Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce have declared war on anonymous social media users but not politicians who run troll accounts to attack voters and push propaganda while at the same Liberal Party and National Party politicians have hit an all-time high for instituting frivolous and vexatious defamation cases which has the effect of forcing many social media users to stay anonymous.
The latest defamation court case is federal MP Andrew Laming, who settled a defamation claim against journalist Louise Milligan in August, suing Channel 9 over his photo of a women bending over with her underwear showing and him bullying and harassing women online. Laming also threatened to sue me on Twitter a few months ago but I stood my ground and he has not contacted me since. (Click here to read more)
Add that to the hypocrisy of Federal MP Peter Dutton suing Twitter user Shane Bazzi for defamation over one Tweet after Dutton accused QLD Premier Anna Palaszczuk of “siding with and protecting paedophiles and sex offenders” as per the below video I published on Friday (8/10/21/). The matter had a hearing 3 days this week in the Federal Court in Sydney finishing on Friday with the judgment reserved.
The article I refer to in the above video is titled “Peter Dutton, who accused QLD Premier Palaszczuk of “siding with and protecting paedophiles and sex offenders” sues a Twitter user for calling him a “rapist apologist”. (Click here to read the article)
A key reason that a lot of people stay anonymous on social media is because they are scared that will be sued for frivolous and vexatious reasons such as Peter Dutton’s lawsuits against Shane Bazzi. I haven’t read where Scott Morrison or Barnaby Joyce have commented on the Peter Dutton case and how it is an attempt to undermine political communication and free speech, but they are quick to attack social media users when it suits them.
The real story isn’t anonymous social media users not being held to account as Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce are claiming. The real story is politicians trying to silence social media users who are holding the politicians to account the same as the politicians are trying to silence the old media with frivolous defamation claims like federal MP Christian Porter has.
The Guardian reported on Thursday (7/10/21):
Australia’s prime minister and his deputy have warned social media giants they will be required to unmask anonymous social media users in a bid to crackdown on misinformation.
On Thursday Scott Morrison warned social media companies they must take action against “cowards” who vilify, harass or defame others – or else be liable as publishers.
Barnaby Joyce, the deputy prime minister, initiated the calls for stronger action in an interview refuting “malicious” rumours about his family.
Asked about rumours relating to his family, Joyce revealed that his daughter had been the subject of “completely malicious rumours” that “she’d been in a relationship with [former NSW deputy premier] John Barilaro and that is why he left”. “It’s total and utter rubbish.” (Click here to read more)
When former NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro announced why he was resigning on Monday he said a large part of the reason was his defamation case against YouTube publisher Friendlyjordies and I published an article the following day titled “The real reasons NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro resigned: Fraud, theft, abuse of power and numerous alleged affairs” (Click here to read the article) which has the below video in it.
The article and the below video are relevant to this article because I cover Barilaro’s defamation case against Friendlyjordies and also Barilaro’s alleged affairs and it is an alleged affair with Barnaby Joyce’s daughter that has been the spark that has lit the fire in Barnaby Joyce and Scott Morrison to demand “social media giants be required to unmask anonymous social media users in a bid to crackdown on misinformation”.
There is a long list of politicians that have set up fake social media accounts to abuse and attack people and also push propaganda. So, why haven’t Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce ever said anything about that and demanded social media giants be required to unmask anonymous politicians in a bid to crackdown on misinformation and abuse?
Some of the politicians who have set up fake social media accounts are Angus Taylor to spread lies, Andrew Laming to abuse voters and spread lies and Mark Latham to abuse mostly women he didn’t like such as Australian of the Year Rosie Batty.
Starting a fight with social media users a few months out from an election is as dumb as it gets but maybe Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce feel they have nothing to lose. Instead of declaring war on anonymous social media users how about they focus on the politicians abusing social media with fake troll accounts.
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Categories: Barnaby Joyce, Prime Minister Scott Morrison
All a political stunt. The fight is not with social media users but social media companies who will be framed as ‘the other’ and targeted with legislation as an election strategy. Expect lots of coverage of ‘we need to do this for x, who suffered from Y after being trolled on social media’. It also ties into the agenda of the MSM and particularly NewsCorp, guaranteeing positive coverage.
As for the hypocrisy, it never has and never will bother this corrupt government. The PM can lie in parliament without censure, they can table fake documents, they can funnel millions of dollars into slush funds and overseas accounts.A bit of hypocrisy is nothing.
Unfortunately, the real cowards are these two despicable men. A gutless duo who lead a party full of evil lemmings running head long into oblivion. We the people, are the ones who suffer in every situation. The political military industrial class are screwing us all as they buy up houses and stack their wealth.
Barnaby Joyce gets regular attention in the newspapers nearly every day of the week yet his party the Nationals only pulls 4.6% of the federal vote at election time apart from QLD where the combined LNP garners around 8.6% of the state’s federal vote. The Greens by comparison attract 10% of the federal vote, sometimes more, but they are kept well clear of the media and certainly do not have the same presence in government.
The question is why does Joyce get so much airplay since he represents such a small vote and why is there so much talk about this issue now from the Coalition government since the topic of a federal integrity commission has resurfaced? It sounds like vicious censorship to me and a way to shut down any criticism of the same government. Very Orwellian I would say.
People should be very concerned about a government that is so secretive, obfuscating, mendacious, does not follow due procedures, and is blocking FOI requests. At one moment over the last 8 years it argued for freedom of speech even for bigots, but now does the opposite by threatening the very same freedom of speech from its constituents through defamation if they criticise a member of the government.
