Australian Government tells Reduxx to remove article - NB this is a repost of a thread removed for (unkowningly) breaking guidelines.

[IwantToRetire]

Just to start by saying the MNHQ have accepted that I unintentionally broke guidelines when I copied and pasted the opening paragraphs from an article in a newspaper ie it included a phrase that guidelines say is not acceptable. So following paragraphs edited (just hope I have got it right):

The Australian government has instructed a news outlet to remove or heavily censor an article that “offended” an individual living in the country.

Reduxx, an independent media project dedicated to exposing gender ideology, received a notice from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner on April 28. The notice alerted them to a complaint made about an article they published on April 1.

The article, “Thousands of Complaints Filed After Trans YouTuber Allowed To Play On Women’s Football League, Reportedly Injured Players,” revealed the identity of the person who had been the subject of mass complaint after reportedly injuring female players at a football game while playing on the women’s team.

https://www.thepublica.com/australian-government-instructs-news-outlet-to-delete-article-offended-trans-activist/
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Twitter also seemed to have received a legal notice and did comply - which may or may not be related to the fact that the Australian eSafety commissioner (Julie Inman Grant) used to work for twitter.

Since then another story about the actions of the eSafety commissioner in Australia has emerged. https://reduxx.info/australia-police-warn-woman-over-comments-about-trans-activist-as-esafety-commissioner-continues-censorship-rampage/

So I had originally posted wondering how any such notice could be put into effect ie Reduxx is not based in Australia. Is there some global legal system that can make an internet platform conform with the law in any country. How would this work. Many people living under oppressive regimes rely on websites or forums to post information about what is happening in their country.

But also raises the issue of how much power can an individual complaint have when what is said to be disrespectful by one country will have different responses in other countries who have their own cultural norms.

Is this the start of virtual cultural imperialism?

Good luck with the new thread, OP. This is a really shocking story about censorship and power and it is very important that it gets as much publicity as possible.

Wait what, we have to call these men women, or our comments will get deleted? Pffft.

Thank you for trying again. I hope someone who can answer your question will come on.

Wow, thank you for the thread. That is unbelievably sinister censorship. Despite the evolutionary function of humans being able to discriminate between the two sexes, it is necessary to comply with forced language which goes against both fact and belief, in order to avoid legal sanctions.
Comply or be legally constrained.

Yeah.

In the current climate I understand why MNHQ feel they have to tread carefully. I feel grateful that we are allowed to have these debates on here, which would not be allowed in so many other public forums. I'm guessing Mumsnet would be at risk of legal action if they allowed us to say literally anything we like about this topic.

But being essentially forced to adopt the terminology of those we disagree with is really problematic.

How are we supposed to make it clear that we are talking about people of the male sex who believe their gender identity is woman and have undergone some form of transitioning if we aren't allowed to refer to them as male and don't believe it is accurate to refer to them as women?

Of course, this is a deliberate power play by trans activists. Try to ban the vocabulary needed to have a coherent debate. That way, even if "no debate" fails, the debate that follows is incomprehensible gibberish.

I assumed that if this seemingly very zealous e Safety Commissioner in Australia is sending legal notices to Reddux then mumsnet could be likely to get one.

But to be fair to MNHQ who took the time to email me, and Please Please dont speculate on the thread, but the quote I pasted from the article has an expression in it the mumsnet clearly says in its guidelines (I posted the guideline link in the OP) says is a not acceptable. First of, I didn't know about this particular phrase, and secondly as I was directly quoting an article didn't think it had to comply with the guidelines.)

So I reposted at their suggestion but edited the phrases that got it banned.

Why I reposted was to find out how any country cant think in the era of a global internet they can take action against an web site based in another country. Surely this isn't possible.

It just seems like posture politics by this eSafety Commissioner who has something of a reputation. Hence my link to second Reduxx article.

And I am not personally interesting in insulting individual trans people, but on the other hand how is it possible that a lone individual can commend this level of Government response.

I wonder if this eSafety commissioner is issuing similar legal notices to all the web sites hosting fake porn and rape videos.

Its worth googling her.

But even though we now know, which some of us didn't, that Australia and New Zealand have been totally captured, this Government action seems totally over the top.

I would have more respect for the Australian Government and their Commissioner if there was any evidence that they are being equally concerned about articles and images that are causing actual harm to women, and in some cases children.

If it wasn't so depressing and Orwellian you would just want to laugh because on one level it is absurd.

As in the comment "Scotland has allowed itself to become a toddler playpen for these fragile thugs" which is about 3 women having their cabaret show banned, this tiny band of people are dictating to society as a whole. And now we have a Government also dancing to their tune.

May 3rd was world press freedom day, Australia scored better than last year (still deemed satisfactory). Was looking at their country page and there is no mention of the esafety commissioner getting articles taken down and restricting access to publications who refuse to take them down
https://rsf.org/en/country/australia

May 3rd was world press freedom day, Australia scored better than last year (still deemed satisfactory)

Its like living in some nightmare or Alice in Wonderland world.

Has Press Freedom now also been redefined by TRAs?

People really need to understand that this is a top down agenda and is being implemented across the board.

How have we got into a situation where a tiny minority who have adopted a pseudo (in my opinion) set of beliefs can wield such power? How?

How are they being allowed to compel language? To influence public policy? To shut down debate? Why are those in a position of power or influence in organisations or government afraid to voice an opposing opinion to this ideology? I just don’t understand why many western countries are kowtowing to this dogma.

James Lindsay, the well-known conspiracy theorist? What on earth can he have to say that is worth listening to? Not going to click on that link, so I would like an idea of what that's about.

I have no problem with different political associations that are not like mine, but surely there's a limit?

Very weird censorship reported in that article.

