Tag: censorship

Cancelled by researchED

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July 31, 2026

12:52 pm

38 Comments on Cancelled by researchED

Humour

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A few months ago, I registered for a researchED conference, to be held in Melbourne next week. I am sceptical of researchED, but I am also genuinely curious to know what these guys are about. It seems I’m not gonna find out.

Today, I got a call from one of the conference organisers, to “discuss” my registration. She queried the email address I provided, which made no sense, and then denied querying it, but we soon got to her “concern”: when registering for the conference, I had given my “company name” as assholesRUS. Continue reading “Cancelled by researchED” →

A Question About the Abdel-Fattah Debacle

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January 14, 2026

12:30 am

10 Comments on A Question About the Abdel-Fattah Debacle

censorship

Has anyone involved in the Abdel-Fattah mess failed to act like a hypocrite or a coward or a censor or an antisemite or a straight asshole, or all of the above? I imagine such a person may exist but, for the life of me, I have not come across them.

Note that I am *not* interested in commenters providing examples from the plethora of hypocrisy and cowardice and censoriousness and antisemitism and assholeness. I am interested in the identification of anyone, and everyone, who has acted consistently and sensibly and with integrity.

Continue reading “A Question About the Abdel-Fattah Debacle” →

A Petition to Get Rid of the eSafety Censor

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August 27, 2025

11:51 am

12 Comments on A Petition to Get Rid of the eSafety Censor

censorship

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A couple weeks ago, the Free Speech Union of Australia launched a petition to repeal the Online Safety Act. This came on the back of FSUA’s pretty silly but very funny troll-win over eSafety Czar, Inman Grant, in the Australian Review Tribunal. We’ll get to the petition, but first the troll-win.

Continue reading “A Petition to Get Rid of the eSafety Censor” →

ABC Backs a Censorious Loser

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July 22, 2025

9:17 pm

2 Comments on ABC Backs a Censorious Loser

censorship

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A few weeks ago, Australia’s censorship tsar, Julie Inman Grant, lost, again, to toddler-genius Elon Musk. This time, the battle centred around a tweet by Chris Elston, better known as Billboard Chris. BB Chris is an obsessive and humourless anti-trans troll, and his tweet attracted Inman Grant’s ire because it ridiculed a (pretty ridiculous) trans activist named Teddy Cook. Four people mentioned so far, and one can only wish that all four could be placed on a slow boat to Antarctica. Continue reading “ABC Backs a Censorious Loser” →

A Couple Quick Words on Romania

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March 13, 2025

7:34 am

11 Comments on A Couple Quick Words on Romania

politics

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I know absolutely nothing about Romania beyond Dracula, Nadia Comǎneci and a coming of age movie that has maths in it. In particular, I know nothing about either Cǎlin Georgescu or Diana Iovanovici-Șoșoacă. I am quite willing to believe that Georgescu and Iovanovici-Șoșoacă are, as has been claimed, “far-right” and “ultra-nationalist” and “antisemitic” and “pro-Russian” and baby killers and that they smell of cabbage, that they are the most troublesome Romanians since Vlad the Impaler. Nonetheless, I am pretty sure that the stupidest, most counterproductive manner in which to combat right wing populism is to bar candidates and to annul election results simply because one does not like the candidates or the results.

It is annoying and deeply depressing to have censorious, anti-democratic sleazebags such as Thierry Breton and Ursula von der Leyen force one to be on the same side as all-round sleazebags such as Musk and Vance. Continue reading “A Couple Quick Words on Romania” →

Anything Goes is Gone

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January 5, 2025

7:27 pm

8 Comments on Anything Goes is Gone

Music

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When my daughter Eva was a little over 3, I decided to try to take her to a musical, Anything Goes, which was then showing in Melbourne. This was ambitious, if not utterly foolhardy, and I figured to first show Eva a movie of the musical so that she would be more familiar with the story and the music. It was a good plan and it turned out to be impossible to implement. It also clearly didn’t matter: even with the excellent singing and dancing, Eva was simply too young for such an event and we didn’t stay long.1

Continue reading “Anything Goes is Gone” →

RatS 28: Nate Silver – The Expert Class is Failing

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December 14, 2024

1:30 pm

15 Comments on RatS 28: Nate Silver – The Expert Class is Failing

RatS

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Nate Silver, the famous politics-stats guy, gets a lot of flak for accurately predicting that bad stuff will happen. In general he seems bemused by this, is flippantly contemptuous of his critics and just gets on with accurately predicting more bad stuff. But Silver clearly gets frustrated, that his natural political allies can be so pigheaded and so incompetent and so censorious. The Biden-Harris-Democrats screw-up, gifting Trump the presidency, has made him more frustrated than usual. Continue reading “RatS 28: Nate Silver – The Expert Class is Failing” →

The Joy of Gambling and the Thuggery of Murdoch

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December 5, 2024

11:04 am

3 Comments on The Joy of Gambling and the Thuggery of Murdoch

media

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There’s been a fair bit of Murdoch bashing recently: last week, Media Watch gave the Murdochs a whack for their self-serving moral panicking over social media; earlier in the week, Crikey posted an excerpt from Robert Manne’s just-published memoir, on when The Australian launched a personal crusade against Manne, as does The Australian routinely against people who call out its moral bankruptcy;1 a couple days ago, various people started walloping Murdoch for their pseudo-news shilling for gas companies; and I’ve been giving the Herald Sun my own little whacks for their disgraceful reporting on the – thanks to Murdoch – ousted VCAA CEO Kylie White. Given that this pleasing Murdoch-bashing is in season, I may as well share the story of the time a Murdoch reporter thugged me. My experience does not remotely compare to White’s or Manne’s, or to that of many other Murdoch victims, but being a low level academic attacked by a major newspaper and a Federal senator is not trivial. I’ll state at the outset that I handled it badly. Continue reading “The Joy of Gambling and the Thuggery of Murdoch” →

PoSWW 45: Antisocial

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December 1, 2024

12:18 pm

8 Comments on PoSWW 45: Antisocial

PoSWW

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So, Albo’s government has legislated a ban of social media for kids under 16. This is with the support of Dutton’s thugs and with very strong support from the Australian public. And, of course, with support from the Murdochians who initiated the crusade, without ever a thought that it might, just by chance, also screw over Murdoch’s competition. Yep, as always, Murdoch’s noble editors were just thinking of the children. Continue reading “PoSWW 45: Antisocial” →