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 course this blanket ban on “political” comment is hugely concerning in and of itself. But experience has already shown that council are likely to regard comments pertaining to council’s climate action or inaction as being of “political partisanship nature, opinion or platform”.
And council has appointed itself the sole judge and jury with very limited avenues to appeal any decision. In any event, even if an appeal was successful, that would take days, weeks or months and the immediacy of social media means that the initial censorship will have achieved its objective - even if subsequently reversed.
For a council so heavily dominated by one party, banning comments they deem to be politically partisan is a partisan political act!
Some local politicians ruthlessly censor comments that they do not like on their own pages. But the key difference is that those pages are not funded by ratepayers, they are not administered by civil servants paid by ratepayers with the expectation that they will act impartially and they are not likely to be regarded by followers as reliable and impartial sources of information.
There are a number of other objectionable aspects to this policy and the purpose of this post is to urge you to make a submission opposing the policy as it presently stands. Visit this page and complete the form to make a submission:
Have your say : Draft Social Media Moderation Policy
Or read on for more information …
How did we get here and what happens now?
It should be noted that it is our observation that this censorship is already the practice of the administrators of council’s social media. This writer commented on a THSC Facebook post in January, deploring the rescission of the previous council’s decision to develop a Renewable Energy Strategy. The comment was hidden and in ensuing correspondence I was advised at various times of a variety of “grounds” for doing so including: “defamatory”, “trolling”, “off-topic” and “named councillors”.
This new draft policy, if adopted, will enable council to justify such a decision without resort to the above wholly inapplicable “grounds”. I cannot say whether it has been developed in response to this incident and the ensuing correspondence but it seems possible.
In any event the effect of it would appear to be to legitimise the existing practice by codifying it.
Item 11 on the agenda for the March 22 meeting covered this new policy and recommended that:
The Draft Hills Shire Social Media Moderation Policy be placed on public exhibition for a period of 28 days.
At the conclusion of the public exhibition, a further report be submitted to Council if there are any negative submissions.
In the event of no negative submissions being received, then Council adopt the draft policy as exhibited.
At the meeting, this item was bundled with a number of other items of council business and voted on in a single motion. Inexplicably we have to report that the motion was carried, with no debate, no opposition and no dissent from any councillor.
The motion was carried on the voices but in the audio recording of the meeting there was no audible response to the call for those against the motion (as far as this listener’s ears could tell). (Two Labor councillors and two Liberal councillors were absent from the meeting.) Frankly we find this astonishing and deeply disappointing.
This motion having been carried, apparently unanimously, the proposed policy will therefore be automatically deemed to be adopted if no negative submissions are received by the end of the exhibition period on April 25.
Therefore, if you share our concerns about this policy we urge you to make a submission before April 25 objecting to the policy.
Visit this page and complete the form to make a submission:
Have your say : Draft Social Media Moderation Policy
Or read on for more information …
What might the effect of this policy be?
In short it will muzzle any dissenting views being expressed on council’s social media that council, in its exclusive and unchallengeable wisdom, may consider to be political in nature. Experience suggests this is likely to include comment pertaining to climate change or councils policies and practice on climate action or lack thereof.
But it’s worse than that!
Presently much of the content of council’s social media accounts is of a routine but useful nature about such things as road closures, the colour of new play equipment and the like. Like us, you would probably rarely feel the need to comment on such matters.
Things can change!
If this policy is adopted, then council will have total control over what is the “truth” on their social media. Once that is the case they may well feel empowered to post more freely. Over time - and at particular times such as in the period before elections - you may start to see their version of the “truth” being posted more frequently - particularly on contentious issues such as climate action. They will be able to do this with impunity, because they will have granted themselves the power to suppress all dissent.
Whether or not this is the intent, over time it will be the effect.
The following is not a real Facebook post - we mocked it up to illustrate the point. It is deliberately extreme - council’s new-found freedom from constraint is likely to be exercised more subtly than this. But the point is it will not be possible to challenge them on posts they do make:
Thirty-three thousand (33,000) people follow council’s Facebook page. More than 6,000 follow them on Twitter and 5,000 on Instagram. The number of electors at the last elections was in the vicinity of 130,000 if I remember correctly. They have a direct outlet to a very large proportion of the Hills adult population.
This really matters! This is how democracy dies :-(
But somebody will hold them to account, surely?
It would be nice to think so, wouldn’t it?
But who? Local media? The Hills Shire Times and The Rouse Hill Times are Murdoch publications - you know, the power tool of Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch and home of Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine and Peta Credlin amongst others. There are other local media outlets - but for many of them The Hills Shire Council is a very significant advertiser.
Once disinformation has been successfully conveyed to potentially 30 or 40 thousand people, it is very difficult to dislodge.
Who made climate change “political” anyway?
Climate change should not be a “political” matter anyway. It is a matter of science.
Sure, we can debate the best ways to get to zero emissions as quickly as possible - that is legitimate and appropriate - but the need to do so should absolutely be above politics.
So who is most responsible for making it a “political” issue in Australia. Well there are many fingers in that pie but at the top of the list would have to be the Liberal party and their allies (masters?) in major popular media organisations.
Climate change is not political and attempts to suppress debate around it are deeply objectionable and dangerous. Our future depends on being able to call out and correct myth and misinformation. Our future depends on the public being accurately and truthfully informed and motivated on this issue.
