As Germany purges wrongthink in the name of combating "hate speech" and "digital arsonists," such as insufficiently clear Nazi satire and thumbs-up emojis in response to a teenager killing her migrant rapist, Australia has set a modest limit to its own speech policing, perhaps briefly tempering the heat the Aussies face from the Trump administration.
Australia's Administrative Review Tribunal rebuked the office of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, whom congressional Republicans recently accused of colluding with advertisers to mitigate the "contagion" of Donald Trump, for ordering X to block a post by Canadian activist Chris Elston that called an Australian female activist who identifies as a man a "woman."
Tribunal Deputy President Damien O'Donovan wrote Tuesday that Elston actually showed restraint by not trying to alert Teddy Cook, whom the World Health Organization had just appointed to a panel on transgender and nonbinary health, to his post calling Cook a woman.
"The decision to issue a removal notice is set aside," wrote O'Donovan, who presided over a five-day hearing this spring. "A decision to refuse to issue a removalnotice is substituted," meaning the post is visible again in Australia.
