There's something a bit perverse that a subscription television network is regulated for whether their Covid-denying talking head programming is filmed in Australia, but not what impact it has on Australia's public health.
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The chair of the federal parliament's media diversity inquiry plans to call Australian Communications and Media Authority executives to testify in the wake of Sky News Australia's one week suspension from YouTube for breaching its Covid misinformation policy.
If the spread of misinformation is dangerous on the internet why is it on television, asked the chair, Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young.
"Sky News broadcasts to the public on free-to-air TV as well as the subscription Foxtel service. So what is the government's broadcasting regulator doing about stopping the spread of Covid lies?"
YouTube and Sky News Australia will also be called on to testify at the inquiry.
YouTube conducted its own review of uploaded videos from the network to its channel with 1.86 million subscribers, which it claims breached content rules for denying the existence of the pandemic virus.
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The network's digital editor Jack Houghton rejected that assertion, warning that the "freedom to think will be extinguished" if it can't debate scientific issues around Covid in the pandemic.
He says the videos taken down by YouTube were debating whether masks were effective and whether lockdowns were justified.
"The science is certainly not clear on either of these two points," Mr Houghton wrote on the network's website.
Despite efforts at self-regulation and a voluntary industry code to combat misinformation released by the government in February this year, for the Murdoch-owned media any curtailment has been too much.
With Sky News Australia uploading more than 50 uploaded clips each day dating back to the beginning of the pandemic, it's challenging but not impossible to verify that misinformation has been published. YouTube uses speech recognition and automation to identify the breaches, but is not confirming which videos were removed.
The slide into near-constant misinformation is even more concerning as the network launches a free-to-air regional television channel this month, where it will compete with fewer broadcast outlets.
Its content on social media has often been indistinguishable from parody accounts created to lampoon the over the top scepticism of Covid measures. One of those parody accounts was itself permanently suspended for misinformation.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have moved from banning anti-vaccination groups to permanently suspending misinformation-sharing politicians too - most famously former US president Donald Trump.
MPs Craig Kelly and George Christensen moved to Telegram after their social media suspensions for breaching misinformation policies.
"We have foreign tech billionaires censoring what Australians can hear," Mr Kelly wrote in response to the Sky News Australia's suspension.
The former government MP, who moved to the crossbench to continue speaking against medical consensus in the pandemic, said some Australians "have been so brainwashed they will cheer this censorship on".
He compared the censorship of the media to fascist and communist regimes.
Mr Christensen said a foreign power should not have that much control over what Australians are able to view and listen to online.
"The Australian government must finally take action on Big Tech censorship."
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YouTube's strikes system for breaches, like the processes for other social media platforms, lacks transparency for the public to understand what content was removed or why.
In a statement, the online giant said it wasn't targeting the network's channel.
"We apply our policies equally for everyone regardless of uploader, and in accordance with these policies and our long-standing strikes system, removed videos from and issued a strike to Sky News Australia's channel."
Senator Hanson-Young's media diversity inquiry, despite having largely been focused on the market power of Rupert Murdoch, might end up answering who, if anyone, really does control the media.
Harley Dennett
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
