Australian eSafety Commissioner publicises an X post characterising a trans male as a female suffering a psychiatric condition.
The Streisand effect at work, hilariously...
To publicise a Canadian activist who protests against gender ideology was certainly not the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s intent when they gave X (formerly Twitter) 24 hours to take down a post characterising a trans male as a female suffering from a psychiatric condition, but this is what happened. A full-on Streisand effect.
On 22 March, the eSafety commissioner gave X 24 hours to take down the post by Canadian activist “Billboard Chris”, alias, Chris Elston. He is often to be seen in public in Canada wearing billboards protesting against gender ideology and sex-change medical treatment of children, a worthy cause: there are already lawsuits taking place around the world where adults who had these operations regretted it in retrospect and sued the hospital. Aside from being completely wrong (how on earth can any child decide to undergo an irreversible procedure, when they aren’t even mature enough to vote?), these operations are surely extremely unwise in view of the future insurance and financial prospects of the hospital.
The eSafety Commissioner notice threatened civil proceedings and a maximum penalty of $752,000 if X did not comply.
This was the message from the eSafety commissioner to X, apparently:
Elston’s caption reads as follows: “This woman (yes she’s a female) is part of a panel of 20 ‘experts’ hired by the WHO to draft their policy on caring for ‘trans people.’ People who belong in psychiatric wards are writing the guidelines for people who belong in psychiatric wards.”
The post remains up elsewhere in the world, but X has removed it for Australian users.
X forwarded it to Chris Elston, and he provided the pdf to Rebekah Barnett. Her report contains a screenshot of the eSafety Commissioner notice, in which the eSafety Commissioner says the following:
“a) Taking into account all of the circumstances, I have reached the view that: a) an ordinary reasonable person would conclude that it is likely that the Material is intended to cause serious harm to the Complainant. This is because the Material misgenders the Complainant and reiterates that this point is deliberate, which is likely intended to invalidate and mock the Complainant's gender identity. The Material also contains a statement that implicitly equates transgender identity with a psychiatric condition. This statement is deliberately degrading and suggests that all transgender people - and in this case the complainant in particular - have something that is wrong about their psychology owing to gender identity.
b) an ordinary reasonable person in the position of the Complainant would regard the Material as being offensive. This is because the Material singles out the Complainant to personify the poster's contempt for transgender identity as well as equating transgender identity with a psychiatric condition.
I am satisfied that:
the Material is provided on a social media service;
the Material was the subject of a complaint that was made to the provider of the service;
the Material was not removed from the service within 48 hours after the complaint was made, or within a longer period that was allowed by the eSafety Commissioner;
a complaint has been made to the eSafety Commissioner under section 36 of the Act about the Material; and
the Material is cyber-abuse material targeted at an Australian adult within the meaning of the Act.
On this basis, I have decided to give you the Notice.
Required action
Please email requests@esafety.gov.au once you have taken all reasonable steps to ensure the removal of the Material in compliance with the Notice. Failure to comply with the Notice may result in compliance or enforcement action being taken against you without further notice.
If you have any questions about the Notice or if you require a longer period of time to comply, contact our office by email to requests@esafety.gov.au as soon as you receive this
Failure to comply
Under section 91 of the Act, you must comply with a requirement under a removal notice given under section 88 of the Act to the extent that you are capable of doing so.
Failure to comply with the Notice may result in enforcement action, including the commencement of civil penalty proceedings for a civil penalty order of up to a maximum penalty of $782,500 (AUD) for a single contravention by a body corporate.
Review rights
You have a right to seek an internal or external review of the decision to give you a removal notice.
An internal review is a review conducted by the eSafety Commissioner under the Internal Review Scheme. There is no fee associated with a request for an internal review.”
If the individual in Billboard Chris’ tweet was just some nobody, a person that no-one had ever heard of, with a few followers on social media, the eSafety Commissioner might have been in the right; it would seem like unfair targeting. But I think there is a clear public interest argument that people need to know about the people on the WHO’s trans advisory committee, since the WHO is an international organisation with a hefty degree of influence in many countries around the world, and the tweet was not targeting someone who was not very much already in the public arena.
Rebekah Barnett contacted the eSafety Commissioner to find out how they decide how much to fine individuals if they don’t remove offending posts. They replied,
“Where a person fails to comply with a removal notice, they can face a civil penalty of up to 500 penalty units. eSafety may also consider several other enforcement options. The monetary value of 1 penalty unit is $313 for individuals. The maximum penalty ordered against a corporation (which can include online service providers) can be 5 times more than the maximum penalty ordered against individual.”
550 penalty units equates to a penalty of AUD $156,000 for failing to remove a single post and a penalty of $782,500 for a corporation.
Elston posted on X:
The Australian government’s attempt at censoring me has backfired spectacularly.
“Mr. Elston, a vociferous campaigner against 'gender ideology', vowed he would not remove the post, claiming the Australian government made a 'lot of assumptions'.
“‘I do not hold that woman in contempt for her transgender identity, because I maintain that gender identities do not exist,' Mr Elston wrote.”
Elon Musk posted on X in response: “What is the world coming to?”
What indeed.