Why the ‘eKaren’ is trying to control content globally

It would certainly explain why the prime minister describes what are horrible videos as being "misinformation."

For most of us the videos are just facts, but for others, the facts have a narrative use that don't suit them. So no matter how true and factual, they must be "misinformation."

JIG is even trying to ban X and Facebook from showing these videos to international viewers. She may think of herself as a citizen of the world, but she works for a nation state, so her powers to enmesh citizens only apply to those who live here.

Australia has some extraterritorial powers in some legislation, such as when it deals with Australian nationals committing crimes abroad, like child sex tourism in south east Asia.

But here, JIG is purporting to deal with what foreign nationals, like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, do overseas where Australia's writ does not run. One has to question her judgement.

A tong-time coming

There are larger agendas at play here. Not only is there the issue of controlling specific current narratives, but there appears to be a multi-national effort to control the whole political narrative.

We've just come out of the COVID pandemic with all that entailed in terms of curtailment of civil liberties. We now seem to be entering a misinformation "pandemic" (and I use that term metaphorically and ironically).

Labor has been worried about "misinformation" and internet harm for a very long time, without much evidence that one leads to the other.

In 2007, Senator Stephen Conroy had a plan to enforce a compulsory filter on Australians' internet browsing so they couldn't be exposed to harmful material hosted on a secret list of sites nominated by Interpol.

He abandoned the plan in 2012 after opposition from the left-wing Greens and the centre-right Liberal Party.

How times have changed.

While most recently in power, the Liberals set in train a regime for censoring the internet using the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA). They subsequently established the Office of the eSafety Commissioner who has been given additional power to order social media companies to take down material.