.@AnikaWells really gives away the game here in calling online criticism of Australia’s Grand Inquisitor “abuse” and saying it makes her “not safe.” That’s literally how the legislation defines content it wants to censor. So there you have it: if you dare to criticize the censor, you shall be censored! Totalitarian perfection, no notes “We catch up frequently, we talk about the pressure and abuse that a position like the eSafety Commissioner gets put under. It is testimony to the fact [the] online [world] is not safe and is not safe for women.”

Wow, wow, wow. I just left the National Press Club where Minister of Communications @AnikaWells spoke. She repeatedly and brazenly lied about the fake accounts, claiming they were only for enforcement, even though the legislation says in black and white that the eSafety Commissioner can use them in unlimited ways for "educational" and "promotional" purposes. One big moment came when a Politico reporter got up and said something about how mean people like @PaulineHansonOz were to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant. Seriously. A supposed reporter was white-knighting for a government official during the official Q&A. The same reporter had come up to me before Wells' speech and asked if I had criticized Inman-Grant. Who needs government censors when you have Politico? After he asked his question, Wells showed the most emotion, describing online criticism of Inman-Grant as "abuse." She also talked about her own staff's supposed suffering. I kid you not. The mask dropped, and you could see what really upset her: people — including a sitting Senator — criticizing government officials. After gaslighting the audience about fake accounts, Wells repeatedly insisted the government wasn't trying to censor content. She said this after filling her speech with examples of content she claimed harmed people. You couldn't make it up. This legislation is the culmination of decades of progressives equating words with physical violence. Wells cynically compared her legislation to prevent psychological "harm" to various laws that protect people from physical harm, like seat belt laws. BTW, Wells never said what content it was that she thought caused eating disorders. Pictures of skinny women? Dietary advice? Who knows. Nobody asked. Another important moment came when Wells explicitly said Australia would be pursuing censorship alongside other nations, including the UK, France, and Spain—all countries where governments risk losing power to populists. I spoke with Julie Inman-Grant before the speech began and asked about the fake accounts. She insisted they were there just for enforcement, and when I asked why the law allowed them to be used for government propaganda, she said she might write an "enforcement memo," which, of course, would have no impact on the legislation. After her speech, I went up to Wells and asked if she was seriously saying the legislation didn't allow the government to use fake accounts for government propaganda. She refused to answer. A man who said he was from the National Press Club stepped in front of me and said I could interview her afterward. But that wasn't possible because they rushed her out the back to avoid any difficult questions. So there you have it. The pettiest people in Australia are seeking to silence citizens and their political opponents in the name of protecting children. These deeply intolerant and cynical people want to control what you can see and say online. And they're doing it with most of the media's support. Australia has reached a new low in its rapid descent into dogmatism, intolerance, and censorship.

The government today will introduce sweeping censorship that @AlboMP & @AnikaWells lie about. Below she claims the government wants to create a bot army of fake accounts for “research” when the bill clearly intends for them to be used in partisan warfare against fooled citizens.

Buried in the Australian government’s new censorship bill is something everybody had overlooked in the three weeks after the bill was first introduced: the right for the government to spread propaganda anonymously through anonymous accounts known as "sock puppets" and "bots." “A sock puppet identity," says the @AlboMP government's proposed legislation, "is a false or fictitious identity assumed by a person in the course of using, or carrying out any activity in relation to, an online service.” The legislation goes on not to warn of bad actors using sock puppets but rather to authorize the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, to create and use sock puppets to “disseminate” information or, more accurately, deceptively spread propaganda to mislead the public.

Anonymous online accounts threaten democracy and must be banned, say politicians. But now, the Australian government wants to use anonymous "sock puppet" bot accounts as part of its broader push for sweeping online censorship. Terrifying, unprecedented, and Orwellian.