10-08-2025: The comments of encrypted messaging app Signal CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in relation to Australian federal government demands that it build a “back door” for access for federal police underscore the sheer gravity of the potential situation. Meredith Whittaker was quoted as saying: “You could come to my house, put a gun to my head, saying, ‘give me the data’, I could not give you the data. You would have to shoot because I don’t have it. I don’t have access to it.”[1] Whittaker correctly pointed out that the government’s onerous demands that it effectively hands over the encrypted data of its users to the police or government authorities undermines the very basis for the existence of Signal, given that it is a private messaging app. Further, Whittaker stated that Signal would withdraw from Australia altogether if the government continued to demand access to Signal, supposedly for assistance with investigations into national security matters.
Digital surveillance
Patently, government back door access to the online activity of private citizens is not about national security, but about an intense form of digital surveillance. Similarly, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) federal government’s moves to ban under 16s from using social media, with the full support of the “opposition” Liberal National Party (LNP), is not about protecting young people from “online harm”. In fact, the social media ban is arguably not a ban, but an age verification scheme which allows instant identification. Those aged under 16 will still be able to view YouTube videos, for example, but will somehow be banned from having a YouTube account.[2] Young people will be able to view YouTube if they view it as “logged out”. What is more, even internet search engines may be forced to put in place an age verification/identification system. The notion that people may be forced to hand over extremely sensitive personal information in order to use the internet will send shivers down the spines of many.
The Australian federal parliament passed the Orwellian named Online Safety Bill 2021 four years ago, which was added to with the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024.[3] The latter amendment will also amend the Age Discrimination Act 2004 – to allow age discrimination ! The Online Safety Bill will give the grossly misnamed “E-Safety” Commissioner truly extraordinary powers to take down material posted not only on social media, but on the internet as well. While it is predicated on the basis of removing material harmful to children (such as extreme pornography), or material which could be used for cyber bullying of children or cyber abuse of adults, it could also be used for the removal of content from websites, or entirely blocking access to websites hosting “abhorrent violent material”.[4] However, the interpretation of what harmful or abhorrent material online actually is, is left up to one unelected bureaucrat – the misnamed E-Safety Commissioner. This is Julie Inman Grant, who is on a taxpayer funded salary of $445 000 annually,[5] but has more powers than politicians who could arguably be held to some form of account for their actions. Not so with Ms Inman Grant, who is “recommending” additional measures to censor and monitor users of the internet.
For free speech and free communication
Modern society is basically based on the internet, and therefore all should have unfettered access. Social media is arguably the modern equivalent of the town square, where discussion about societal issues take place. While most would not object to certain measures to protect children online, or even to block extremely violent and criminal acts from being displayed, blatant political censorship is intolerable. Incredible limits of totalitarianism are being breached if the government, or an unelected department head, is able to unilaterally block material, or expressed views, they do not like. Inman Grant is a disgruntled former Twitter employee who was railing against Twitter management for not censoring enough content even before Elon Musk purchased the platform. She was even opposed, after leaving Twitter (now X), to Musk restoring 62 000 accounts which had previously been banned. To have such a bureaucrat who has based her lucrative career on aggressively enacting censorship of social media users and online content as Australia’s arbitrator is outright insulting.
Just as the fraudulent “Covid pandemic” was not about safety (indeed quite the opposite), neither the E-Safety Commissioner nor the Online Safety Bill is about protecting working people from anything. Rather, it is an extension of the disgraceful political repression meted out by the state during the times of so-called “Covid” into a “new normal”. It is not far from what the “conspiracy theorists” warned would happen. It is not about protecting young people from online harm, but about political control of young people and adults. During the Covid operation, where the state was issuing plainly nonsensical and harmful dictates – lockdowns, vaccine mandates, travel bans, the decimation of elementary democratic and civil rights – social media and the internet was used to fight back. Along with a real social and political movement which arose, the governments heading the states imposing frightful repression could be criticised online. In response, there was a wave of censorship on a number of platforms. Later after the intense suppression had receded, posting about the harms caused by these measures began to be somewhat restored. In preparation for a new “pandemic”, or a new catastrophe, “safety” is again being used as justification for the potential elimination of the right to political discourse.
Governments today know that if the populace has the unfettered right to criticise their actions, they have little power or authority. This is why they want to be able to immediately identify their critics, so they can be arrested and detained in an attempt to intimidate others from doing the same. This is already happening in the United Kingdom (UK). Online anonymity prevents, to an extent, the government knowing who exactly its critics are. Now, the disintegration of capitalism is producing a disastrous cost of living crisis, a housing affordability crisis, the degradation of social services and a relentless drive towards a catastrophic world war. It is more important than ever for working people to expose the mega-corporations and politicians who serve them as the real sources of societal danger. Broad campaigns need to be instigated across all sections of society who are prepared to defend elementary rights, such as the right to free speech, the right to political communication, and the right to access information. Working people must also have right not to be surveilled and tracked, and not to be persecuted for political views, whatever they might be. SACK THE “E-SAFETY” COMMISSIONER!
NO TO SOCIAL MEDIA BANS! REPEAL THE “ONLINE SAFETY” ACT! FOR FREE SPEECH!
Workers League
E: workersleague@protonmail.com
[1] www.cyberdaily.au/security/12437-signal-threatens-to-withdraw-from-australia-as-government-pushes-for-backdoor-data-access (06-08-2025)
[2] www.dundaslawyers.com.au/how-are-google-and-microsoft-implementing-age-verification/ (06-08-2025)
[3] www.hsfkramer.com/insights/2024-12/online-safety-australias-socia-media-minimum-age-bill (06-08-2025)
[4] www.digitalrightswatch.org.au/2021/02/11/explainer-the-online-safety-bill/ (06-08-2025)
[5] www.theunshackled.net/rundown/australias-esafety-commissioner-out-of-control/ (06-08-2025)
Red Fire 