as works by the hated, forbidden dissidents who can and do tell the truth — the Solzhenitzyns of the time, the Anne Franks — are like diamonds, that cannot be crushed or lost to time.
It is only these that survive.
Because lies embraced our whole culture since 2020, and because public intellectuals for the most part did not stand up to the lies at the time, and because many even participated in the lies (hello, Sam Harris); since horrible things happened to those of us who did stand up to the lies — most public intellectuals at this moment cannot address the really important events of the recent past.
And from conversations I had with people in liberal-elite publishing, media, education, and the arts — these public intellectuals are being enabled in their silence or distraction or collusion, by a cultural nexus that wants them silent.
The consensus in media-elite land is that no one wants to talk about these issues at all.
“People just want to move on,” I keep hearing, in my former haunts in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Don’t talk about it.
So this all leads to a weird situation, culturally, now, indeed.
In the world of alt-media independent exiled dissidents, where I live most of the time, we are having the most riveting, important conversations of our lives. This is because we all know civilization itself, and liberty itself, and maybe even the fate of the human race itself, are at stake every day.
In the polite elite-media circles of Brooklyn and New York, to which I returned briefly to dip a toe in the water, people are — not talking about any of it.
They are not talking about the enslavement of humanity. They are not talking about young adults dropping dead.
They are talking about fermentation. They are talking about pets. They are talking, endlessly, like stalkers who cannot let it go, about how bad Donald Trump is, down to what he has for dinner in Mar-a-Lago.
The New York Times these days has the most boring headlines I have read in my life, and it is for this reason: the truth of our time is toxic to the editors of that newspaper, because they bathed in the money of the lies.
In addition to these cruelly soporific headlines, the New York Times is down to running fully imaginary stories that the editors must believe someone somewhere will accept without howling skepticism: “New Data Links Pandemic’s Origins to Raccoon Dogs at Wuhan Market.”
Then, of course, having committed that journalistic crime, the editors need to run this tragically hilarious sub-headline:
A formerly great newspaper has run its way through through bats and civet cats, burning its credibility wholesale in a gigantic bonfire of flat-out state-mouthpiece deception and uncorrected assertions for 3 full years, and is now digging up the specter of raccoon dogs. It is explaining their mating habits to its readers — stop the presses! — even as elsewhere in untouchable-reality-land, Dr Fauci furiously backpedals, trying to avoid charges of crimes against humanity.
A formerly great city of public intellectuals is unable to address current reality and is taking walks.
It is as if New York City and all its thought leaders are enchanted, ensorcelled, staring at one another, mouths open, unspeaking, inside of a conceptual snow globe, while all the rest of us ostracized dissidents are carrying on around this frozen spectacle, fighting a hand-to-hand-combat revolution.
I sighed, as I left the bookstore, and made my way through the freely moving hipster crowds.
We don’t fight for freedom so that we can get credit.
We don’t fight for truth because we want a byline.
We do both just because we can’t help it.
We do both because our Founders fought to the death so that we ourselves would be free one day.
And we fight so that little children whom we will never live to see, will grow up free.
But it is painful to witness the beating heart of what had been a great culture, stunned and muted in denial, and unable to function intellectually.
I guess we just need to leave the sadly rotting carcass of the establishment culture of lies and denial behind.
I say that with sorrow. I will miss the bookstores, universities, newspapers that I once revered.
I guess we have to follow the voices of the truth-tellers of the moment, to other, surprising, beleaguered campfires.
I guess we need to pitch our tents in new fields, outside the walls of the crumbling, breached, and decadent city.
I guess we need to learn new songs and tell new stories, as we find ourselves alongside other — surprising — fierce, and unbowed, and determined, new comrades in arms.
Reprinted from the author’s Substack
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
In agreeing to undertake to implement the WHO advisories, states will be creating a new system of pandemic management under the WHO authority and binding under international law. It will create an open-ended international law obligation to cooperate with the WHO and to fund it.
On 11 March, my article criticizing what appeared to be a slow-motion coup d’état by the World Health Organization (WHO) to seize health powers from states in the name of preparing for, conducting early warning surveillance of, and responding to “public health emergencies of international [and regional] concern” was published in the Australian. The coup was in the form of a new pandemic treaty and an extensive package of more than 300 amendments to the existing International Health Regulations (IHR) that was signed in 2005 and came into force in 2007, together referred to as the WHO pandemic accords.
