The Highwire with Del Bigtree - AUSTRALIA UNITES AGAINST MISINFORMATION MADNESS

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

A highly flawed ‘Misinformation Bill’ in Australia was shot down by both sides of the aisle, but a newly introduced bill restricting users under 16 years of age from using social media entirely has stoked fears of a national social ID down under.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

This battle for free speech, it keeps getting roped in. So no matter what the cause is, all right, to DEI, well, we're going to find a way the government's going to find a way through National Science Foundation to push a censorship regime. Well, there is a battle for the heart of free speech, especially during COVID. And right now, it's a wide open field. In Australia, really seems to be one of the ground zeros, if not ground zero for this. And we take it to Australia right now. And there is a talk that was being done on misinformation, actually. And this is Kim Williams.

He's a chairperson of the Australian Broadcasting Company. He holds a very senior position. He was asked a question by an audience member, and this is how it went. Take a listen. I have a question about Joe Rogan, and you've sort of touched on elements of this in the US. He's obviously the world's most popular podcast host. He has three billion listeners. He's sort of managed to successfully capture that bro market in America.

And his influences such that in the wake of the US election, the Democrats have said that one of Kamala Harris, mistakes was that she didn't appear on his program. So I'm just wondering if you had any observations about what's behind the Joe Rogan effect, how you believe his manager so successfully capture this huge market. And then for us here in Australia, how would or should the ABC be going about capturing that kind of audience? Look, I'm not sure that I'm the right person to respond to that question.

I am not a consumer or enthusiast about Mr. Rogan and his work. Shocking. I am not one of the three billion and I'm unlikely to be three billion and one any time soon. I think people like Mr. Rogan pray on people's vulnerabilities. They prey on fear. They prey on anxiety. They prey on all of the elements that contribute to uncertainty in society. And they entrepreneur fantasy outcomes and conspiracy outcomes as being a normal part of social

narrative. I personally find it deeply repulsive. And to think that someone has such a remarkable power in the United States is something that I look at in disbelief. I'm also absolutely in dismay that this can be a source of public entertainment when it's really treating the public as plunder for purposes that are really quite malevolent. It's amazing. I mean, And we're watching really the death, as we've said, of legacy media there at the National Press Club in Australia. What's amazing is he admits right up front.

I've never watched the show, basically. He doesn't even know who he is, but then starts saying he's disgusting. He's malevolent. He's awful. This shouldn't happen. And that's literally, you couldn't have a better example, honestly, of what was wrong with legacy media. You're not speaking the truth. You don't know what the truth is.

You're pushing your own propaganda and perspective without any evidence. science or backing. It's really quite astounding. But you know what's great, Jeffrey, is if you think about the fact that Joe Rogan and the podcasters and new media, as we've said before, won this election in the United States of America, I don't think that's lost on anybody, anybody. Legacy media has died. All the people that were against the COVID pandemic and said that this is a bunch of lies are now taking positions in our health departments. So what's amazing is now when we watch these national press clubs, we can now look at them because they are the fringe. They are now the minority in this country and rightfully so.

So again, what a great moment to be alive and to see this shift where the liars still lie, are still antiquated in their perspective, have no backing, and less and less people are listening to them. And that was such a teachable moment because there's still, still to this day, and he echoes a lot of what other men. media I'm watching see is zero self-reflection. They could have answered. They could have said, well, maybe they like longer form podcasts getting to the truth where it's not really scripted too much and people is genuine people. And the fact that Joe Rogan, the fact that presidential candidates had to reach out to independent media and go on their terms without scripts, without time limits, to win an election, I would think that's what you want. Because the other side of it,

we've lived through for our lifetimes. And it doesn't seem to work. out too well. And the woman at the beginning saying, how do we capture that audience that Joe Rogan captured? I don't know if he captured it. People just tuned in. So, well, in it's just thinking about, like putting it all together in this show. Can you imagine? Just love to take that guy and show the Peter Hotez diatribe on the 20 viruses that are going to kill you starting January 21st. And then cut over to Joe Rogan smoking a fat, blunt, and contemplating the existence of UFOs and say, which one of these groups is actually praying on people's fear as you're, you know, so worried about. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's astounding, uh, sort of the projection that we get

