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Australia, what happened to Australia? It seems they are hating on Elon Musk nowadays. Well, that is, a former executive of Twitter is hating on Elon. Before Musk bought the big bird called Twitter, Julie Inman Grant was its director of public policy in Australia. But now she works as Australia’s eSafety commissioner. And she’s coming for Elon and his free speech.
Julie is still butthurt over the purchase of Twitter by Elon, it seems. However, she means business, and she demands answers. I guess Australia could fine Twitter $475,000 a day if Elon Musk doesn’t fess up with an answer. I do not understand this at all. How can a country fine a company over a policy (or lack thereof in their minds) and over something that can be interpreted 100 different ways? I think that’s the number of pronouns we are up to now.
My question is, who determines hate speech?
Twitter has been through the wringer over the last several years. Back in November 2021, Nina wrote about how Twitter’s new safety rule could endanger free speech.
“Twitter appears to be failing to confront a dark reality; that the platform is increasingly being used as a vehicle for disseminating online hate and abuse.” @tweetinjules on the legal notice issued to @Twitter today regarding online hate on the platform https://t.co/LBPxbVvL1k
— eSafety Commissioner (@eSafetyOffice) June 22, 2023
Oh cry me a river, will you? Julie knows she can mute people and unfollow people on Twitter, right? I’m sure there is an old adage somewhere that you can apply to this ridiculousness. Don’t like what’s playing on the radio? Turn the dial. Don’t like a particular television show? Don’t watch. Don’t like seeing mean Tweets? Get some thick skin, keep scrolling, delete the App, don’t use the App, unfollow, mute, and you can even report the offensive Tweet. I don’t care to see or watch liberals screeching their trans ideology all over TikTok or other forms of social media, so I don’t. See how this works?
Dear Julie, have you read the hateful conduct overview on Twitter? It’s dated April 2023. I’ll share some snippets with you here:
Twitter’s mission is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information, and to express their opinions and beliefs without barriers. Free expression is a human right – we believe that everyone has a voice, and the right to use it. Our role is to serve the public conversation, which requires representation of a diverse range of perspectives.
We recognize that if people experience abuse on Twitter, it can jeopardize their ability to express themselves. Research has shown that some groups of people are disproportionately targeted with abuse online. For those who identify with multiple underrepresented groups, abuse may be more common, more severe in nature, and more harmful.
We are committed to combating abuse motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance, particularly abuse that seeks to silence the voices of those who have been historically marginalized. For this reason, we prohibit behavior that targets individuals or groups with abuse based on their perceived membership in a protected category.
The policy gives examples and even tells us what Twitter will do if someone violates this policy. I was a little surprised at the severity of the punishment. If you want to call it severe, it’s just Twitter.
But I suppose if you are using Twitter for your business, then it could be severe. And then, I can’t imagine a business using hateful content to promote themselves for customers and revenue.
The following is a list of potential enforcement options for content that violates this policy:
- Making content less visible on Twitter by:
- Removing the Tweet from search results, in-product recommendations, trends, notifications, and home timelines
- Restricting the Tweet’s discoverability to the author’s profile
- Downranking the Tweet in replies
- Restricting Likes, replies, Retweets, Quote Tweets, bookmarks, share, pin to profile, or engagement counts
- Excluding the Tweet from having ads adjacent to it
- Excluding Tweets and/or accounts in email or in-product recommendations.
- Requiring Tweet removal.
- For example, we may ask someone to remove the violating content and serve a period of time in read-only mode before they can Tweet again.
- Suspending accounts that violate our Hateful Profile policy.
You should be suspicious of Little Miss Julie and Australia, who obviously want to control the language, speech, agenda, policies, arena, and story to push their propaganda to the people. They want to censor the folks who disagree with big tech, prominent politicians, out-of-control large governments, World Economic Forum, George Soros and Son. I’ll also throw in stupid celebrities and mainstream state media. So there’s that.
I used to think Australia was a kick-ass country, but COVID happened, and they showed who they were. Maybe not the people of Australia, but their government sure did.
Elon, don’t pay the fines.
Feature Image: Map of Australia/CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
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NTSOG says: Unfortunately we in Australia are beset with Left wing progs in power in many levels of government who are in thrall to every woke idea coming out of California, especially climate change, the alphabet mob and the aborigine ‘industry’ whose ‘members’ [often more Caucasian than aborigine] are funded $A30 billion per annum to do sweet f. all except complain and demand constitutional reform to make them the favoured minority with special and preferential rights. As for hate speech anything said by anyone they don’t like is hate speech especially in certain universities where the notion of independent thought and respectful discussion is suppressed violently by the Left. The Greens [also known as Water melons, i.e. Green on the outside and communist red on the inside] are the worst.
