COVID-19 State of Play July 2021: SkyNews Australia came a cropper at the first fence of the pandemic media steeple chase

 

Sky News Australia is a 24 hour cable and satellite channel available on Foxtel and Optus Television subscription platforms, as well as on free-to-air television in regional and non-metropolitan areas throughout Australia.

This News Corp entity also has a Youtube channel displaying at last count 52,838 videos and has 1.86 million subscribers.

YouTube is owned by the global Internet search engine, Google LLC, which in turn is owned by Alphabet Inc.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald on 1 August 2021:

Sky News Australia has been suspended from uploading content to YouTube for a week after the video and livestreaming platform claimed the media organisation breached its COVID-19 misinformation standards.

In a statement issued to Nine newspapers on Sunday afternoon, a YouTube spokesperson said the website had taken steps against Sky, including removing videos from the media outlet’s online channel and issuing a “strike” against it, causing it to be temporarily suspended from uploading content.

“We have clear and established COVID-19 medical misinformation policies based on local and global health authority guidance, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 misinformation that could cause real-world harm,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement.

“We apply our policies equally for everyone regardless of uploader, and in accordance with these policies and our long-standing strikes system, removed videos from and issued a strike to Sky News Australia’s channel.”

YouTube has not said what videos published by Sky it removed, but the platform doesn’t allow content medical misinformation about COVID-19 “that poses a serious risk of egregious harm in contradiction with local and global health authorities’ guidance about COVID-19 treatment, prevention, transmission, and social distancing.”

The one-week suspension by YouTube follows a review of content for compliance with YouTube’s policies on COVID-19 which are subject to change in response to global or local health authority guidance on the virus…..

As SkyNews Australia’s YouTube home page features video clusters by hard right commentators Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin, Chris Kenny and the “Outsiders” program hosted by Rita Panahi, I suspect it wasn’t hard to find material which might be in danger of breaching YouTube’s standards.

SkyNews Australia’s digital editor fired back at the claims made by YouTube in an online article titled “YouTube’s Sky News Australia suspension ‘disturbing’ assault on freedom of thought” containing a power point presentation of Donald J. Trump’s thoughts on freedom of speech.

This article states in part that:

Among the videos deemed unpalatable for societal consumption were debates around whether masks were effective and whether lockdowns were justified when considering their adverse health outcomes.

The stance taken by some commentators at this network was that masks are not effective in containing outbreaks, particularly when mandated outside in the fresh air. Some also took issue with the frequency and mechanisms of locking down Australians.

It has been noted elsewhere that SkyNews Australia's temporary suspension came close on the heels of a Nine Entertainment newspaper dropping Alan Jones' regular column amid a pandemic misinformation controversy.

QAnon conspiracy theories end up in the Federal Court of Australia

The Guardian, 29 August 2020:

In May, Anne Webster, a first-term Nationals MP from Mildura in regional Victoria, quietly launched a defamation action in the federal court over a series of posts and videos about her on social media site Facebook. 

According to a statement of claim seen by Guardian Australia, posts made about the federal MP in April claimed, without any factual basis, that she was “a member of a secretive pedophile network” who had been “parachuted into parliament to protect a past generation of pedophiles”. 

Within weeks of the case being filed, Justice Michael Wheelahan made urgent orders for the defendant to remove the posts, labelling them “vile” and describing the legal action as “one of those exceptional cases” where the court could order the removal of the allegedly defamatory material before a trial. 

“Given the potency of the allegations [in the] online posts, the scandal created may well reach quarters that cannot be known … this is one of those rare cases where damages may not be an adequate remedy,” Wheelahan said. 

Webster’s case was filed against a woman named Karen Brewer, an Australian who the court believes may now live in New Zealand. Though she is basically unknown outside of the online communities in which she spends much of her time, Brewer – which may not be her real name – is one of Australia’s leading conspiracy agitators. 

Brewer’s personal Facebook page, which has thousands of followers, is a petri dish of beguiling theories and vicious abuse. In the steady stream of live videos and posts she feeds to her thousands of followers each day, Brewer rails against vaccinations, fluoride, and the cabal of Freemasons she believes controls Australia’s parliament, judiciary, media and bureaucracy as part of an extensive paedophile protection racket....

Though Australia’s conspiracy landscape is complex, increasingly the thread that unites these groups is a messy Antipodean adaption of QAnon, a sprawling and baseless internet conspiracy theory born in the online messaging board 4chan in 2017. 

Wide-ranging and preternaturally bewildering, QAnon adherents are loosely tied to the belief that, as the Guardian put it this week, “a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and billionaires run the world while engaging in pedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children”. 

