It’s amazing to me that we can have a serious senate inquiry like this, involving hard evidence of coordinated misinformation campaigns to weaken Australia; and yet apparently no government action is taken.

The government recently acted quickly with their fuel excise and heavy road usage changes. This show they are willing to make direct interventions when they think something is important. The interventions they made in that case may be rushed and of questionable value - but the point is that the government is willing to act when they think it is important…

So then, is direct coordinated mass manipulation of Australian views not important enough to act on? We aren’t talking about mere differences of opinion being argued about online. We’re talking about deliberate sowing of confusion and misunderstanding; coordinated lies from large groups of fake people designed to pass as popular opinion.

And yet basic ideas such as political advertising should be required to be factual is apparently too big of a step to take. wtf?

The climate denial tactics are precisely what the non-conservative members of the Senate Committee pointed out and the Greens gave great recommendations to rein in misinformation. But it’s like the status quo is about passivity and apathy. Meanwhile, our kids will deal with a terrible fallout.