Back in April, Elon Musk and the Brazilian justice system clashed over the lack of content moderation and the dissemination of false news on X, the social media platform Musk owns.
Now, the X owner is focusing on Australia after the country announced its intention to implement a series of regulations and sanctions to curb the spread of disinformation and hoaxes through media and social networks. Musk’s reaction was swift. “Fascists,” he said in an X post.
Musk calls out Australia. Specifically, Musk commented on a Reuters post informing about Australia’s upcoming plans. The country is considering whether to implement a law that would impose fines on social media companies and other digital platforms that fail to implement measures to combat the spread of false news and hoaxes related to public safety, health, and welfare.
Australia’s proposal. The Australian government suggests imposing fines of up to 5% of global revenue on platforms or media outlets that fail to prevent the spread of misinformation online. If the proposed law is approved, the Australian Communications and Media Authority would establish a code of conduct on truthfulness, which platforms would be required to adhere to. However, it wouldn’t have the power to remove individual content.
According to Reuters, Michelle Rowland, Australia’s communications minister, stated, “Misinformation and disinformation pose a serious threat to the safety and wellbeing of Australians, as well as to our democracy, society, and economy.”
The new legislation was presented to the Australian parliament on Thursday and will be subject to debate for approval. This proposed measure aims to combat the dissemination of false content that could harm the integrity of elections and public health, target specific sectors of the population or individuals, or disrupt the operations of emergency services. The Australian parliament intends to implement this legislation in response to what it says is the interference in the country’s sovereignty by platforms and social media based in other countries.
The Australian government’s response to Musk. Stephen Jones, an assistant to the Australian treasury, referred to Musk’s comments as “crackpot stuff.” Jones defended the proposed law as an exercise of sovereignty aimed at protecting citizens.
“I can’t see how Elon Musk or anyone else, in the name of free speech, thinks it is OK to have social media platforms publishing scam content… Publishing deepfake material, publishing child pornography. Livestreaming murder scenes. I mean, is this what he thinks free speech is all about?” Jones told Australian media ABC.
This isn’t the first time that Australia has confronted X. Tensions between the Australian government and the social media platform over the dissemination of “sensitive” content began this past April following the dissemination of a series of explicit videos about a terrorist attack on an Assyrian church bishop in Sydney.
Back then, the Australian government requested the platform remove the videos of the attack. However, Musk considered this an attack on free speech and simply restricted the footage geographically so that Australian users couldn’t view it, but users worldwide could. This eventually led the Australian government to take legal action against X.
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