The Australian government has attempted to force a Canadian man to remove an “offensive” post about a UN trans expert, threatening X owner Elon Musk with an $800,000 fine if it is not removed from the platform.
Chris Elston, who goes by ‘Billboard Chris’ in X and lives in Canada, revealed on Tuesday that the Australian Government’s eSafety Commissioner had sent him an Orwellian ‘takedown notice’.
Mr Elston’s alleged crime had been sharing a Daily Mail story in late February about Teddy Cook, an Australian female-to-male trans activist who landed a job on a World Health Organization (WHO) expert panel. that drafted care guidelines for trans and non-trans people. binary people
In his post, Elston misgendered Cook and made other “derogatory” comments.
Cook, 45, who describes himself as a “professional queer, man of trans experience”, has advocated for taxpayer-funded surgeries for all trans Australians.
Her social media posts, now private, are filled with X-rated material, including public nudity, bondage parties, trans orgies and even a photo of a man apparently having sex with a dog.
Chris Elston (pictured above), who goes by ‘Billboard Chris’ on ‘offensive’. about trans expert Teddy Cook (pictured below)
Cook, 45, who describes himself as a “professional queer, man of trans experience”, has advocated for taxpayer-funded surgeries for all trans Australians.
The takedown order required the post to be removed immediately or X would be fined up to $782,500 (pictured: X’s owner Elon Musk).
While Daily Mail Australia does not suggest those revelations should exclude Cook from advising the WHO on trans healthcare, some have questioned his suitability for the role.
On March 22, Elston received a letter from the government-run eSafety Commissioner, demanding he remove the “deliberately degrading” position.
“An ordinary person in the complainant’s position would find the material offensive,” an anonymous delegate of the eSafety Commissioner wrote to Mr Elston.
“This is because the material singles out the complainant to personify the author’s disdain for transgender identity, as well as equating transgender identity with a psychiatric condition.”
It is unclear whether Cook filed the complaint with the ESafety Commissioner himself.
Daily Mail Australia has approached Cook for comment.
But the order required that if the post was not removed within 24 hours, X would be fined up to $782,500.
Elston, a vocal campaigner against “gender ideology”, vowed he would not eliminate the position, claiming the Australian government made “a lot of assumptions”.
“I do not despise that woman because of her transgender identity, because I maintain that gender identities do not exist,” Elston wrote.
‘We call each other males and females, and that’s all. I also firmly believe that radical queer theorists have no business writing anything to do with medical policy.’
However, X must have taken note of the deletion order because the original post was subsequently deleted.
Daily Mail Australia asked X if it had removed the post, but the Elon Musk-owned company declined to comment.
However, in a complete mockery of the “takedown notice,” Elston subsequently re-shared an image of the original post.
Since then it has been viewed almost 55,000 times.
The Australian government’s attempts to control online speech were widely criticized.
David Limbrick, MP for the South East Metropolitan Region in Victoria, said the eSafety Commissioner was a “danger to free and open debates on sensitive issues”.
“E-security commissioner ‘keeps you safe’ from opinions the government doesn’t like.”
In a complete mockery of the “takedown notice”, Mr Elston re-shared an image of the offending post, as described in the eSafety Commissioner’s “takedown notice” (pictured).
The eSafety Commissioner, hailed as the “first government agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online”, is led by Twitter’s former Director of Public Policy, Australia and South East Asia, Julie Inman-Grant (pictured), who receives an annual salary of almost $445,000.
Writer John Goddard said it was “wrong on every level.”
“It is crazy that the Australian government thinks it can be the arbiter of truth,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, self-proclaimed women’s rights activist Angela Jones alleged that the eSafety commissioner had double standards.
“I have received death threats, been scammed, harassed and had my identity stolen online here in Australia and the eSafety Commissioner did nothing,” Ms Jones wrote.
Another X user sarcastically said this was an “excellent use of taxpayer money.”
“A department whose job is to police crimes as abhorrent as this and force the elimination of offending positions,” they wrote.
‘Bravo Albo. Now about the real estate crisis…’
Daily Mail Australia has approached the eSafety Commissioner for comment.
The government body is led by former Twitter Public Policy Director, Australia and Southeast Asia, Julie Inman-Grant, who receives an annual salary of almost $445,000.
It praises itself as the “first government agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online.”
“eSafety has powers relating to cyberbullying, image-based abuse and illegal and harmful online content,” its website states.