Left’s bully activists out to silence dissent with bullying tactics of their own

Tim South and Peter Fitz

Now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical

Liberal, fanatical, criminal

Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable Respectable, presentable, a vegetable

Released nearly 40 years ago, The Logical Song by Supertramp symbolised the individual’s internal conflict in reconciling orthodoxy with free expression and thought. To be accepted, the song held, one not only had to conform with the prevailing ideology but also affirm its principles.

Back then conservatism was making a comeback. Australia had tired of the progressive excesses of the Whitlam era and installed Malcolm Fraser, then the arch-enemy of the left, as prime minister. Only two months after the song’s release Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, “The Iron Lady”, came to power. The following year Republican Ronald Reagan would defeat Jimmy Carter to become US president.

For the Western left, it was a time of disillusion. Its cultural influence had peaked in the late 1960s, when its liberal arm railed against conformance and censorship and elevated the rights of the individual over the power of the state. Forced to re-evaluate a decade later, it abandoned these principles. It embraced identity politics at the expense of the individual, demanded conformity in the name of public order, and used the power of the state to render many utterances either unlawful or otherwise verboten.

Governments come and go, but the left remains in control of our public institutions. It has become the establishment it traditionally abhorred. The transformation could not be more ironic. As the American political scientist Mark Lilla observed last year “[The] Left … who think of themselves as radical creatures, contesting this and transgressing that, have become like buttoned-up schoolmarms when it comes to the English language, parsing every conversation for immodest locutions and rapping the knuckles of those who inadvertently use them.”

Public institutions are one thing, private enterprise another. The latter has not suffered the same degree of interference and infiltration as the former. There are two primary reasons for this: first, private enterprise attracts people who by nature are self-reliant; and second, most of these statist control freaks cannot wean themselves off the public teat. That is not to say business, especially larger companies, is free of this influence, as evident by the numerous public relations arms talking incessantly about their organisations’ commitment to #MeToo, addressing climate change, and indigenous reconciliation. Yes, we get it. Heaven forbid we think your reason for being is the filthy lucre.

There is a darker aspect to this corporate virtue, and it concerns online leftist activists who pressure companies and politicians into severing ties with journalists and media organisations whose opinions they despise. Last weekend my colleague Janet Albrechtsen wrote extensively about one of these groups, the Sleeping Giants, whose followers obsessively target companies that advertise with conservative outlets, particularly Sky News.

These offence-taking aficionados monitor every utterance of presenters for so-called hate speech. Once identified the relevant excerpt is tweeted to companies that advertise on the program or publication. The followers of Sleeping Giants are likewise encouraged to inform these companies of damage to their “brand” by association. You could say the activists convey a polite but menacing message that they would like to feel these companies are acceptable, respectable, and presentable. In other words, terminate your contract with the ”offending” media outlet or face a consumer backlash. Like most of those intent on repressing dissenting views, these activists will lie, deceive and manipulate to further that objective.

I have first-hand experience of this. In May I wrote of ABC bias, citing two examples of note. The first concerned a Muslim panellist on The Drum, who talked of Islam being a “religion of peace”. She referred to Indonesia, the nation that has the highest number of Muslims, as a “very moderate” and “very secular” country. No-one challenged her, I pointed out. She and the entire panel seemed blissfully unaware of cases such as the former Jakarta governor, a Christian, who was sentenced to two years imprisonment in 2017 for blasphemy against Islam. Neither, I observed, did anyone mention the public flogging in Aceh of those, particularly homosexuals, who violated sharia law.

The second was an ABC AM report that criticised the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy testing that voiced concerns of parents and teachers’ unions yet ignored a favourable appraisal of NAPLAN released the previous day by the Centre for Independent Studies. Sleeping Giants responded by tweeting a snapshot of my article and the twitter handle of the National Roads and Motorists’ Association, claiming that its brand “sat beside and (sic) your ad … in yet another News Corp diatribe primarily attacking the ABC while casually throwing in demonizing Muslim’s (sic) and the various Teachers Unions.” If you must verbal me, then at least have the decency to do so coherently.

Left unchecked this phenomenon could result in diverse media platforms folding. Yet last weekend former Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, a supposed champion of diversity, defended Sleeping Giants. Taking issue with Albrechtsen, he said she had “demonise[d] those who dare exercise their free speech against racism, bigotry & sexism”.

Leave aside for now Soutphommasane’s risible assertion that this, rather than control of narrative, is the aim of Sleeping Giants. What is not in issue is that he regards boycott movements, whether implied or otherwise, as an exercise in free speech. Yet in 2014 he condemned a social media campaign against halal certification businesses. It was, he said, a case of “anti-Islamic bullying”.

“Its currency is distortion and misrepresentation,” he said. “Bullying that aims to stimulate fear and divide Australians.” Yet now he defends a movement that revels in such tactics. That is hypocrisy. To hear the divisive and censorious Soutphommasane suddenly champion free speech is nauseating. To paraphrase Roy Scheider’s character in the film Jaws, you’re going to need a bigger bucket.

Make that two buckets. Writing last weekend about 2GB broadcaster Alan Jones, Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons described Sleeping Giants as “social justice warriors” who were “pursuing Jones’s sponsors online over being associated with his brand of bigotry, racism, misogyny and bullying”.

“Does that, then mean the definite end of Jones on the Sydney airwaves, or at least those of 2GB” asked FitzSimons, yet again falling victim to his infatuation with superfluous commas. “Hopefully,” he added. Perhaps Bandana Man needs reminding that only last year he hectored and bullied the elderly tennis legend Margaret Court over her public opposition to same-sex marriage. “Does Melbourne Park really want to have an arena named after someone who stands so firmly against such inclusiveness, who is becoming a byword for bigot,” wrote FitzSimons, calling for it to be renamed. Given his penchant for seeking sanctions against those who espouse politically incorrect opinions, FitzSimons should consider running Sleeping Giants. After all, he is making little headway as chair of the Australian Republic Movement.

Let’s recap a few facts about Sleeping Giants as outlined by Albrechtsen. An analysis by social media monitoring company Brandwatch found that 200 individual Twitter accounts comprised more than 53 per cent of all tweets in the Sleeping Giants campaign. Of these 200 accounts, 70 per cent of them were anonymous. In a 45-day period this year, the 10 most active of these accounts accounted for 4500 engagements — an average of 450 per “user”. Small wonder the movement is so obsessed with secrecy. The number of activists appears far fewer than what the movement’s name implies, which would mean its influence is vastly overestimated.

Fortunately some Twitter users are calling out Sleeping Giants for these tactics and reassuring those targeted companies in the process. As one user noted in his response, another reason most of these activist accounts do not provide their names is these companies would be able to ascertain they were not clients as claimed.

More power to those who counter this bully activism. Unlike these pusillanimous companies browbeaten into withdrawing their advertising, they are more attuned to the likelihood that the so-called Sleeping Giants are in fact only half a dozen or so woke pygmies.