Exposed censorship fuels demands for Covid-19 royal commission

Zoe Buhler outside Ballarat Magistrates Court after charges of fomenting anti-lockdown protests online were dropped.

The revelations about more than 4000 government interventions to pull down Covid-related posts from digital platforms raises more questions than it answers. We are left to wonder about how much information we were denied while we were locked down, held behind borders and controlled by a vast array of pandemic rules and regulations.

Did these posts question the efficacy of vaccines in preventing contraction and transmission of the virus? If so, was the public denied access to truthful information when it was most needed?

Did these posts highlight vaccine injuries, or rail against government lockdowns, border closures and other measures? Did these interventions by government suppress lawful dissent and debate, or both?

Who was the arbiter of truth? Is this censorship still occurring?

Most of us remember seeing pregnant woman Zoe Buhler arrested in her Ballarat home in September 2020, accused of fomenting anti-lockdown protests online. The charges were later dropped.

Yet now we know there were more than 4000 government interventions to block Covid-19 posts online. How many of these blocked comments and discussion were either truthful or reasonable?

As someone who broadcast television interviews, discussions and opinions throughout the pandemic, I can tell you the demands of digital giants and complaints to the broadcasting regulator delivered a degree of legal complexity and interference in free debate that I have never experienced before.

Proper questioning of rules, vaccine mandates, vaccine effectiveness and alternative treatments was all corralled within the dictates of World Health Organisation proclamations.

It is frightening and disgraceful that a global body that was so inept and inaccurate in its handling of the pandemic was able to effectively control debate in what is supposed to be our free media.

Public information and the way it was controlled is just one more aspect of our pandemic response where governments overreached. It adds fuel to the already overwhelming case for a national royal commission into our Covid-19 response.