Cameron says: Sounds like a lady with a frequent buyer plan at the local cat shelter.
Scott says: ” I can’t imagine a business using hateful content to promote themselves for customers and revenue”.. Pre-Elon, a company i know ran afoul of twitters rules by posting Pro-America stuff around 4th of July.. Hardly stuff that actual Americans would consider “hateful”, but as NTSOG points out above, the left is far from rational…
“I used to think Australia was a kick-ass country, but COVID happened, and they showed who they were”.. Sorry Carol, that ship sailed well before the chinese virus, way back when they started banning guns, and confiscating said property from law abiding citizens..
NTSOG says: “They started banning guns …”
Not entirely Scott. Ownership of firearms is more tightly regulated since the mass-murder of 35 people in Tasmania in 1996. Ownership of certain types and calibres is also more restricted, e.g. semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, pump action firearms. If an individual [having a clean criminal record] can demonstrate a specific need for a more restricted firearm, say a semi-auto centrefire, for professional pest control a specific licence will be granted. Aside from that I can have as many rifles/shotguns as I can safely store. Handgun ownership is more tightly regulated, but I could still obtain one if I could demonstrate I had a legitimate use for it. Of course there is a thriving criminal black market [mostly for handguns] run by serious crime organisations, e.g. motor cycle gangs and organised crime families. Criminals don’t obey laws and tend to shoot each other.
What offends me is the constant demonisation of legal firearms owners by the urban Left to the point that owners of firearms must take great care that, when transporting a firearm, it is secure in a gun case and is not visible to the general public. In fact carrying any firearm in such a way that it might be seen by the general public will result in prosecution by the Police. In contrast when I was a teenager – 1960s – and a member of my school’s military cadet corps we were issued Lee Enfield .303 rifles and routinely drilled with them at school and even travelled on public transport with them clearly visible. Leftist-driven [urban] society has become extremely neurotic and detached from reality. Everything has to be super safe and sanitised in suburbia, yet suburban areas are presently plagued by gangs of youths [some as young as 12] usually armed with knives and machetes, attacking families in their homes so as to steal upmarket cars and then post their dangerous driving stunts on the internet.
Thankfully I live in the country and go out hunting several times a week on my and neighbouring properties. Within a mile or so of my home there are at least 9 other licensed shooters I know.
Scott says: NTSOG, fair enough, I was wrong using the term “banning”.. And while the laws you describe are similar to those in some urban areas here, on a national level what you’re describing is closer to the process we’d have to go through to own an actual machine gun. While it is possible, it is highly regulated. Thankfully, where I live, and in many other rural areas, the restrictions you describe would definitely be viewed as tyranny. Of course, we could also talk about suppressors, which unless I’m mistaken, your country treats as the simple sound reducing devices they are, versus the ridiculous way they’re treated here, ie: some magical device that completely eliminated noise and makes a firearm perfect for criminal activity..
Bottom line, no man is truly free without unrestricted access to firearms. Without this, he does not have the ability to stand up to tyranny, and is thus a subject, not a citizen.. Of course, that is just my opinion, but I like to think the Founders would agree, or else they would not have written as they did about firearms ownership.
NTSOG says: Suppressors or moderators are not generally allowed in Australia except when a shooter, usually a professional pest exterminator, can show a specific need for one. There are many such professionals using moderators especially in northern states where the feral pig, camel, donkey, water buffalo, deer and even wild horse populations are out of control. I understand that in the UK and New Zealand there is no restriction on shooters, amateur and professional, using moderators. I would like to have the use of moderators on my hunting rifles simply to reduce overall noise and protect my hearing better, but it will never be allowed. I fear that the Green-Left fools have watched too many Hollywood movies in which so-called silenced firearms make a tiny noise that can barely be heard. It’s so far from the truth as to be comical, but the Green-Left mobs will never listen to logic. [Of course if a criminal wanted a suppressed weapon s/he would easily find a crooked gun smith to make a ‘silencer’.] It’s ironic that there are, in Australia, a couple of companies producing serious automatic [and perhaps fully auto?] firearms of very high quality that will forever be unavailable to all but licensed professional shooters.
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