Evangelical in its zeal, adherents believe a multitude of spin-off theories, including that Bill Gates is using Covid-19 to implant microchips in people and that the ongoing lockdown in Victoria is a cover for the premier, Daniel Andrews, to install 5G technology throughout the state. 

Though Brewer is not outwardly affiliated with QAnon, many of her beliefs line up with the conspiracy. Webster’s defamation claim, which also includes her husband and a not-for-profit women’s organisation called Zoe Support Australia that they founded together in Mildura, alleges the posts falsely accused the couple of founding the women’s organisation to “access young children on behalf of a secretive pedophilia network”.

To date, social media companies have had little success controlling the growth of QAnon on their platforms.

Last week, Facebook announced it had taken down or restricted 790 groups, 1,500 ads and 100 pages tied to QAnon, and blocked more than 300 hashtags used by its followers on Facebook and Instagram. It followed Twitter’s announcement of a broad crackdown on about 150,000 accounts linked to the conspiracy in July.

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But those steps have had little effect. On Twitter, QAnon followers successfully hijacked a save the children hashtag after the purge and in Australia the Guardian noticed little if any impact on local QAnon groups after Facebook’s crackdown.

In fact, a recent report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found QAnon’s following was growing considerably in Australia.

“We found that the US was consistently the largest QAnon content-producing country, followed by the UK, Canada and Australia,” the report stated.

Though most of QAnon’s lore is specifically catered to a US audience (QAnon’s followers believe the US president, Donald Trump, is secretly working to thwart the network of paedophiles and their “deep state” collaborators), its inherent adaptability means it’s capable of hoovering up pre-existing conspiracy theories into its swirling illogic.....

Coalition shields firebrand MP Craig Kelly from censure for spreading Covid misinformation

Read moreIn Australia, its adherents have had no trouble retrofitting the theory to suit our politics.....

Karen Brewer
Snapshot taken from a YouTube video
30 August 2020

On 19 May 2020 there was a hearing in the matter of Webster v Brewer (No 2) [2020] FCA 727.

There was no appearance at that hearing by counsel for 52 year-old Ms. Brewer.

The Court accepted that Ms. Brewer had been properly notified of the hearing date, court details and had received the statement of claim & revised statement of claim.

On 19 May the Court reaffirmed Orders of 8 May - the following is an excerpt from those Orders.

THE COURT ORDERS THAT: 

PENAL NOTICE TO: 

KAREN BREWER IF YOU (BEING THE PERSON BOUND BY THIS ORDER): (A) REFUSE OR NEGLECT TO DO ANY ACT WITHIN THE TIME SPECIFIED IN THIS ORDER FOR THE DOING OF THE ACT; OR 
(B) DISOBEY THE ORDER BY DOING AN ACT WHICH THE ORDER REQUIRES YOU NOT TO DO, YOU WILL BE LIABLE TO IMPRISONMENT, SEQUESTRATION OF PROPERTY OR OTHER PUNISHMENT. 

ANY OTHER PERSON WHO KNOWS OF THIS ORDER AND DOES ANYTHING WHICH HELPS OR PERMITS YOU TO BREACH THE TERMS OF THIS ORDER MAY BE SIMILARLY PUNISHED. 

 IN THESE ORDERS: 

 a) the respondent’s Facebook account is accessible at the URL address ‘https://www.facebook.com/karen.spiers.336’. 
b) the “First Post” is the post uploaded to the respondent’s Facebook account on or about 26 April 2020 at 6.21am. 
c) the “First Video” is the video post uploaded to the respondent’s Facebook account on or about 26 April 2020 at 2.01pm. 
d) the “Second Post” is the post uploaded to the respondent’s Facebook account on or about 27 April 2020 at 5.14am. 
e) the “Second Video” is the video uploaded to the respondent’s Facebook account on or about 30 April 2020 at 6.13pm. 
f) the “Third Post” is the post uploaded to the respondent’s Facebook account on or about 8 May 2020 at 5.42am. 
g) the “Third Video” is the video uploaded to the respondent’s Facebook account on or about 8 May 2020 at 6.00am. 
h) the “Fourth Video” is the video uploaded to the respondent’s Facebook account on or about 8 May 2020 at 7.44am.

THE COURT ORDERS THAT: 

Upon the applicants giving the usual undertaking as to damages (see Practice Note GPN-UNDR), until further order, the respondent by herself or by her servants or agents, or howsoever, be restrained from publishing or causing to be published in any form, or maintaining online for downloading, or uploading so as to make available for publication online: 
a)the First Post; 
b) the First Video; 
c) the Second Post; 
d) the Second Video; 
e) the Third Post; 
f) the Third Video; 
g) the Fourth Video; and any other matter to the same purport or effect as any of the above matters to the extent that such other matters identify the applicants, whether expressly or by implication.