(None of this is to say that this codified suppression of “political” dissent would be OK in the absence of the matter of climate change. It would not. But climate action is the main purpose of this page so we focus on that first and foremost.)
What are other councils doing?
We did a quick search for corresponding published policies of our four neighbouring councils. What we found was reasonable, constrained and without the totalitarian powers that Hills Shire Council seeks to assign to itself.
Hawkesbury City Council: The only published policy we found was in the about section of their Facebook page. It is linked below but it does not contain any of the objectionable aspects of the Hills Shire Council’s draft policy:
About Hawkesbury City Council (Facebook)Hornsby Shire Council: We were unable to find an equivalent policy document on their web pages but they have published this short statement in the about section of their Facebook page:
About Hornsby Shire Council (Facebook)City of Parramatta: They have published the following Social Media Policy (two pages) which contains nothing pertinent to this discussion. (It references a Social Media Procedure that we were unable to locate on their web pages.)
Social Media Policy (City of Parramatta)
Like the others, the about section of their Facebook page contains the nearest thing corresponding to THSC’s draft social media policy, but without the objectionable aspects:
About City of Parramatta (Facebook)Blacktown City Council: We were unable to find an equivalent policy document on their web pages but they have published this short statement in the about section of their Facebook page:
About Blacktown City Council (Facebook)
Is there anything else that is objectionable in this policy?
Yes! It is rather poorly and incoherently drafted and internally inconsistent and shows signs of great haste and little care in thought or execution. But putting that aside, we find several other aspects of this policy objectionable and may cover these in more detail in our submission.
But of most significance is the following statement that appears not (as it should) as a numbered item in the moderation guidelines but buried in the second paragraph under the heading Moderation Approach:
Automated filters will hide posts that name councillors and will be reviewed before going live.
So comments, for example relating to council decisions, are not allowed to identify the elected political representatives involved in the decision. In other words you cannot hold any councillor responsible on council’s social media for anything they say or decide on council.
The federal parallel is not being able to name Prime Minister Scott Morrison in discussion of his decisions or policies!
Further this statement does not specify in any way what criteria will be applied when determining whether an “offending” comment will be permitted. It is entirely at the discretion of the reviewing administrator!
We suggest:
The automated filter must be removed
There may be cases where comments that name the mayor or councillors can justifiably be hidden, but in every case they should be covered by other provisions of the policy.
We also would note that the sensibilities of any elected representative on matters pertaining to their own fitness to hold office do not form a justification for the curtailment of all political comment on council’s social media.
If you agree with our concern at this provision, please say so in your submission.
(Our January comment apparently fell foul of this because it named a councillor in a post about that councillor! On the same post a comment from the Mayor also named the same councillor but remains visible to all.)
How to make a submission
Visit this page and complete the form to make a submission:
Have your say : Draft Social Media Moderation Policy
Your submission can be anything from a few words and up about what it is you object to and why. Do not fear that you may not be eloquent enough or erudite enough. This is your opportunity to have your say (and who knows whether there will be another?) What is important is that you politely but firmly make very clear your objection to the proposed social media policy.
If it helps you, In coming days we will attempt to post some suggested talking points. We will also post a draft of the submission we intend to make.
What else can I do?
Please share this post and encourage others in your circle to make a submission against this proposed policy.
The motion carried by council on March 22 included the following recommendation:
2. At the conclusion of the public exhibition, a further report be submitted to Council if there are any negative submissions.
Presumably the “report” about your submission will be written by the same council officer that drafted the policy. We therefore cannot have faith that objections will be fairly represented.
So we suggest you also email your objection to the mayor and councillors. You might also politely make clear your dismay that this draft policy was unanimously supported by councillors present at the 22/3 meeting. You can use the following email address list:
Mayor.Gangemi@thehills.nsw.gov.au, Clr.Brazier@thehills.nsw.gov.au, Clr.Hodges@thehills.nsw.gov.au, clr.cox@thehills.nsw.gov.au, clr.tonyhay@thehills.nsw.gov.au, clr.jethi@thehills.nsw.gov.au, clr.tracey@thehills.nsw.gov.au, Clr.Ellis@thehills.nsw.gov.au, Clr.Blue@thehills.nsw.gov.au, Clr.Kasby@thehills.nsw.gov.au, Clr.Boneham@thehills.nsw.gov.au, clr.demasi@thehills.nsw.gov.au, Clr.Burton@thehills.nsw.gov.au
Threats to our democracy
In the Soviet era, the names of the main Communist newspaper and the main Soviet newspaper, Pravda and Izvestia, meant "the truth" and "the news" respectively. A popular saying was "there's no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia".
Objective truth (about matters of fact supported by hard evidence accepted by an overwhelming consensus of experts) is integral to a healthy democracy:
Why truth matters for democracy (ABC Religion and Ethics, 2020)
Our democracy is fragile and under multiple threats. If we allow it to, it will wither and die - a slow death of a thousand cuts, but this draft policy, if adopted, will be one more such cut.
For more information about other threats to our democracy:
Confronting State Capture (Australian Democracy Network, 2022)
Selling out: How powerful industries corrupt our democracy (Human Rights Law Centre, 2022)
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