World Tour: A limited victory

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Australia’s fight over online speech.

The government is tightening social media censorship laws—despite a recent courtroom win for Chris Elston, better known as Billboard Chris.

In April, we reported on a tribunal battle with Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. At issue: a post on X by Billboard Chris. He opposed a transgender activist’s appointment to the World Health Organization.

NICK EICHER, HOST: On July 1st, the judge ruled in favor of Billboard Chris and the social media platform. But the ruling was narrow … restoring only the one post.

And the broader crackdown continues. Australians who challenge progressive policies online still face steep fines and censorship if someone complains.

WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis reports.

ADF CHRIS ELSTON: And in the greatest victory for freedom of speech on planet Earth this year, we just defeated the Australian government, and my post has been restored.

AMY LEWIS: That’s Chris Elston just after the judge’s ruling on July 1st. Jasmine Sussex attended some of Elston’s trial earlier this year.

JASMINE SUSSEX: I was so excited. And, I mean, it was a tiny bit, I wouldn't want to say, bittersweet, but it was, I think, to be honest, if I'm brutally honest, I'm a bit jealous…

Jealous, because Sussex is also fighting the eSafety Commissioner’s overreach, and she shares some of Elston’s lawyers. Sussex is a former breastfeeding counselor who posted on social media that only women can breastfeed.

SUSSEX: I included a photo of the complainant, which he'd given to the Daily Mail, of him, bare-chested, holding his son. It wasn't a nice point, but it just wasn't vilification.

She’s now in the 5th year of litigation—first under Queensland’s antidiscrimination laws and now with Australia’s eSafety Commissioner over her use of the X platform to talk about who can breastfeed.

That eSafety Commissioner is Julie Inman Grant. Her job is to safeguard Australians from online harm, but her actions affect more than just Australia. Here’s Chris Elston again.

ADF ELSTON: Her job is to censor the internet for the entire world, and so the Australian government ordered an American company to take down a Canadian’s post featuring a British article.

Reuben Kirkham is a director of the Free Speech Union of Australia. He says Inman Grant is using tax dollars to fight the people.

REUBEN KIRKHAM: It is most worrying that our public money is being spent in this manner and to undermine our freedoms. It is a world first, but it is not exactly a precedent that anyone would want to set.

Inman Grant’s March 2022 letter to X about Elston’s post said the company had to remove it or be fined more than $500,000 dollars. But since Elston’s trial, Inman Grant has had to change the wording in similar notices to social media companies.

KIRKHAM: She is now reduced to sending these rather bizarre emails that say, ‘We found something on your, on a page, but you may want to think about taking it down of your terms and service, but we’re definitely not requiring you to.’

That’s a victory, but it only goes so far.

After a 6-year battle, the state of Victoria’s Civil and Administrative Tribunal upheld a decision in July by the Medical Board of Australia to suspend a Christian medical doctor’s licence. The decision was based entirely on Dr. Jereth Kok’s private social media posts critical of abortion, vaccines, and transgender ideology. He’d also reposted some satirical articles from the Babylon Bee. Some of the posts were more than 10 years old. Kok had a stellar record with his patients, but the tribunal found him guilty of professional misconduct.

Kirkham says that’s a massive problem.

KIRKHAM: If you don’t have freedom of expression, you don’t have a democratic society. You don’t have those basic western values. You don’t have the truth.

And now there are new challenges to free speech. The State of Victoria just passed new hate speech laws. And the federal government recently passed age verification laws for social media use, adding a YouTube ban for children under 16. Children who break the law won’t be prosecuted, but the digital companies will.

Many people think social media restrictions are a good thing. But enforcing those changes gives the government more control over online conversation. And that’s exactly what some leftist activists want.

Ro Allen is the state of Victoria’s human rights commissioner and describes herself as gender diverse. About a year ago, she spoke to Julian Morrow on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation about her strategy to promote gender fluid ideology by squelching online public debate.

MORROW: Does the public debate actually impede things?

ALLEN: 100 percent. Social media, I think people go there to be their worst. You don’t get a really intelligent conversation there.

Allen will be in charge of enforcing the state’s new laws. Jasmine Sussex says Allen’s own bias calls into question whether she will support everyone’s human rights.

SUSSEX: Our Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is going to be, you know, like judge, jury, prosecutor, investigator, executioner. It's really, really quite scary.

Sussex has seen first-hand how speaking the truth has become costly and “unsafe.” Especially for women who speak out against transgender ideology.

SUSSEX: But you know, it's not high profile women, it's not activists. It's teachers, nurses, social workers, and we're all being, you know, disciplined, silenced, censored, shamed, some of us have lost jobs. We just need to be really clear-eyed about what is actually happening and what the consequences are for women.

Reporting for World Tour, I’m Amy Lewis in Melbourne, Australia.

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