Skip to content
High Severity

Prior Restraint on Satire

This provision subjects satire, parody, and entertainment content to pre-publication communication requirements by incorporating Section 18 into the hate speech framework. Since the hate speech definition in 37 explicitly includes "entertainment in a movie, song, parody, skit or as a satire" that "promotes negative feelings" or "stigmatises" groups, artists and comedians must satisfy undefined communication requirements before publishing creative work. This creates a prior restraint mechanism on political satire and social commentary, with liability extending to editors and producers under the broad "control" definition in 39.