An Australian woman whose video drawing attention to a “queer club” at a Melbourne primary school was banned at the request of the government’s online censorship chief has filed an appeal against the takedown notice.
Celine Baumgarten revealed in a May 29 X post that Montmorency South Primary School was running a club for students in Years 3 to 6 who “identify as LGBTQIA+” and that the school uses “gender inclusive” language models, resulting in students not being referred to as boys or girls.
Ms Baumgarten stated in her post, which was made with the support of activist group Gays Against Groomers, that “children should not be learning about sexualities at such a young, impressionable age” and in her video she mentioned that the club was facilitated by a teacher named Trish “Patsy” Marmo, who openly pushes far-left gender ideology on her social media accounts.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant then issued a removal notice to X, resulting in the post and video being “geo-blocked” in Australia, meaning it now cannot be viewed inside the country without the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN). X then informed Ms Baumgarten of the notice and the action taken as a result.
On Friday Ms Baumgarten filed a legal challenge in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal with the assistance of the Free Speech Union of Australia, who are also assisting Canadian anti-child mutilation activist Billboard Chris in a similar appeal.
The free speech legal group told Noticer News: “This case is an even more worrying abuse of power than Billboard Chris’s case – and that’s saying something!
“This time around, eSafety have seemingly tried to make their notice unappealable using bureaucratic magic tricks. The Free Speech Union of Australia is making sure these tricks won’t work.”
According to the appeal documents, the removal order presumably claims that Ms Baumgarten engaged in creating and disseminating “cyber-abuse material”, which the appeal states is a “grave allegation” and “entirely misconstrued”, and is also an “informal notice” which violates statutory protections for end users under the Online Safety Act.
THREAD. Today we submitted @celinevmachine_ appeal against the notice to take down her video she prepared with the support of @againstgrmrs. Her Tweet concerned the protection of children in a Primary School. https://t.co/kftlR88NTj
— Free Speech Union of Australia (@FSUofAustralia) June 7, 2024
Ms Baumgarten, who describes herself as an Australian patriot, told Noticer News: “I did not intend to abuse or offend anyone. The purpose of the video was to draw attention to a rapidly growing concern in this country – queer clubs in primary schools.
“I am appealing because I am an advocate for free speech and I don’t believe it’s morally justifiable to remove a video so quickly without a reason (I never received anything from eSafety, only an email from X saying the post had already been geoblocked).”
The appeal documents state that there are three fundamental issues with the informal notice issued in this case. Firstly, that the notice is in force even though Ms Baumgarten was not notified of her appeal rights, secondly that the material did not fall with the relevant cyber abuse scheme and could have be modified rather than taken down, and thirdly that Ms Inman Grant’s conduct goes beyond the powers of her office as it violates Ms Baumgarten’s implied freedom of political communication.
The removal of the post caused international outrage, and came as Ms Inman Grant withdrew legal action against X in the Federal Court attempting to force Elon Musk’s platform to remove videos of an alleged terrorist stabbing.
United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet reshared the posts and called for the eSafety Office to be shut down, while influential X account Libs of TikTok also reposted the video, which has since been viewed 670,000 times.
— Senator Babet (@senatorbabet) June 4, 2024
This video exposing an LGBTQ club in an elementary school in Melbourne has been BANNED in Australia after the e-safety commissioner said the video violates Australian law and demanded X block it.
Definitely don’t tag @eSafetyOffice and share this!! pic.twitter.com/MEXESB2Ml9
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 4, 2024