Re the deletion of previous post, frankly I would like to see the terms “transwoman” and especially “trans woman” added to the guidance as things that are not in the spirit of constructive debate, because they are not helpful for clear discussion and they are also examples of really insensitive cultural appropriation. But I don’t write the “guidance” so it’s not up to me.

Does Australia have any equivalent of the Freedom of Information act we have in the UK?

If so, it would be worth asking the safety commissioner what the conditions are for their involvement. In particular, what triggers them to assess a possible infringement? What are the criteria for choosing to act following assessment.

Then perhaps we could complain/inform them of lots of other cases which meet those conditions (ones where women and children are actually harmed) and see how they respond.

If the response isn't equivalent, then if I was Australian, I'd be showing that to my MP and asking for answers.

K Yang. Ex TRA. Indigenous woman from the USA's report on the UN.

When there is an agenda from above, it IS a fucking conspiracy. Jesus wept, what is it going to take for you people to work out what the fuck is going on here?

It isn't a tiny minority. It is all part of the global UN sustainability programme. For gender equality. It's just that the woman gender means women and men. That's the problem.

Apologies, I just skim read the article. Has this person been formally charged with anything? I have to say, I don't think the media should "name and shame" or reveal identities in any situation where it's likely to lead to harm. Couldn't the story be just as powerful whilst maintaining anonymity? (I can easily imagine a situation where TRAs got a thousand people to complain about some misgendering hate crime, and then used that as justification for doxxing the person in question)

I disagree that MN have the balance right. We have the protected characteristic of belief that sex is immutable and that means we are also by law allowed to manifest that belief. MN guidelines discriminate against us on that protected belief. That includes using the correctly sex pronoun.

Reading this it seems in Australia’s women’s soccer there are 5 male trans persons playing competitively in League One. Does anyone know how many teams there are in League One.

https://reduxx.info/thousands-of-complaints-filed-after-trans-youtuber-allowed-to-play-on-womens-football-league-reportedly-injured-players/

If I were a coach I’d be actively looking for such players given their biological male advantages over women.

I don't really understand this. It looks like the '12,000 complainers, were the result of an online campaign to maximise complaints? So that suggests there was already viral anger towards this person. And presumably the Daily Mail's decision to pixilate the person and obscure their identity was a legitimate attempt to preserve privacy and avoid contributing to online harrassment? And the Reduxx article set about reversing this anonymity?
As far as I can gather the Australian commissioner's request that the article be censored was to preserve the person's privacy and prevent online harrassment? Is there any evidence that the request for censorship was due to 'misgendering' or any other failure to conform with gender ideology?

The commissioner also called the claims that the person had harmed other players false. That may or may not be correct, but it is at least possible that an online campaign has exagerated the harm done and targeted this person unfairly.

Without more evidence, I don't feel confident that this is anything more than a legitimate attempt to impose limits on online harrassment. May be if more evidence came out, it could be seen as an attempt to enforce gender ideiology, but I'd rather not leap into that without good cause.

As regards preserving privacy, that person has a YouTube Chanel and is a trans rights activist. So pretty vocal, I’m unsure how they need their privacy to be protected.

It warms my heart that over 12,000 people took the time to write in to complain about this man violating women's boundaries.

I don't know if Australia has such a law. But it is very odd that the Australian Government is telling a news outlet based in the US - Reduxx - what it can and cannot write about. Especially given the constitution article in the US on Freedom of speech. It's known as the First Amendment and is one of the strongest in the world if not the strongest. So the US should be questioning the temirity of another Government telling a lawful news outlet to stop reporting/delete the article or heavily censor it.

Well the whole point of rules protecting people from harrassment is that they apply to everyone, even if they are 'vocal' and on a side of the debate that we oppose. The person may well be gaming the system, who knows. But the point is that the commissioner's actions may be part of a legitimate procedure intended to prevent online harms, not about anything to do with enforcing gender ideology.
These procedures are probably quite new. All govts are struggling clumsily with how to minimise harms in the online wild west. And of course we should scrutinise the solutions they are exploring and hold them to account for inappropriate restrictions. But we should try not to leap ahead of the facts. It would be horrible to see vital movements in support of women's sex-based rights descend into the mish-mash of conspiratorial polemics that the internet seems to be frying our brains with in so many areas.

This person is unbelievable! Even if the whole football injuries are exaggerated (no idea either way) this person's views are just shocking. Hopefully this quote is ok as it seems to be mostly what this person has said/written themselves:

Riley Dennis was a popular trans activist YouTuber who has 113,000 subscribers. He has since stopped creating content but, during the height of his internet career, he received backlash for a controversial video in which he called “genital preferences” transphobic.

The video, titled Your Dating ‘Preferences’ Might Be Discriminatory and released in 2017, prompted outrage from lesbians who felt Dennis was attempting to guilt them into having sexual relationships with males.

In the video, Dennis, who identifies as a “transgender lesbian,” implied that sexual orientation is caused by societal prejudices and that it is discriminatory to exclude members of the opposite sex from your dating preferences if you are homosexual. Dennis deleted the video following widespread criticism.

Addressing the backlash Dennis said: “These accusations of homophobia make it sound like I’m trying to convince lesbians to like men, but I’m not. I’m trying to show that preferences for women with vaginas over women with penises might be partially informed by the influence of a cissexist society.”

Dennis was also a writer for the self-described “feminist” publication Everyday Feminism where he has published pieces such as “Here’s Why Misgendering Trans People Is an Act of Violence” and “Some Children Are Transgender – 5 Explanations for Why That’s Perfectly Okay.”

What a bizarre comment - you won’t listen firsthand because you’ve heard rumours that someone is a conspiracy theorist?

Why don’t you go the source and check your info is accurate before repeating things you’ve heard elsewhere?