The two sets of changes to the architecture of global health governance, I argued, will effectively change the WHO from a technical advisory organisation offering recommendations into a supranational public health authority telling governments what to do.
On 3 May, the Australian published a reply by Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, co-chair of the WHO working group on the IHR amendments. Bloomfield was New Zealand’s Director-General of Health from 2018–22 and received a knighthood for his services in the 2024 New Year’s Honours list. His engagement with the public debate is very welcome.
Rejecting the charge that the WHO is engaged in a power grab over states, Bloomfield wrote that as a one-time senior UN official, I “would know that no single member state is going to concede sovereignty, let alone the entire 194 members.”
I bow to the good doctor’s superior medical knowledge in comparison to my non-existent medical qualifications.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same with respect to reforms across the UN system, or sovereignty, or the relationship between “We the peoples” (the first three words of the UN Charter), on the one hand, and UN entities as agents in the service of the peoples, on the other. On medical and not health policy issues, I would quickly find myself out of my depth. I respectfully submit that on sovereignty concerns, Dr. Ashley may be the one out of his depth.
On the first point, I was seconded to the UN Secretariat as the senior adviser to Kofi Annan on UN reforms and wrote his second reform report that covered the entire UN system: Strengthening the United Nations: An Agenda for Further Change (2002). The topic of UN reforms, both the case for it and the institutional and political obstacles frustrating the achievement of the most critical reforms, forms a core chapter of my book The United Nations, Peace and Security (Cambridge University Press, 2006, with a substantially revised second edition published in 2017).
I was also involved in a small Canada-based group that advocated successfully for the elevation of the G20 finance ministers’ group into a leaders’ level group that could serve as an informal grouping for brokering agreements on global challenges, including pandemics, nuclear threats, terrorism, and financial crises. I co-wrote the book The Group of Twenty (G20) (Routledge, 2012) with Andrew F. Cooper, a colleague in that project.
On the second point, I played a central role in the UN’s reconceptualisation of sovereignty as state responsibility and citizens as rights holders. This was unanimously endorsed by world leaders at the UN summit in 2005.
On the third point, in Utopia Lost: The United Nations and World Order (1995), Rosemary Righter (the former chief leader writer at the Times of London) quoted Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s description of the United Nations as “a place where the peoples of the world were delivered up to the designs of governments” (p. 85).
So yes, I do indeed know something about UN system reforms and the importance of sovereignty concerns in relation to powers given to UN bodies to prescribe what states may and may not do.
In agreeing to undertake to implement the WHO advisories, states will be creating a new system of pandemic management under the WHO authority and binding under international law. It will create an open-ended international law obligation to cooperate with the WHO and to fund it. This is the same WHO that has a track record of incompetence, poor decision-making, and politicised conduct. The insistence that sovereignty is not being surrendered is formulaic and legalistic, not substantive and meaningful in practice.
It relies on a familiar technique of gaslighting that permits plausible deniability on both sides. The WHO will say it only issued advisories. States will say they are only implementing WHO recommendations as otherwise, they will become rogue international outlaws. The resulting structure of decision-making effectively confers powers without responsibility on the WHO while shredding accountability of governments to their electorates. The losers are the peoples of the world.
A “Litany of Lies” and Misconceptions? Not So Fast.
Bloomfield’s engagement with the public debate on the WHO-centric architecture of global health governance is very welcome. I have lauded the WHO’s past impressive achievements in earlier writings, for example in the co-written book Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey (Indiana University Press, 2010). I also agree wholeheartedly that it continues to do a lot of good work, 24/7. In early 2020 I fought with a US editor to reject a reference to the possible virus escape from the Wuhan lab because of WHO’s emphatic statements to the contrary. I later apologised to him for my naivete.
Once betrayed, twice shy of the message: “Trust us. We are from the WHO, here to keep you safe.”
Sir Ashley was merely echoing the WHO chief. Addressing the World Governments Summit in Dubai on 12 February, Director-General (DG) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attacked “the litany of lies and conspiracy theories” about the agreement that “are utterly, completely, categorically false. The pandemic agreement will not give WHO any power over any state or any individual.”
DG Tedros and Sir Ashley do protest too much. If Australia chooses as a sovereign nation to sign them, that does not mean there is no loss of effective sovereignty (that is, the power to make its health decisions) from that point on.
