CANBERRA, Australia — Long after progressive free speech advocates in Australia questioned eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant over her campaigns to target adult content, conservatives and libertarians are now raising concerns about the powers granted to the country’s top censor — an unelected former tech exec born in the U.S. — with some calling for her ouster.
A new group called the Free Speech Union of Australia has launched an online petition, through the website EndSafety.au, calling for the dismissal of Inman Grant and the dissolution of her controversial office.
“The eSafety Commissioner holds office under the Online Safety Act 2021,” the website explains. “This world-first attempt at regulating the internet has instead been a disaster for Australians and our international reputation. Whilst the Online Safety Act 2021 was supposed to have safeguards protecting political expression, the Commissioner has been able to entirely circumvent them. Her office has acted in a partisan manner pursuing political vendettas. It is time to put an end to this failed experiment.”
The website prominently features a photo of Elon Musk, who has recently questioned Inman Grant’s attempts to censor content on his platform X.com.
Free Speech Union of Australia is affiliated with the U.K.’s Free Speech Union, which foregrounds in its mission statement familiar conservative tropes about fighting “cancel culture” and protecting free speech of employees and civil servants targeted for their opinions. The British mother group believes that “free speech is currently under assault across the Anglosphere, particularly in those areas where it matters most, such as schools, universities, the arts, the entertainment industry, and the media.”
The Face Behind the Censorship
Another Australian conservative libertarian group, the Brownstone Institute, published last week an in-depth investigation into Australia’s top censor and her controversial claims to authority both in that country and internationally.
Titled “The Face Behind Australia’s Censorship Push” and authored by the Brownstone Institute’s Rebekah Barnett and Andrew Lowenthal, the article probes Inman Grant’s background in the wake of her making “international headlines over alleged censorship creep” in what the authors call an “escalating standoff” with X.com and Musk.
Inman Grant’s current crusade, Barnett and Lowenthal write, “is not an isolated affair. She is a key player in a growing network of international initiatives seeking to impose bureaucratic controls over citizens’ speech, including coordinating with high-level EU officials, the World Economic Forum, and government-backed ‘anti-disinformation’ projects such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.”
The current confrontation between Inman Grant and Australian conservatives started when Inman Grant attempted to force X “to hide footage of the non-fatal stabbing of a Bishop, which was live-streamed during a Western Sydney church service on Monday evening 15 April,” the article explains. “X Global Affairs says the platform complied with a removal notice from the Commissioner to restrict content visibility to Australian audiences, but has challenged a further ‘unlawful’ demand that X ‘globally withhold these posts or face a daily fine of $785,000 AUD.’”
Musk immediately activated his massive network of fans and followers against Inman Grant.
“Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?” he posted.
An Unelected Official and Her 'Big Stick'
The article reveals that “after college, American-born Inman Grant was approached to join the CIA. Instead, she chose eSafety.”
“I wanted to do psychological profiles of serial killers but the CIA wanted to talk me into becoming a case agent — which meant that I wouldn’t be able to tell my friends and family what I was doing so that scared me off,” Inman Grant revealed in an interview.
The article surveys Inman Grant’s career in Big Tech, with a long tenure at Microsoft in the U.S. before her move to Australia, and later at a pre-Musk Twitter.
Married to an Australian, Inman Grant was personally selected in 2017 by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, of the conservative Liberal Party, to serve as the country’s first eSafety Commissioner. Later on, the article adds, the 2021 Online Safety Act “gave the unelected Commissioner greater powers over a broader range of services and content.”
Inman Grant referred to her broad powers to threaten tech corporations as “a big stick that we can use when we want to.”
“They’re going to be regulated in ways they don’t want to be regulated,” she bragged.
The “big stick” is a reference to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s catchphrase “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” which he used to justify American imperialism in the late 19th century, and has often been associated with strongman rule.
The article also quotes Inman Grant’s statements at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in 2022, where she advocated for “a recalibration of a whole range of human rights that are playing out online, from freedom of speech to the freedom to be free from online violence.”
As XBIZ reported, the vocally anti-porn Inman Grant has acknowledged having conversations with U.S.-based, religiously-inspired lobby NCOSE — formerly Morality in Media — and even appeared on an NCOSE podcast at the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation summit in July 2021, shortly after the Australian Parliament passed the Online Safety Act.
In November 2021, Australian progressive investigative outlet Crikey published a lengthy report on Inman Grant’s obsession with banning online porn.
Main Image: Australia's top online censor, E-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant