The Hills own "Ministry of Truth"
At their meeting on March 22, The Hills Shire Council voted to adopt (subject to public submissions) a new Social Media Moderation Policy. In principle a Social Media Moderation Policy is a good and necessary thing to have. But the devil is in the detail. And most egregiously of all, the proposed policy contains this provision: 3. Comments of a political partisanship nature, opinion or platform will not be permitted as the purpose of the organisation’s social media is informational to promote events, products, services and decisions etc. This blanket prohibition seems to assume: That nothing in any of council’s “ events, products, services or decisions ” could ever be in the least bit controversial or disputed on “political” grounds. That there is universal and indisputable acceptance of what will constitute “ political partisanship nature, opinion or platform ”. Anyway, that it’s OK to suppress all “political” commentary on their social media because … well because they can. Of cour