REDACTED: Weird AI cuts to public Covid Inquiry submissions, grieving mother's story entirely blacked out

This is the AI censorship that the government is now using on you

Public submissions to the Commonwealth Government Covid-19 Response Inquiry have been bizarrely censored by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Raelene Kennedy, mother of Caitlin Gotze, 23, who died shortly after her second Pfizer shot, had her two-page submission 1784 entirely blacked out here, archived here.

Raelene Kennedy bravely spoke out many times in interview including here

All that appears of her story are two black slabs.

When Raelene saw the complete redaction without even her name on it, she despaired.

“The truth is never going to come out,” she said on Saturday.

Raelene wrote to the Covid-19 Response Inquiry asking how she could make a submission without censorship as the next of kin.

She got a form-letter response.

“Submissions may have been redacted in accordance with the Privacy Notice,” the email said.

“Submissions may have been redacted where they contain material with the personal or business information of third parties if the department does not have their consent to publish the information.”

They will never have Caitlin’s consent because she is dead. Caitlin - a healthy, vibrant, beautiful, young woman - died less than two months after her second Pfizer mRNA injection.

The terrible story of Caitlin’s death has been told publicly by Raelene on Jab Injuries Australia’s Instagram here, on Cafe Locked Out here and to the Joint Parliamentary Covid Inquiry in 2021 here, backup here.

It’s not a secret to be guarded by the government with censorship.

Raelene wants answers and has joined Dr Melissa McCann’s class action to help the vaccine bereaved and injured, as detailed by Rebakah Barnett here.

Is Artificial Intelligence now censoring democracy?

Letters From Australia also wrote a four-page submission, 1116, archived here.

It has been oddly redacted, as if by an AI that searches for capital letters but can’t tell the difference between names that need privacy and those that don’t.

They censored “Bradford Hill” from the “Bradford Hill criteria for causation”, which is the scientific method for attributing causality.

Dr Yeadon’s open letter can be read here. He formed the view that the gene-vaccine harms must be intentional, a belief he recently affirmed here

The words “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”, “Wellcome Trust”, and “Moderna, Janssen, AstraZeneca and Pfizer” were all redacted.

They blacked out reference to Jane Halton heading Australia’s review into covid vaccine procurement while at the same time being the chair of CEPI.

The names of famous authors and scientists were deleted in reference to their publicly published works.

The unredacted version is attached at bottom in PDF form for anyone interested to compare the two.

The process was run by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. A privacy notice on the Covid Response Inquiry website states:

“The department reserves the right to refuse to publish submissions and evidence, or parts of submissions and evidence, that contain offensive language, potentially defamatory material or copyright infringing material, or material with the personal or business information of third parties if the department does not have their consent to publish the information.”

That implies that what is blacked out reasonably fits that criteria, when clearly it doesn’t.

And it appears as though they used AI to do it.

The department contracted Converlens, an AI company based in Adelaide, to handle the more than 2000 submissions, announced as published on 27 March.

Converlens is a mid-sized business co-founded by former AGL Energy manager Thomas Workman, according to LinkedIn. It says on its website that it handles government contracts to analyse survey data for issues such as the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, and climate change.

A transcript of Charlie Munger’s influential speech can be read here

It appears to be a public-private partnership used by the Federal Government to manage the public using AI tools.

The CSIRO says that Converlens “was designed in collaboration with the Federal Government as part of the Australian Government’s Business Research and Innovation Initiative in 2018, and has subsequently grown in capability and sophistication, working across government, NGO's (sic) and private organisations”.

A group called the Observator of Public Sector Innovation (funded by the European Commission) gave Converlens a glowing review full of jargon like “disruptor” and said it “assists people in government to excel at managing the submissions and communications process”.

Converlens is a public-private partnership using AI for government. Pic: Converlens website

Converlens told Letters From Australia on Saturday that they act only as a data processor on behalf of their clients.

“We do not ordinarily access or control client data except in very specific circumstances described in our Privacy Policy and other Agreements,” Converlens said via email.

Letters From Australia has asked The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, which is running the submissions process, for an explanation by close of business Monday as to why they censored in this way, and will update this story with any reply.

UPDATE: 21 April 2024 - No reply has yet been received.

Censorship of public submissions to parliamentary inquiries is dangerous for three reasons.

1. It ruins the communication between the polity and the public necessary for democracy to function.

2. It ruins the public data available to read. Public submissions are a valuable tool for journalists and researchers who find ideas they never thought of and facts they weren’t aware of - all wrecked by censorship.

3. It normalises this new invasive redaction, which did not happen in the past.

Join like-minded people: we are stronger together

Here are three new organisations to help protect against censorship:

1. Free Speech Union - the Australian branch is headed by writer and lawyer Dara Macdonald. It defends those who have been cancelled. Website here.

2. Australians for Science and Freedom - academics including economist Gigi Foster are organising for intellectual freedom, open discourse and the scientific method. Website here.

3. Australian Medical Professionals’ Society - headed by cardiologist Chris Neil with expert organisation by Kara Thomas, this group organises some of the most important speaking events on the calendar. Website here.

4. Aligned Council of Australia - a collective of over 30 groups and 1 million people standing against the World Health Organisation power grab. Website here.

A point to ponder: is this AI censorship what the government has in mind to police the internet including FaceBook, Instagram, Substack, TikTok, Rumble, YouTube and Twitter (X), with the pending ACMA misinformation and disinformation censorship bill? I have just checked and found similar censorship on my submission to that inquiry, also.

Unredacted version of submission 1116 downloadable PDF below if you want to compare it to the blackened government version.

Final Covid Inquiry Submission

748KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Please do share everywhere, it makes it worthwhile, and subscribe if you like, it’s free. Journos - free to re-use anything I’ve got but just only please include a link-credit.

UPDATE: 21 April - added one more group to join - the Aligned Council of Australia, corrected 3 spelling errors, updated the caption link to Dr Mike Yeadon’s open EMA letter to it’s new home on his Dr Mike Yeadon Substack page, split a run-on sentence and fixed a wrong capitalisation. 04 August - fixed a typo (sentence/sentance) and bolded point 4.