Well, that didn’t go according to plan for Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.
In a sharp rebuke to the country’s growing censorship machine, the Administrative Review Tribunal has ruled in favour of Canadian campaigner Chris “Billboard Chris” Elston, striking down a government order that tried to muzzle him under the Online Safety Act.
What was his crime? A post on X (formerly Twitter) from February 2024 that referred to a controversial WHO “expert” using biologically accurate pronouns. That was apparently enough for the eSafety Commissioner to label it “cyber abuse” and demand X take it down.
X initially refused, then geo-blocked the post in Australia. But Chris fought back — and he won.
The Tribunal found the censorship order was unjustified, and set it aside. A clear win for free speech.
“This is a victory not just for Billboard Chris, but for every Australian—and indeed every citizen who values the fundamental right to free speech.”
— Paul Coleman, ADF International
This isn’t just a win for one man with a billboard and a backbone — it’s a warning shot across the bow of Australia’s censorship regime. And it comes at a time when even the U.S. State Department is raising eyebrows at the powers our government has handed its so-called “eSafety” watchdog.
Chris said it best:
“The government does not have authority to silence peaceful expression… My post should never have been censored.”
Amen to that!
Here is an interview between Avi Yemini of Rebel News and Billboard Chris on his victory.
The political scale is ever wobbly. At times, the swing is towards the Right, while at others, it is towards the left. In many ways, the swing in recent years has been towards the Right. We saw it in the Brexit decision, the election of Trump, twice, and the rise of right-leaning governments in Europe. No doubt some of these were driven by circumstances peculiar to the individual countries. Others are due to general trends. For example, the rapid increase in immigration from developing countries in Western Democracies has contributed to the overall shift to the Right in the West.
However, at the same time, there has been an increasing support for Leftist policies, especially among the young. Indeed, a significant majority of under-25s lean Left. This has been evident in our streets, with demonstrators of all ages, but particularly youth, taking to the roads for various purposes. Whether it be Climate Change, Black Lives Matter, Indigenous rights, or expressing support for Palestinians or anti-Israel, the majority of demonstrators are always the young, and often University students. It is the youth of the world who are attracted to causes, and what more experienced or mature adults would call lost causes. Most notably, Socialism.
Yes, socialism, the political system that has failed in any country where it has been implemented, seems to attract the young, and with unrelenting passion. Just last week, a self-declared Socialist won the primary to become the Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York City. It is astounding.
Why are the young attracted to Socialism? I could cite many potential contributing factors, ranging from poor education systems that fail to teach history, the politicial leanings of Teachers, who themselves have never left the Education system and lived in the real world, and of course the University system that seems to incubate far Left ideologies, and no doubt 'corrupts the minds of the young'.
These factors may tell at least part of the story. However, Konstantin Kisin has his own perspective, which is worth considering. He claims that our Western Societies are failing their youth by not providing them the path to achieve the lifestyles that they have seen in previous generations. This is due to rapid increases in housing costs, which lock young people out of home ownership. This perspective is interesting and poses significant challenges to our societies.
Although it's a short video, it's well worth watching.
Of course, this raises the question: How can Western Societies make home ownership achievable again?
Given the widespread rise in blatant anti-Semitism around the world following Hamas' medieval massacre of innocent civilians attending a music festival, one has to wonder why it was allowed to persist. After all, in every Western democracy, while citizens have a right to protest, there are a whole swag of laws to ensure that such protests are civil. There are laws protecting property, against physical violence and against hate speech and discrimination. Many of the demonstrations have clearly violated these, but have had no response from the police. As a consequence, anti-Semitism has become 'mainstream'. If you do not enforce a law, then it is not the law.
Just on the past weekend, the Glastonbury music festival had a shameful episode where one of the acts had the audience chanting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate-speech ..." death, death to the IDF" was chanted by most of the thousands of youth attending the event.
This shameful episode reminded me the mass rallies in Nazi Germany with Hitler exhorting vile anit-semitism to an adoring crowd.
So, how can this evil be fought? Australia's Jewish community may have found one way to fight back. They took one of the radical Islamic hate preachers to court under Australia's discrimination act, which rather too broadly criminalises racial vilification. The preacher, whom I shall not name, had presented vile anti-Semitic sermons and had these circulated on the internet for years. Indeed, following complaints from the community, the Australian state and Federal police had studied the material to determine if hate speech laws had been broken. They had decided not to charge him. Why? The better option is that they thought the laws were not adequate, but possibly, and far worse, they did not want to rock the boat, starting some inter-ethnic conflict by charging a Muslim preacher.
This same inaction has been evident for increasingly blatant anti-Semitic acts in Australia's capital cities. These included weekly demonstrations with violent chants, intrusions into the Jewish communities, graffiti, vandalism, and even burning synagogues and the offices of Jewish members of parliament. All in all, it was a rather terrible period for Australia's Jews.
It was this increasingly violent antisemitism AND the failure of police to act to prevent it, that forced the Jewish community to initiate action under the Racial Discrimination Act.
The judgment was rendered today, with the preacher found guilty. This is a welcome result for all Australians, including peace-loving Muslim Australians, as it establishes a punishment for blatant hate speech. The ruling requires the preacher to pay substantial costs and commit to removing all offensive material from circulation, as well as not to reoffend. It may also prompt the police to reconsider their failure to act and enforce the law in the future.
This type of action should be taken by all Jewish communities around the world to fight back against the hate speech they have had to face.
Here is a brief summary of the final judgment by Australia's Channel 10
