Anthony Albanese has joined the Unplug24 campaign, announcing on X:
The movement is in honour of Mac Holdsworth who, to quote the website: took his own life after being sexually extorted.
Unplug24 seeks to raise awareness and funds to help prevent sexual extortion and suicide.
A cause few would argue with.
However, for the rest of the conversation it is important to clarify that sexual extortion is already illegal and against all guidelines and safety policies across all major social media platforms.
The Prime Minister’s temporary departure and awkwardly-phrased message feels, to some, less like a one-off event and more like another charge of perceived harm laid against social media.
This is taking place in the middle of an intense policy campaign that invokes promises of ‘child safety’ to support successive pieces of censorial legislation that some argue interferes with other implied or expected rights.
It is long past time we examine the relationship between politicians and social media and ask why leaders are online and whether or not their use of social media as a political tool for government has, itself, introduced a form of harm into the medium.
As a dinosaur of the Internet Age, allow me to remind the Prime Minister that no one invited politicians into this space.
Originally, it was a medium for entertainment, fandom, information, creative endeavour, friendship, and eventually news. And yes, children were part of the matrix that built the online world. Political parties saw the campaign potential of an enormous collection of people congregated in one area and pushed through the door, demanding attention before recoiling at the sting of honest opinion left underneath their dumb policy ideas.
The political class and its minders entered a conversation amongst commoners and found out how little respect politicians court in the real world.
While politicians feel hurt reading nasty comments about their policies, imagine the harm voters experience at the hands of policies they have no power to stop. All they can do is talk about their experience. This conversation intensified during the Uniparty phenomenon where the democratic pressure valve stopped working. If anything, the rise of One Nation has shown that the vast majority of Australians prefer to use the ballot box to correct policy rather than the French Method.
Despite this, what do we find politicians complaining about? The popularity of One Nation online with some even attempting to paint political opposition as harm or radicalisation. It is nothing of the sort.
If it were Labor dominating social media rather than One Nation, and if the population fell on their knees in adoration of progressive policy, would Labor still be pushing online censorship laws? Has political disagreement been confused with harm?
In my view, ‘radicalisation’ is an education system of such poor quality that thousands of school children feel comfortable shouting violent and historically ignorant slogans on the street. ‘Radicalisation’ is political violence casually vocalised by the Left against people and ideas they don’t like. From the mocking of Charlie Kirk to crying because Trump survived. This brain rot did not originate online. It grew from the politicisation of classrooms which happened under the watch of successive governments. Social media merely documents the behaviour.
While the Prime Minister’s unplugging is temporary, no one would care if he quit social media entirely, as others in Canberra have done.
It may happen one day.
Communications Minister Anika Wells was asked at the National Press Club why the Prime Minister still posts on X (specifically) as an official platform, to which she replied, ‘That’s a question for the Prime Minister…’ She went on to talk about the safety of X in regard to parliamentary staff.
What worries many is the constant drip-feeding of the exaggerated narrative of ‘social media harm’ pushed by legislators who are actively seeking to impose further restrictions on the public forum. Keep in mind, they do not act alone but form part of an international group of governments each with parallel laws. It is an environment in which Labor prides itself on being a world leader.
Never forget the first community guidelines for many of these platforms centred around Climate Change, Covid, and Trans. These are political discussions. Policy debates. And yet they were labelled as harmful and often resulted in (primarily) conservatives being removed. Twitter was famous for this prior to its purchase by Elon Musk and renaming to X.
It was the removal of political censorship from X that led to it being described as ‘harmful’.
Under Musk, X is partly credited with dismantling the control of Covid narratives by allowing dissident medical voices and victims to be heard. The media soon followed, unable to ignore the stories breaking online. A media empire that did not have the courage to act first despite all of its wealth and political protection…
Instead of praise, social media companies are often criticised when moderation is altered.
Anika Wells herself said at the National Press Club:
‘Our reactive patchwork system cannot keep pace with a sector where a billionaire can buy a platform and strip it of moderation.’
If this is a reference to Elon Musk famously purchasing Twitter for $44 billion and throwing out the ‘green and blue-haired moderators’, it is my view the Minister should retract her comment.
Musk did not ‘strip X of moderation’, he removed overt political censorship that had long been complained about by users who felt politically oppressed and silenced. To this day, X has some of the most comprehensive and sophisticated moderation systems of all online platforms when it comes to actual harm.
In addition, it was Elon Musk who revealed The Twitter Files which embarrassed the US government, under the Democrats, for meddling in censorship. Australia’s Twitter Files were more specifically uncovered thanks to a Freedom of Information request by South Australian Senator Alex Antic, which revealed the Australian Coalition government sent 4,213 requests to censor and remove Covid-related posts over a three-year period for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc.
Political censorship.
It targeted ordinary Australians, doctors, and commentators.
‘It is entirely unclear to me why the Department of Home Affairs, a department which is primarily charged with the duty of overseeing matters like border control, has been using a backdoor arrangement with social media companies to influence the media in relation into matters such as public health … on what basis is the department qualified to determine the truth associated with Covid-related matters?’, said Senator Antic.
Given this history of political censorship of social media, the onus is on legislators to argue they are not attempting to re-establish the de facto political control they enjoyed under the voluntary engagement of formerly Democrat-leaning platforms.
Why is, for example, the Prime Minister constantly talking about children online and a ‘safer digital world for kids’ when his government has already introduced the Under 16 social media ban which, according to his office, kicked kids off these platforms?
Why does Labor want to start fussing around with social media algorithms, marketed as our choice when surely they are aware that Germany has put forward a policy to manipulate social media algorithms with state-approved media content? Germany seeks to require one-fifth of all posts in a feed to push diversity. More our choice than your choice. Anika Wells denied the premise of questions related to political interference in the algorithm … it is a shame no one put the example of Digital Media Interstate Treaty to her. Would Labor be willing to amend their legislation to specifically rule this out?
The public are rightly concerned that ‘child safety’ might be used to meddle in public speech.
If there is a road map, we should see it.
Instead, we have the Communications Minister saying ‘big tech is not a protected species in Australia’ as if that is something to be proud of.
This conversation is not about ‘big tech’, it is about the service big tech provides.
(This is without touching on the economic activity of private business that relies on a healthy social media environment to function. Imagine how many Australian companies would collapse if politicians pushed social media companies out of the country or destroy engagement levels… Did anyone consider this? I doubt it was even a footnote.)
‘They should be beholden to the same basic safety standards we expect of every other industry … cars, foods, toys.’
Except that speech is not a car, food, or toy. It is considered to be a human right. The closest approximation of social media is a service provider, like a phone line. Governments do not shut down the phones because a criminal makes a call. They arrest the criminal.
Look, if the government doesn’t want to be part of the conversation, they can leave.
No one is forcing them to remain online. Except their market competition… One Nation isn’t going anywhere.
And if the government wants to talk about safety, they can answer questions about why so many foreign terrorists are sitting on watch lists in this country and why there are machete fights in broad daylight in streets that were once safe. Why is it we can no longer leave our doors unlocked?
The government and its border policies have done more to make Australia unsafe than social media ever could.
Every department in this Labor government has played a role in making Australia less safe. Shutting the public up on social media won’t change that.
Alexandra Marshall is an independent writer. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.
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