YouTube begins to face the Internet's darker realities in 2018

The Hill, 6 August 2018:

YouTube on Monday said it had banned Alex Jones’s Infowars channel, following similar actions taken against the controversial right-wing conspiracy theorist by other major U.S. technology companies.

After the channel violated YouTube's policies against child endangerment and hate speech, Jones was banned for trying to circumvent the site's enforcement measures, according to a source familiar with the company’s decision. The source said Jones received a 90-day moratorium on livestreaming for violating its policies and that he then tried to promote his flagship radio show on other YouTube pages, prompting a permanent ban.

Is this 'fake news' site on YouTube just American home-grown nutters or is this a Russian-backed bad actor?

Freedom Daily says of itself that it exists topresent a forum for discussing meaningful conservative American and world news,from a perspective that is not your normal agenda-based Beltway bull. Articles on Freedom Daily are posted by members who are warriors for America’s freedom.We post and decipher content to a level that is consistent with a common senseapproach and falls in line with the ideals of American liberty and freedom.

This is the text of one of the videos it displays on YouTube.

​

TODAY NEWS

Published on Feb 5, 2018

Over the last several weeks, the walls have been closing in around Barack Obama and the rest of his liberal minions in Washington D.C., as more evidence is revealed to the public concerning the criminal acts committed under his watch. It is apparent that the pressure is getting to the Obama family as Michelle has distanced herself from her corrupt husband by taking long vacations overseas alone. A damning video has emerged that could be all the evidence President Trump needed to put both Barack and Michelle Obama behind bars for a long time, and there is nothing they can do about it. 

Over the last two Presidential terms, the American people have had to sit and watch as Barack Obama made a mockery of the constitution and our nation's laws. For too long Obama was able to get away with numerous crimes, and we as conservatives began to feel hopeless. However, that all changed the moment that Donald Trump stepped on the scene, breathing new life into our country and promising that those who were corrupt would face dire consequences. 

The left scoffed at the very prospect of a Trump presidency, but to be safe, they began to craft a devious plan to protect the criminal elite hiding in D.C., knowing that Trump would come after them all. After Trump won the presidential election, the left sprung into action ready with their plan to protect their own including Barack Obama and of course, Hillary Clinton. 

Trump is not anyone's fool and was well aware that when he stepped foot into the White House. Trump knew the White House would be teeming with swamp creatures poised and ready to attack. Trump bided his time and made sure he chose wisely on who to allow into his inner circle, and one man who made the cut was Inspector General Michael Horowitz. 

Horowitz is what you would call a police departments "internal affairs" field, where he investigates the FBI and DOJ to ensure that all are playing by the same rules and held to the same standard of integrity as everyone else. Also, it is important to note that Horowitz was not a fan of the Obama administration after witnessing the despicable crimes that these leftist rats thought they got away with, such as the Hillary Clinton email scandal. 

The Inspector General conducted a sting operation last year into the corrupt FBI and DOJ and what he found was astounding. In fact, the Hillary email scandal and the Russian-collusion false narrative is just the beginning of the horrific crimes that occurred under the Obama administration. 

The FISA memo is mere child's play compared to the rest of crimes Obama and his minions committed, which brings us to the damning video. 

Rep. Steve King recently found an interview with Barack Obama in April 2016, where he "guarantees" to the American people that there was no corruption occurring in the FBI and DOJ. Well, that is funny since the FISA memo states that members of Obama's administration signed off on warrants to wiretap Trump based on false information. It was not just false information, but it was information that was manufactured all lies in a fake Russian scandal in an attempt to impeach Trump if he did get elected. 

Of course, you know this is driving Obama and Michelle crazy since they see the writing on the wall. The Obama's still have some friends left in D.C., and the word on the street is that there will be an inditement for Barack coming at the end of March. Now, here is where some could say is just a coincidence, but I don't believe in coincidences and neither should you. 

According to recent reports, Barack Obama is planning on taking his corrupt tail to New Zealand in March to celebrate the opening of Air New Zealand's new route to the U.S. Here is more from New Zealand Herald: 

"Former US President Barack Obama will finally go ahead with his promise to visit New Zealand on a trip in March. 

The Herald on Sunday understands Obama will visit on about March 21 arranged by Air New Zealand. 

It is understood the contract is due to be finalised and the visit announced next week. 

The reason for the visit is unknown but there has been speculation Air NZ is about to launch a new route to the United States, likely Chicago which is Obama's hometown.

Snopes calls Freedom Daily a disreputable website. One can understand why.