CANBERRA, Australia – Long after progressive free speech advocates in Australia questioned E-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant over her campaigns to target adult content, conservatives and libertarians are now raising concerns about the powers granted to the country’s top censor – an unelected former tech exec born in the US – and some called for her ouster.
A new group called the Free Speech Union of Australia has launched an online petition via its website EndSafety.auwhere Australians can petition for the dismissal of Inman Grant and her controversial office.
“The eSafety Commissioner holds office under the Online Safety Act 2021,” the website explains. “This world’s first attempt to regulate the internet has instead been a disaster for Australians and our international reputation. Although the Online Safety Act 2021 would provide safeguards to protect political expression, the Commissioner has been able to bypass them entirely. Her office has acted in a partisan manner and sought political revenge. It’s time to put an end to this failed experiment.”
The website prominently features a photo of Elon Musk, who recently questioned Inman Grant’s attempts to censor content on his platform X.com.
Free Speech Union of Australia is affiliated with the British Free Speech Union, which places its mission at the forefront rack familiar conservative tropes about combating “cancel culture” and protecting the free speech rights of employees and public officials targeted for their opinions. The British parent group believes “that freedom of expression is currently under attack across the Anglosphere, especially in those areas where it matters most, such as schools, universities, the arts, the entertainment industry and the media.”
The face behind the censorship
Another Australian conservative libertarian groupLast week, the Brownstone Institute published an in-depth investigation into Australia’s top censor and her controversial claims to authority, both in that country and internationally.
Titled “The Face Behind Australia’s Censorship Push” and written by Rebekah Barnett and Andrew Lowenthal of the Brownstone Institute, article examines Inman Grant’s background in the wake of her “international headlines over alleged censorship in an escalating standoff” with X.com and Musk.
Inman Grant’s current crusade, Barnett and Lowenthal write, “does not stand alone. She is a key player in a growing network of international initiatives seeking to impose bureaucratic controls over citizens’ opinions, including coordination with senior EU officials, the World Economic Forum and government-backed ‘anti-disinformation’ projects such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.”
The current confrontation between Inman Grant and Australian conservatives began when Inman tried to force Grant article explains. “X Global Affairs says the platform has complied with a takedown request from the Commissioner to limit the content’s visibility to Australian audiences, but has challenged a further ‘unlawful’ demand that X ‘withhold these posts globally or face a daily fine of $785,000 AUD.’”
Musk immediately activated his vast network of fans and followers against Inman Grant.
“Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, what will stop any country from controlling the entire internet?” he posted.
An Unelected Official and Her ‘Big Stick’
The article reveals that “after college, American-born Inman Grant was approached to join the CIA. Instead, she chose eSafety.”
“I wanted to do psychological profiles of serial killers, but the CIA wanted to talk me into becoming a case agent – which meant I wouldn’t be able to tell my friends and family what I was doing, which put me off,” says Inman. Grant revealed this in an interview.
The article provides an overview of Inman Grant’s career in Big Tech, with a long tenure at Microsoft in the US before moving to Australia, and later at a pre-Musk Twitter.
Inman Grant, married to an Australian, was personally selected by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – of the conservative Liberal Party – in 2017 to serve as the country’s first eSafety Commissioner, a position he designed as Communications Minister and officially was passed by the Enhancing Online Committee of 2015. Security Act. The Online Safety Act of 2021, the article added, “gave the unelected commissioner greater powers over a broader range of services and content.”
Inman Grant called her broad powers to threaten tech companies “a big stick that we can use whenever we want.”
“They will be regulated in a way they don’t want to be regulated,” she boasted.
The ‘big stick’ is a reference to US President Theodore Roosevelt’s slogan: ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’, which he used in the late 19th century to justify US imperialism, and which is often associated is brought with the rule of strong men.
The article also cites Inman Grant’s statements at the 2022 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, where she called for “a recalibration of a whole range of human rights that play out online, from freedom of expression to the freedom to be free of online violence. .”
As XBIZ reported, outspoken anti-porn Inman Grant has acknowledged having conversations with the US-based religiously inspired lobby NCOSE – formerly Morality in Media – and even appeared on an NCOSE podcast during the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation summit in July 2021. shortly after the Australian Parliament passed the country’s Online Safety Act.
In November 2021, the Australian progressive research center published Crikey published a comprehensive report on Inman Grant’s obsession with banning online porn.
Main image: Australia’s top online censor, E-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant