(LifeSiteNews) — The Australian Federal government has withdrawn its amendment to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, known as the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, after it became clear it would not pass in the Senate. It was an ignominious end for the proposal, which had been widely, and legitimately, attacked.
On the political right it was viewed as a threat to free speech that would weaken one of the foundations of Australia’s democracy. On the left, especially the Greens, it was seen as too weak. It is not likely to see the light of day again.
What was not pointed out is that it was perhaps some of the worst and most inconsistent legislation ever proposed in Australia. There were some technical legal objections, but little exposure of the core logical absurdities.
The proposed bill did not just cast doubt on free speech rights, which in any case are only weakly protected in Australia – unlike the United States which has Constitutional protections under the First Amendment. It would have undermined the foundational principle that everyone should be equal before the law.
The “disinformation” and “misinformation” being targeted could only have been applied to content that the government deemed politically problematic. If it were applied universally, the government, which routinely puts out information that turns out to be false, would also have fallen under the law. That would never have happened.
Advertisers put out false information, but they would not have been penalized. It would only have been directed at people who did not conform with important political narratives, especially the government’s disastrous COVID-19 health response.
The significance of the verbal trickery in the legislation – putting the prefixes “dis” and “mis” in front of “information” to create the impression that the issue is objective truth, when in actuality it is the content producer’s intentions that were being targeted – was also not laid bare. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said, without a trace of irony, that the bill, while inadequate, was tabled “with all good intent.” I suppose that makes it mislegislation rather than dislegislation (“misinformation” is information that is believed to be unintentionally harmful; “disinformation” is believed to be intentionally harmful).
The local politics were predictable. The Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, declared that it was “a win for free speech and for democracy.” This was just political opportunism. Dutton had little interest in free speech last May, for instance, when he compared pro-Palestine university protests to the ideology of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler – comments so extreme they even outraged Jewish groups.
The international politics were more sinister. The proposed Australian legislation imitated Britain’s Online Safety Act and the European Union’s Digital Services Act. Both look to impose massive fines on tech platforms for allowing what is deemed to be unacceptable content. The failed Australian legislation was similarly crafted.
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The US political analyst Mike Benz describes these moves as a “transatlantic flank attack” on American free speech by exploiting other countries’ weaker legal protections. It is very likely that, behind the scenes, the Australian initiative was initiated for similar reasons. It would have been targeted at X (formerly known as Twitter) because of Elon Musk’s loosening of restrictions on right wing commentary.
There was some clarification of the status of free speech in Australia by the Law Council of Australia. In a submission, the Council said that “while the Australian Constitution does not recognise an explicit right to freedom of expression, the High Court of Australia has held that an implied freedom of political communication exists.” That is, Australians only have free speech if it is about politics.
What was lacking most of all is an understanding of the self-evident. That what is at issue is the creation of meaning, not speech. To state the obvious, when someone says or writes something they are trying to communicate a meaning, and when someone listens or reads it, they are trying to derive a meaning.
That is far too subtle and complex an activity to be readily interpreted in a legal context. Would Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, which argues for the eating of babies, be seen as dangerous “disinformation”. How could the courts deal with such satire?
Consumers of content are also extremely difficult to pin down because they can derive all sorts of meanings from the same content – witness the range of responses in the comments section of articles or posts.
In the final analysis, the United States’ constraining of government regulation of private speech is the most clear and defensible position. Unfortunately, Australia does not have that.
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