Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has admitted there was a conflict of interest when her office acted on the request of a “transgender” extremist to demand X remove a post about her made by a Canadian activist.
Julie Inman Grant was grilled by Australian senators on Friday about her decision-making in relation to a removal notice issued for a post by Canadian anti-child mutilation activist Billboard Chris which called influential female World Health Organisation policymaker Teddy Cook a woman.
American-born unelected bureaucrat Ms Inman Grant, who makes $445,000 to censor the internet on behalf of the Australian government, claimed that she was overseas visiting her sick mother when the takedown notice was filed, and that she did not know Ms Cook personally.
“I’ve never met him, I’ve never spoken to him in person,” she said.
However, she did confirm that Ms Cook’s NSW government-funded “HIV and LGBTQ+ health organisation” ACON had worked closely with her staff in the past.
“He does run a peak LGBTQI+ body, and some on my team, in developing materials, our learning lounge materials for the LGBTQI+ community, did engage ACON and other organisations in developing those materials,” she said, before quickly deferring the question to a colleague.
This clip deals with the @BillboardChris case – interestingly, Julie Inman Grant admits to having a conflict of interest owing to a relationship with Teddy Cook, but also that her office liaised with Teddy Cook’s organisation, ACON, on their frameworks for deciding what’s harmful… pic.twitter.com/P5DE3j7QsU
— Free Speech Union of Australia (@FSUofAustralia) May 31, 2024
Labor senator Karen Grogan, a member of the party’s progressive left faction and the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee chair, then asked Ms Inman Grant if commentary that she was an “Orwellian figure” was accurate.
“eSafety was not set up and does not operate as a censor. We do not have powers, or frankly, the resources, to be proactively monitoring the internet,” she responded.
“So, no, we’re not sitting in a dark room somewhere pushing a red button deleting content from the internet, and we are certainly not using social listening tools like Meltwater to measure anything other than how eSafety’s conversation is being recorded.
“There are no names or searches for Australian individuals. That is deliberate misinformation.
“We have no designs on censoring the global internet, or globally censoring what Americans or Norwegians or what anyone says.”
The Free Speech Union of Australia, which is assisting Billboard Chris in his appeal against Ms Inman Grant in the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal, responded by describing the eSafety Commissioner’s testimony as misinformation itself.
“When defending herself from charges she’s running an Orwellian censorship agency, the eSafety Commissioner told some bald-faced lies,” the group wrote on X.
“1. eSafety DOES act as a censor and have powers to do so. 2. It DOES “proactively monitor the internet”. 3. It DOES use meltwater reports to monitor criticism of itself. 4. It DOES try to censor content globally – that was what its recent legal action against Elon Musk and X was about.
“Talk about misinformation!”
Dr Reuben Kirkham, Co-Director of the Free Speech Union of Australia, told Noticer News: “The latest appearance of the eSafety Commissioner further illustrates the need to repeal the Online Safety Act and end this unfortunate situation.
“For those who agree with us, please sign our petition at https://endesafety.au/.
“We’ve also launched a tool that lets you send a Freedom of Information request to find out if she has been monitoring you.
“Best of all, you can force her to respond publicly by tweet – it only takes 30 seconds, just head to https://endesafety.au/ask.”
In April the eSafety office was caught monitoring the social media profiles of the wife of Australian filmmaker Nathan Livingstone, who makes videos as MilkBarTV, even though she has no online connections to him.
Mr Livingstone told Noticer News multiple complaints about the matter had been ignored by Ms Inman Grant, her office, even though it had been raised by One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts at a rally earlier this month.
“Despite directly emailing their office my complaint, emailing ACMA (all eSafety employees are employees of ACMA; ACMA responded 3 days after I emailed saying it was outside their jurisdiction & to email the eSafety) & CCing them, posting the complaint on X and tagging the eSafety Office and Grant’s X account (it has been seen over 275k times) not a single reply,” he said.
“I’ve still not got a single response from the eSafety Office. Nothing.”
Ms Inman Grant is also involved in a legal battle with X over orders the platform remove videos of the alleged terrorist attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney earlier this year.
Two weeks ago a Federal Court judge denied Ms Inman Grant’s request to extend a temporary global ban forcing X to remove footage of the alleged stabbing, finding it was not “reasonable”. A final hearing on the matter is expected within the next few months.