This is why all 49 Republican senators have “strongly” urged President Joe Biden to reject the proposed changes. The expansion of “WHO’s authority over member states during” pandemic emergencies, they warn, would “constitute intolerable infringements upon US sovereignty.” In addition, 22 Attorneys-General have informed Biden that the WHO writ under the new accords will not run in their states.
On 8 May, the UK said it would not sign the new treaty unless clauses requiring transfer of pandemic products were deleted. Under Article 12.6.b of the then-draft, the WHO could sign “legally binding” contracts with manufacturers to get pandemic-related “diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines.” Ten percent of this is to be free of charge and another ten percent at profit-free prices. In the latest, 22 April draft, this last requirement comes in Article 12.3.b.i in slightly softer language.
The UK wants to retain the right to use British-made products first to address domestic requirements as judged by the government, and only then to make them available for global distribution. The draft, the government fears, will undermine British sovereignty.
On 14 May, five senators and nine representatives from the Australian parliament wrote a formal letter to PM Anthony Albanese expressing deep concern over the likely prospect of Australia signing the accords that “will transform the WHO from an advisory organisation to a supranational health authority dictating how governments must respond to emergencies which the WHO itself declares.” If adopted and implemented into Australian law, they wrote, these would give the WHO “an unacceptable level of authority, power and influence over Australia’s affairs under the guise of declaring ‘emergencies’.”
“Legally Binding” vs “Loss of Sovereignty” is a Distinction without a Difference
They can’t all be part of a global conspiracy to peddle a litany of lies. The WHO is offering up a highly specious argument. Sir Ashley didn’t really engage with the substance of my arguments either. He dismissed criticism of the proposed changes as “an attempt by the WHO to gain the power to dictate to countries what they must do in the event of a pandemic” as a “misconception.”
The G20 Leaders’ Bali Declaration (November 2022, paragraph 19) supported the goal of a “legally binding instrument that should contain both legally binding and non-legally binding elements to strengthen pandemic planning, preparedness and response (PPR) and amendments to the IHR.” In September 2023, the G20 Delhi Leaders’ Declaration (28:vi) envisioned “an ambitious, legally binding WHO” accord “as well as amendments to better implement” the IHR.
Lawrence Gostin, actively involved in the negotiations, was co-author of a report last December that said containing transnational outbreaks under WHO leadership “may require all states to forgo some level of sovereignty.” A joint Reuters-World Economic Forum article on 26 May 2023 stated: “For the new more wide-reaching pandemic accord, member states have agreed that it should be legally binding.”
The WHO itself describes the IHR as “an instrument of international law that is legally-binding on 196 countries.” Last year it published a document that includes section 4.6 on “legally binding international instruments” such as a new pandemic accord.
I get the argument that sovereign states are voluntarily agreeing to this. In terms of legal technicality, it might well be more accurate, as Libby Klein suggests in her draft letter to Australian MPs, to use words and phrases like “ceding autonomy,” “yielding “effective control over public health decisions,” “outsourcing public health decision-making to the WHO,” or “offshoring our public health decision-making.” This is the legalistic distinction that Bloomfield is effectively making.
However, simply because states must voluntarily sign the new WHO accords doesn’t mean they will not be ceding sovereignty once the accords are adopted. With all due respect to Dr. Tedros and Sir Ashley, this is a distinction without a difference. Every single “legally binding” requirement will mean a transfer of effective decision-making power on health issues to the WHO. That is a curtailment of state sovereignty and it is disingenuous to deny it.
Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, states have been required to conduct themselves increasingly in conformity with international standards. And it is the UN system that sets most of the relevant international standards and benchmarks of state behaviour.
For example, for centuries countries had the absolute right to wage wars of aggression and defence as an acknowledged and accepted attribute of sovereignty. By adopting the United Nations Charter in 1945, they gave up the right to wage aggressive wars. I am very glad they did so. Just because the surrender of this aspect of sovereignty was voluntary, it doesn’t mean there was no surrender of sovereignty.
Similarly, by signing the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), Australia and around 185 states surrendered their sovereign right to make or get the nuclear bomb. Again, I am very glad they did so.
Article 10 of the treaty does permit withdrawal after a three-month notice to other states parties and the UN Security Council:
Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treatyif it decides that extraordinary events…have jeopardisedthe supreme interests of its country.
Australia could still act as a sovereign state and pull out of the NPT but, absent exculpatory events, only at the reputational cost of acting illegally under international law.