from mainstream anyway. Right. And Australia is now, it's, it's a hotbed. It's kind of also ground zero of the new fight for free speech when it comes to censorship bills. So in 2024, Australia government pushed a misinformation, disinformation bill. And a couple of years ago, that bill probably would have went through. But, Nowadays, not so much. And even the reporting from corporate media looks a little bit more accurate with the headlines. Australia withdraws a misinformation bill after critics. Compare it to censorship.

So what they were defining as misinformation was something that was reasonably verifiable as false and could contribute to serious harm. So if that bill was an effective, I don't know, at the beginning of COVID, and we said, we don't think the vaccine is 95% effective. We don't think the virus stops when you get the vaccine. That would be contributing to reasonable harm. and the social media platforms that harbored us would be fined millions of dollars into this bill. Wow. It's not happening.

So, and they also would treat corporate media differently. They would have a wider birth with corporate media. They can say more. So this bill is gone. Reuters, Australia dumps the plan for fines for social media giants. But unheard, the outlet did a really great piece on this to kind of show this inflection point we're at. And it says, Australia has shown the way on free speech. Has it thrown off its penchant for tech.

technocracy. It says the bill, which would have created a two-tier system of speech rights, was comprehensively rejected. And the story of its defeat reveals much about the evolving dynamics of political discourse in the post-pandemic world. What makes this defeat truly remarkable is the broad coalition that emerged to block the bill. In the Senate, an uncanny alliance form, conservative opposition, the Greens and left-wing independent senators all united in rejecting the proposed legislation. This cross-political alignment suggests a growing recognition of the dangers inherent in state-controlled information management. And that's where we're at right now.

So as soon as that bill was defeated and withdrawn, Australia, they put another bill forward. And this bill passed. Australia withdraws one bad online speech bill and advances another. What is that? Well, Reuters Australia passes social media ban for children under 16. Now this is something that a lot of other countries, including at the federal level here in the United States, are trying. The UK Online Safety Act has a version of of this, some states are working with this in the United States. So this is going to come into effect next year in Australia.

If you're 16 or younger, you're banned unless you do something that can verify your age. And right now they're working on, well, how that would be done. But there's tons of white papers out there from Australia's e-safety commissioner and a lot of other people and think tanks that say digital ID. So it looks like it's probably going to be a digital ID. And the danger with that is a lot of people said in Australia, as this bill was advancing rapidly, said, this is just a hop-skip and a jump away from full internet identification through digital IDs for adults. So there's no more anonymity online. There's no more posting anything you would

like. Now it's verified to your credit, to your banking, to your actual social security number, all of that. And that was one of the issues with the privacy of this, because all of your information is online and the government can take action with that. And Australia, we know, is pushing through also central bank digital currencies. There's a talk. on that. So everything will be linked up. You can see the danger there. And so that's the conversation that's happening in Australia right now. Will this bill really get, I'm sorry, will this social media act really green light to the point or can it be withdrawn at this point? It's still a push poll, but right now it's passed and I guess the government now is working on how they're going to

implement this next year. I mean, these are, these are touch these subjects. We've talked about it before. I have two, you know, well, a teenager and a 10-year-old. And, you know, it is hard to, you know, they're out of your site a lot. You give them a phone so that you can communicate wherever they are. We're all busy and traveling. And then, you know, you find out they're on social media all the time. What are they actually seeing? What are they looking at?

I understand why we want to make these knee-jerk reactions to somehow ban things for our kids or let someone else control that. But you're right. As soon as you do that, it brings up this good point. How do you know they're too young? Well, you had to show an ID. So that means we're all showing an ID, and we're all now. being, you know, scanned and watched and tracked and sold because data is the gold of the moment

that we live in and all of this is data collection. So these are scary, scary times precarious and needs thoughtful leadership for sure.