There are upside-down ferrets and then there are upside-down ferrets, like the spectacular one Peter Dutton did yesterday.

Last year, the government’s innocuous misinformation bill, which would impose on social media companies the same kind of half-hearted co-regulatory regime as the tax on broadcasters, was, at least according to the opposition, a “disinformation bill.” very bad” that he gave The Australian Communications and Media Authority has “extraordinary powers”, “dreadful and will be strongly opposed”. Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman joined Sky News bullies in evoking the “horror scenario” of ordinary Australians being forced to attend investigations into their own statements.

Well, no more. Yesterday, when asked if he would back Labour’s misinformation laws, Dutton gave the thumbs up: “Yes, we support it, and we’re happy to take a look at anything the government proposes.”

Peter Dutton doesn’t just support the government’s disinformation bill. He also said this about violence against women:

I think social media has a role to play here. The computer games that young boys play, where violence is a very important part of what is forced on their minds on a regular basis… the treatment of women, what they see in some of the computer games, what you see on social media, the normalization of all of that, is simply the lack of manners in society in general…

Attempts to link video games and violence (or even “aggression”) date back decades and are part of a long list of scapegoats for youth behavior: rap, television, rock music, radio, novels , the waltz, etc. There is evidence of any connection between computer games and violence, except possibly that the release of major new games reduces violent crime. But this is a politician who just two weeks ago was talking about references to Australia’s worst mass murder since the border wars, desperately looking for somewhere to hide after what happened in Bondi and Wakeley.

It’s rare that a backflip as superhuman as Dutton’s goes unnoticed in the media, but we are in the middle of a social media-style fight, by the corporate media and also by politicians. Meta, of course, remains the subject of seething hate from the media for his refusal to be affected by Australia’s absurd media bargaining code. but the villain of the day en Twitter for its refusal to remove the video of a western Sydney clergyman who was attacked last week.

The question requires going back to first principles. And on Twitter, the first principle is that, yes, Elon Musk is a vile piece of work with a penchant for far-right views, who has destroyed the monetary and cultural value of Twitter and allowed the sewer that was always under the place to flood it. But that doesn’t mean everything he says is automatically false.

Why should the video of the attack on Bishop Emmanuel be removed? It was not posted by the perpetrator with the aim of glorifying or incentivizing his heinous act (content that is illegal under post-Christchurch laws), but was the result of a routine livestream of a church service. The perpetrator may have selected an event for its public profile, but that’s what terrorists always do, hoping to get maximum coverage. This does not mean that we prohibit the dissemination of images that have an innate informative value but that can also publicize the act of terrorism. And this has innate informational value.

Scott Morrison’s appointed internet censor, Julie Inman Grant, said of Wakeley’s images: “I am not satisfied that enough is being done to protect Australians from such extreme and gratuitous violent material circulating online.” It should be noted that Inman Grant is a strong supporter of a draconian online “documents please” scheme that would force people to produce ID to access adult content, a scheme she also supported Dutton yesterday. But the logic of Inman Grant’s position – that images of a failed stabbing attempt should be removed to “protect” Australians – surely means that even relatively innocuous images of violence should be removed.

What’s up with Melbourne Victory fans attacking a goalkeeper, referee and security guards? Where would commercial networks be without the images of (inevitably) “wild” fights that are routinely used to fill out the evening news bulletins? What if someone is deliberately run over (in addition to a “wild fight,” naturally)? Or that reliable addition to the weekend news bulletins, the air show accident?

These are outside the scope of Inman Grant. But Seven (the home of neo-Nazis, war criminals and rapists), Nine and Ten literally cannot make what they call “news” without a steady diet of garbage that comes from our relentless self-surveillance through CCTV, phone cameras and dash cams and the everyday interpersonal violence and natural and man-made disasters they capture.

Corporate media coming down heavily on Musk for refusing to comply with Inman Grant’s view that she should determine what anyone in the world can see online is deeply hypocritical. And she is motivated not by an overriding concern for “protecting” Australians but by the realization that social media is destroying them. Meta’s refusal to be shaken and its threat to permanently remove news from Facebook, the almost total abandonment of the 20th century free-to-air television model for social networks by young people and the growing inevitability that sports content will gravitate far from the clunky linear streaming model, they are the reason for hysterical editorials against social media (“disgust”, “evil”, “defying decency”), not a constant concern that Australians are protected from harmful content.

Social media can be blamed for many societal ills. But the corporate media – and its obsession with non-standard “if it bleeds it leads” news – pretending it can judge is ridiculous.

Do we need greater regulation of online content and social media? Or is the mainstream media behaving like hypocrites? Let us know what you think by emailing [email protected]. Include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit it for length and clarity.