North Korea first announced withdrawal from the NPT in 1993, suspended the withdrawal, withdrew in 2003, has conducted six nuclear tests since 2006, and acquired up to 50 bombs. Yet, the UN has refused to accept the withdrawal and it is still listed on the UN website as an NPT member, with the explanatory note that: “States parties to the Treaty continue to express divergent views regarding the status of the DPRK under the NPT.”
Like these two important examples, states will lose key parts of the right to exercise their sovereignty over national policy settings and decisions on health if the WHO accords are adopted. It is their sovereign right to reject the treaties now. They should exercise it before it is too late. The complications entangling the post-Brexit referendum in the UK demonstrate only too vividly how challenging it can be for a state to extricate itself from a supranational authority despite the sovereign right to do so.
The best way to allay these fears and concerns would be to return responsibility to where accountability lies: with the national government and parliament. States should learn to cooperate better in global pandemic management, not hand effective decision-making powers and authority to unelected and unaccountable international technocrats.
The Effort Should Be Put on Indefinite Hold
It is an iron law of politics that any power that can be abused, will be abused by someone, somewhere, some time in the future. For current examples of overreach by a technocrat, look no further than Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. The truly frightening thing about her example is the realisation of just how much her efforts have been deliberately embedded in a global campaign to “bureaucratise” and control the internet.
A softer conclusion is that powers once granted over citizens to authorities are far more difficult to claw back than not giving them the powers in the first place. Thus far from retreating, the Censorship-Industrial Complex is simultaneously being broadened to embrace additional sectors of governance and public policy and globalised.
A report from Leeds University documented that pandemics are rare events. They are not becoming more frequent. For poor countries, their global disease burden is much lower than that of the big killer diseases like TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. For industrialised countries like Australia, the disease burden has been greatly reduced since the Spanish flu with improved surveillance, response mechanism, and other public health interventions.
There is no emergency justifying the rushed process. An immediate pause and a slow and deliberative process would lead to better policy development and deliver better national and global health policy outcomes.
“Pause for thought, argue for a wider delay, think it through properly. And don’t sign till it’s right.” David Frost, who led the UK Brexit negotiations.
Just so.
Author
US billionaire Elon Musk, Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant
From the Brownstone Institute
Can Australia’s eSafety Commissioner block content globally on demand? Not today, ruled the Australian Federal Court, in a win for Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
In a decision on Monday, Justice Geoffrey Kennett refused to extend a temporary injunction obtained by eSafety last month, which forced X to remove footage of the Wakeley church stabbing, an alleged religiously motivated terror attack.
Under the Online Safety Act (2021), the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has the authority to order removal of such ‘class 1 material’ within Australia under threat of hefty fines.
eSafety argued that X had not gone far enough to block the content from Australians, as a geo-block can be circumvented by a VPN. X argued that eSafety was effectively seeking a global ban on content, straying outside of the Australian online harm regulator’s jurisdiction.
eSafety applied to the Federal Court to extend its temporary injunction against X, with a hearing taking place on Friday 10 May. The temporary injunction was due to expire at 5pm on Friday, but was extended to 5pm Monday—to allow time for Justice Kennett to deliver a decision on the matter.
In his decision, Justice Kennett held that X had taken “reasonable” steps to block the stabbing content as required under Australian law, and that eSafety’s request for a global ban was not reasonable.
Therefore, “The orders of the court will be that the application to extend…is refused,” said Justice Kennett, meaning that as of 5pm Monday, the injunction is no longer effective.
In a statement on the Federal Court decision, eSafety said that the matter will return to Court for a case management hearing on Wednesday, 15 May.
“The application for this injunction should have never been brought,” said Dr Reuben Kirkham, Co-Director of the Free Speech Union of Australia (FSU) in a statement, questioning the validity of the Commissioner’s bid to enact a global content ban on X. “The eSafety Commissioner is overreaching and behaving more like an activist than a responsible public servant.”
Dr Kirkham, who was present for the hearing, told Dystopian Down Under that he counted 12 lawyers present (seven for X, five for eSafety), which, if eSafety is ordered to pay costs, will lump taxpayers with “a considerable amount of unnecessary legal costs.”
Digital civil liberties nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) echoes FSU Australia’s position, stating that, “no single country should be able to restrict speech across the entire internet,” and likening the Commissioner’s actions to “[using] a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”
An affidavit submitted by the EFF to the eSafety vs. X proceedings called for the Court to consider the international impact that a ruling in eSafety’s favour would have in setting a precedent for allowing one country to enforce content bans on citizens of other countries.
