One of the defining features of our age is the tendency for ostensibly democratic governments to introduce legislation that curtails people’s freedom of speech.

While censorship is not either a right-wing or a left-wing phenomenon, the contemporary enthusiasts for censorious legislation are overwhelmingly on the political left.

And like all censors in the past, they state their case in the tones of furrowed-brow concern, teary-eyed morality, and a look-at-me-I’m-a-really-good-person demeanour.

Well, that is when they aren’t introducing legislation under a cloud of obfuscation, or burying it within other legislation, (such as gender recognition introduced in Ireland during the gay marriage referendum).

Don’t you see, they imply, I care…

To anyone with psychological insight, the faux (and always public) concern is repellent.

Unfortunately, caring, or a better description virtue signalling, is one of the singularities of the age. It’s like bad pop music – you can’t escape from its pernicious banality because it’s everywhere.

The Irish, as usual, have a great term for public displays of morality called ‘craw thumping’. This refers to beating your chest to prove your religious devotion (although recently the Irish, of whom I’m one, seem to have collectively forgotten their own wisdom). The philosophy that underpins the censorship may be different, but the psychology remains the same. And so do the self-designated guardians of public morality.

And as if by clockwork, this is how Labor are selling the ‘Digital Duty of Care’ legislation. Except this time the joke is on the censors, because their po-faced overreach is having amusing, but damaging consequences in the real world.

The Free Speech Union of Australia have created an online tool they’ve called the ‘Alborithm’, which, using the Large Language Model (LLM) the social media companies will run material through, allows people to check what can be accessed online, including written or video content and see if it risks being censored.

The results are unintentionally hilarious, completely ridiculous, and overwhelmingly depressing.

The following are some of the content that was flagged by the ‘Alborithm’ for potential censorship.

A Grand Theft Auto video game trailer, Senator Jacqui Lambie attacking Pauline Hanson’s social media cartoons about Andrew Hastie, a video of street protests, an animation lampooning the eSafety Commissioner, anti-abortion campaigner Professor Joanna Howe defending a social media campaign, a video of offensive jokes by comedians, a documentary about Indigenous Australian weapon-making and hunting traditions, a mock Welcome to Country video by comedian Lisa Jane Spencer, a Topher Field video discussing ‘Good People Break Bad Laws’ merchandise – and his commentary about a Victorian election, the ‘Ditch the Witch’ digital billboard truck featuring ex-Victorian premier Jacinta Allan, Senator Mehreen Faruqi in Parliament wearing a keffiyeh and chanting ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!’, a news video reporting the stabbing of an Assyrian Orthodox bishop in Sydney, and Celine Baumgarten criticising a LGBTQ content in a primary school…

This is a snapshot of the content that could be censored under the Digital Duty of Care.

It is my view that the legislation is an assault on free speech by the usual self-selected moral arbiters of the zeitgeist, and they’re as wrong about censorship as every pursed-lip, censorious, prim, moralistic, I-know-what’s-good-for-you, furrowed-brow, hand-on-my-heart, know-it-all in history.

Laws already exist that regulate what a democratic society deems acceptable. We don’t need the morality police to censor what adults can lawfully access online.

The ultimate irony, though, is the Alborithm proves the Digital Duty of Care doesn’t work.