If the misinformation and disinformation bill is signed into law it will effectively muzzle all of our voices forever. Any talking point that is not produced by the mass media or the government would fall into the the category of potentially being misinformation or disinformation, as explained clearly in the bill.
It dawns on us as the people of this great nation to protect what little freedom of speech we have left. I have already been speaking with as many people as I can, and will be very active in my local community in the near future. And that is where our advantage is.
By each of us going out into the public and starting conversations with people, dropping off flyers, or organizing protests, we place pressure on the politicians to vote against or abstain from voting on this bill.
People power is key.
There has been many instances now where local councils have voted against change, such as the vote against the cashless system that was going to be introduced in Cairns, which I was involved in stopping, where people power and pressure on local councilors made them do a complete 180 on the issue.
Write to your local politician, whether they will be voting on the bill or not.
This is important to do and is apart of your people power strategy. As with enough letters, emails and calls pouring in, they will be less inclined to support the misinformation and disinformation bill as they risk losing votes when it comes to re-election. And if they are only a councilor or state politician, they will still understand the publics concern and their connections, many times being the higher ups, will still be informed through the grape vine.
Design and distribute flyers, let the people hold your info in their hands.
Writing up flyers and distributing them to others with the message of people power and action against the misinformation and disinformation bill is another great way to exponentially increase consciousness about the issue. Already people are banned left right and center in places like Facebook and Instagram for having nonmainstream views. Being essentially banned and suppressed across all platforms for these views is a real threat.
Door knocking, public protests.
You can organize a protest with your local police department. There are laws and regulations that come along with doing that, and being close too, and friendly with, your local police can help in pushing our message across. I know this for a fact as this is exactly what I did when the Queensland parliament came up to sit in the convention center, where I organized a large protest with 300 people in attendance against the QLD governments laws on youth crime.
There are many ways to expand your already existing efforts to combat the misinformation and disinformation bill. What I have wrote here are only some, I’m sure many of you will have extra ideas to add, so discuss them in the replies below.
Action needs to be taken as this is a very serious matter. We may not have the freedom to do so in the future.
Alex James.