“If one court can impose speech-restrictive rules on the entire Internet—despite direct conflicts with laws [in] a foreign jurisdiction as well as international human rights principles—the norms of expectations of all internet users are at risk,” stated the EFF in an article summarizing the affidavit.
X’s Global Government Affairs posted about the hearing, stating, “We’re glad X is fighting back, and we hope the judge will recognize the eSafety regulator’s demand for what it is—a big step toward unchecked global censorship—and refuse to let Australia set another dangerous precedent.” At the time of publishing, no updated statement on the Judge’s decision had been issued.
Dr Kirkham calls the Commissioner’s application to extend her injunction against X “part of a pattern where the eSafety Commissioner’s office seemingly engages in gamesmanship rather than respecting the rule of law or acting as a model litigant.”
Indeed, the ruling in X’s favour comes amidst mounting controversy over the eSafety Commissioner’s ongoing battle with X, which appears to be driven partly by Julie Inman Grant’s global censorship ambitions, and partly by personal feelings.
Inman Grant, who formerly directed Twitter’s Public Policy (Australia and Southeast Asia), has repeatedly criticized Elon Musk since his purchase of the Twitter platform in 2022.
Moreover, Musk’s advocacy for a broad interpretation of free speech on the internet conflicts with Inman Grant’s professed view of free speech as a right that needs to be “recalibrated” for online spaces.
Perhaps the biggest controversy between X and eSafety centres on the highly charged and subective issue of gender ideology.
Inman Grant has enforced the removal of a string of posts on X questioning gender ideology, including one suggesting that men can’t breastfeed, and another about a trans-identified male who allegedly injured female players during a women’s football game in NSW.
In an internationally high-profile case, the Commissioner recently issued a removal notice over an acerbic gender-critical post by Canadian activist Billboard Chris, raising questions over whether the Government should be able to police opinions and censor statements of biological fact on the internet.
FSU Australia is currently involved in Administrative Appeal Tribunal proceedings on behalf of Billboard Chris (real name Chris Elston) against the eSafety Commissioner. Additionally, X has threatened to sue eSafety over the matter.
Returning to the issue of the Wakeley stabbing footage, Inman Grant’s attempt to globally ban the content has been supported by the Australian Government, which leveraged the incident to call for more censorship, including the reintroduction of an unpopular misinformation bill.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also responded to calls to address violence against women by proposing to further expand eSafety’s budget and remit, which could see deep fake pornography and “other misogynistic material” censored by the regulator.
No one will argue against explicit pornography being blocked from children’s view, but it is around the grey edges of definition creep on terms like ‘harm,’ ‘adult cyber abuse,’ and ‘misogynistic material’ where disagreements will undoubtedly kick off.
In a move of ‘no confidence’ against eSafety, FSU Australia has launched a petition to abolish the office of the eSafety Commissioner altogether, arguing that a combination of parental controls and platform incentives will suffice in keeping children safe on the internet.
A more moderate approach may be to curtail eSafety’s remit to its original function of dealing with child abuse content (as in 2015), and revenge porn (as in 2017), before the regulator’s purview and powers were significantly expanded with the introduction of the Online Safety Act in 2021.
However, in the media and political conversation, there is little appetite for a moderate approach, as conveyed in a viral guest appearance by media personality Tracey Holmes on a recent episode of the ABC’s failing show Q+A.
Calling out the double standard in the censorship conversation, Holmes told the studio audience,
“I don’t agree with any kind of censorship in a general sense. I don’t think Elon Musk is contributing to any social cohesion split inside this country. I think our mainstream media is doing enough of that. I think our politicians do enough of that…
“Of course there are fault lines everywhere, but there’s only one way you can stop those fault lines from getting bigger, and that is to have the ability to have the town square to hear different points of view…
“And I think unfortunately we’ve been fed ‘this side or that side’ for so long, people are giving up on mainstream media, that’s why they’re tuning out. That’s why they’re going to YouTube…we have let them down.”
Hopefully, some higher-ups in the corporate media tuned in to hear what Holmes had to say.
Read more about the judge’s decision
Republished from the author’s Substack
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National1 day agoTrudeau again blames ‘climate change’ for mostly man-made wildfires
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Automotive1 day agoRed States Sue California and the Biden Administration to Halt Electric Truck Mandates
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