The "e-safety Commissioner" has

too much power and she has been abusing that power. At the Administrative Appeals Tribunal there has been a decision that the scheme the Commissioner was using of "informal take down orders" and then claiming they could not be used was being used as a way to avoid scrutiny.

I know more than one person who has been a victim of such orders. I will freely admit that I do not like what some of them have had to say. Although I do not like what they have to say it was said in ways that could not be said to cause harm to others.  Should they have a right to say it? Of course they should. 

About half way through last year I had a letter in the state newspaper. A complete stranger did his homework, found me and phoned me. He was clearly hostile and ready to abuse me. I said quietly, "You are absolutely entitled to your opinion." He spluttered and muttered something and hung up. I wonder what would have happened if I had tried to convince him he was wrong? He could have rushed off to the e-safety Commissioner if the matter had been solely online. There he could have had my opinion taken down without any chance of review. All it would have taken would have been one person at the Commission who disagreed with what I had said.  (All I had said in fact was that we need to discuss the option of nuclear power in a calm and reasoned way.)

Do we really need to have an e-safety Commissioner for this sort of thing? The Commissioner was strongly supportive of the social media ban for the young of course. Many people have supported that ban without really thinking about what the implications are - or what the potential complications are.  Do they also support the Commissioner's over reach of her powers? Perhaps they do - or would until they found themselves the target of it.