Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has come under fire after recent revelations surrounding her conduct during the Indigenous Voice referendum, Reclaim The Net reports.
Grant’s job is to prevent misinformation and other online harms. However, her conduct has earned her the pejorative titles of the country’s “chief censor” and “censorship czar.”
Newly unearthed documents (the result of the Institute of Public Affairs, IPA, FOIA requests) have cemented this reputation, demonstrating that Grant has herself contributed to the spread of misinformation. Rather than combating it, as her job requires, she has manipulated data to heighten division.
In order to support the agenda of the “yes” camp, Grant made unfounded claims regarding the number of race-related complaints her office was likely to receive from Indigenous Australians. She also made unfounded claims regarding the number of racially motivated online incidents.
As the referendum, scheduled for mid-October 2023, drew nearer, Grant effectively engaged in fearmongering when she said this type of attack was likely to rise ahead of the vote. Moreover, Grant also claimed that levels of online abuse targeting this part of the population were already “high.”
However, the FOIA documents paint a rather different picture, revealing that from January 2022 to October 2023, Grant’s office received a total of two complaints from Indigenous Australians that specifically had to do with the upcoming referendum. This suggests that Grant was exaggerating the threat of racial abuse.
According to Reclaim The Net, “as it was approaching – from July to September last year – this number was 30 – or 0.4% percent of all complaints eSafety had received. And not in a single case related to the referendum did this content eventually warrant removal.”
Given the limited volume of these complaints, Grant’s “dire warnings” seem unsupported by evidence, casting doubt on her own motivations.
Notably, Grant’s actions operated to strengthen her agency’s budget to $42.5 million per year – an increase of almost $30 million.
Further, John Storey, IPA Director of Law and Policy, has characterised Grant’s actions as “politically charged censorship”.
Storey added: “The narrative Julie Inman Grant has sought to establish, that there was a wave of racist cyber abuse during the referendum, is not supported by her own office’s data.”
The implication here is that, as well as trying to increase her budget, Grant sought to cast opponents of the Voice as racists, falsely alleging a rise in hatred.
