@ok_lyndsey @EFA @drwaus @justanotheramy I obviously don't have all the details here, so I could of course be missing some important detail, but I'm not sure it's fair to characterise participating in government consultation processes as inherently condoning the body (in this case the eSafety Commissioner) or being complicit. It's a normal and expected part of the work to show up to these processes and express concerns, fight for alternatives or limitations, apply a human rights lens etc.

Obviously there are pitfalls to this, and there is a legitimate issue here about how much government agencies take advantage of civil society participation to be able to say they consulted, ignore their contributions, and do what they want anyway with the benefit of listing the orgs they spoke with. But that's not a new problem? Fair to question the strategy, sure, and fair to remind people access to discussions doesn't necessarily equate to influence over the policy outcome (these are hard strategic dilemmas), but it doesn't seem very fair to suggest that it's an inherent failing to be involved in these processes - EFA (and DRW, I would add) have participated in lots of frustrating consultation processes of this nature over the years - It's part of the work! Especially when the movement in general hasn't (yet) built a sufficient power base to have meaningful influence from outside of the room. It's definitely not perfect, and surely not the *only* thing an org like this can or should be doing, but part of the work nonetheless!

@EFA @ok_lyndsey @floreani @drwaus
There are consultation processes and then there are consultation processes.
Some, like those orchestrated by Meta/Facebook and eSafety, are designed to be pretty impervious to input — they’re a PR excercise.

An organisation like EFA, that has limited capacity at the best of times (and this isn’t the best of times), is not in a position to throw reaources into the PR projects of their opposition.