In the case of Porter, we cannot even know who bailed him out to cover his court cases. This from a government obsessed with national security?
It was reported yesterday in several media sources that Barilaro had split with his wife.
Barnaby Joyce’s daughter was employed as Barilaro’s assistant. Was this job supplied according to merit or for some other reason? It sounds very Trump like and it would be fair to allege possible nepotism. These are the real questions we need answers for, not trying to shut down criticism because Barnaby says so.
If they a have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear.
George you have totally belled the cat….. Or poked the pig ….which ever is more appropriate. I agree with your sentiment re the secretive and mendacious government we were delivered thanks to Clive Palmer and his vile money. You seem to have some inside running on a few bush scandals as well. I don’t think merit has anything to do with the liberals or the nationals. There is no merit or ethical responsibility in their DNA. With the exception of Darren Chester. I would be happy to see them all jailed or tortured in the public square. They really are Grubs. Criminal, conniving, corrupt and cunning.
Thanks. These bastards will stop at nothing to appeal to their red neck base. Keep up the good work. Thanks mate
What is this, a dictatorship?
If they get back in.
Morrison’s election victory in 2019 was lead by two young Kiwi social networkers, Ben Guerin and Sean Topham. The Guardian says they also received payments for their work from CTF Partners, a UK advocacy company run by Aussie Sir Lynton Crosby, then head of electoral campaigning for Boris Johnson and the UK Conservative party. Crosby has come under fire in the UK for his extensive use of Facebook to push lies as political propaganda on issues such as Brexit, mining companies and corrupt foreign regimes. The methods involved presenting false facts to targeted Facebook users, posts that would vanish after use.
As the Guardian put it: “Facebook expenditure [by CTF partners and affiliates] swamps the amount spent in the last six months [on pro-Brexit advertising] by all the UK’s major political parties and the UK government combined … almost all the major pro-Brexit Facebook “grassroots” advertising campaigns in the UK share the same page admins or advertisers. These individuals include employees of CTF Partners…”
The Conservative forces of the UK, NZ and Australia use Facebook to run covert political propaganda..
https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/boris-johnson-s-conservatives-hire-kiwi-gurus-who-worked-on-morrison-s-shock-win-20191008-p52yia.html
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/01/revealed-johnson-allys-firm-secretly-ran-facebook-propaganda-network
Morrison and Joyce insult other people all the time.
They started it.
Morrison, Frydenberg, Craig Kelly post a great deal of bull on their social media platforms and if you try to argue your case opposing them you’re instantly blocked from visiting their social media accounts from that point on.
From my experience, Barnaby Joyce at least cops any criticism on the chin & doesn’t block you from for future access to his social media pages. Whether that’s because he respects other people’s views or is just too lazy to read them will never know.
The notion that the LMP champions free speech is just more pro-LNP media crap. The only free speech this government condones is its own.
If the cowardly liar & hypocrite Peter Dutton successfully sued everyone who sledged him on social media, he become the world’s richest man. If Dutton did have talant & was a member of the Australian cricket team, he probably be wanting to sue every opposition team member that’s sledged him. If I was asked to choose one word to describe Peter Dutton it would be SOOK.
What a pathetic cowardly government we have running this country. Serial liars, rortersters and deceivers running a muck with virtually no accountability.
The first paragraph says it all i.e. social media is a preferred channel of MPs’ PR communication on policies yet demand draconian actions on the same carriage services, especially when carrying dissenting policy points of view.
Peter Geoghegan author of ‘Democracy for Sale’ has spoken also of ‘dark money’ in UK politics and intimidating defamation actions taken against legitimate investigative journalism i.e. SLAPPS from Wiki:
‘A strategic lawsuit against public participation, SLAPP suit, or intimidation lawsuit is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition’
The types of policy that attract dissent revolve round imported US ‘radical right libertarian’ economic policies, masked by sociocultural agitprop e.g. ‘wedge’ issues and ‘dog whistling’ that are authoritarian in focusing upon minorities and/or societal enemies while encouraging Christianity, nativism and being ‘quiet Australians’, respecting and following authority.
It’s not quite the larrikanish and free wheeling self image that Australians have of themselves?
Just commenting on a recent exchange between BJ and Mark McGowan …
“Like you, I’m getting pretty tired of the tacky, cheap attacks on WA,” Mr McGowan said on the post, which attracted thousands of likes within minutes.
“We don’t live in a cave (SM), we’re not North Korea (BJ), and anyone paying any attention at all would appreciate the remarkable quality of life we’re able to enjoy here.”
Mr McGowan retaliated by accusing Mr Joyce of being “an embarrassment to the Australian Parliament”. – Boom Boom 1
“Barnaby Joyce doesn’t have the experience of managing and dealing with COVID,” he (McGowan) said in his social media post. “We won’t be taking his advice.” Boom Boom 2
In my honest opinion, BJ’s moronic behaviour and weird, out of control, incoherent “tongue lashings” belong somewhere that is well below the level expected of parliamentarians of our federal government. How do they get these jobs?
Is it true that the national party only enjoy 4.6% of the federal vote? I believe, even the Greens receive 10%. I truly shake my head
Seems to me that Morrison and Dutton have been salivating for years over the thought of Chinese State Control over Australians.
They have been banging this drum for a long time and it got pushed hard this year – ever since Morrison’s speech to his churchy pals at the Gold Coast – remember the comparisons between social media and the devil?
Now we have a run of tame MSM opinionistas making claims that twitter especially is a den of abusive iniquity.
It’s all propaganda from the PMO. They want to criminalise dissent – twitter is the last place they can’t delete accountability from the public.