Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday (14) criticized X owner Elon Musk, who called the Australian government “fascist” for announcing a bill to make social networks pay fines if they fail to control fake news.
Musk has been fighting against fines being imposed on X for failing to censor content that certain national governments disagree with. The South African businessman sees this type of measure as censorship. In Brazil, the social network was suspended by a decision by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes after receiving fines for failing to take down the profiles of right-wing activists and failing to appoint a legal representative in the country. X stated at the time that the removal requests would be directed at Moraes’ political opponents.
“Well, social media has a social responsibility. If Mr Musk doesn’t understand that, that says more about him than it does about my government,” Albanese told reporters in the Australian capital Canberra.
The proposal foresees that social networks and digital platforms could be fined up to 5% of the revenue they collect in all countries if they do not take down news publications that the Australian government considers misleading or “false and causing serious harm”. As in Brazil, Musk has been fighting a battle for freedom of expression in Australia.
“Fascist,” Musk wrote on his X account on Thursday night (12), sharing the news about the Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024, which was introduced in Canberra Parliament last Thursday.
Australian officials said the bill aims to combat alleged harm caused by the distribution of disinformation to the safety, health and well-being of Australians, as well as to Australia’s democracy, society and economy.
On Friday (13), Australian Treasury adviser Stephen Jones called Musk’s comments “madness”, emphasizing that the proposed law was an exercise of his country’s “sovereignty”, like any other, to keep its citizens “safe from fraudsters, safe from criminals”.
With the bill, the Canberra government plans to give more monitoring and regulatory powers to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which will be able to enforce a code of conduct, although it cannot remove individual content, among other measures.
This proposal is part of a series of initiatives that have been announced or presented in Parliament against “doxing” (revealing information about a person online without their consent), online fraud and the imposition of age limits for accessing social networks.
In April this year, Australian authorities forced X to remove a video of a violent attack, but the platform only removed it in Australia. The eSafety Commission sued the social network as a result, but dropped the case in July when another court ruled that an injunction against the violent video outside Australia was “unenforceable” due to Australia’s lack of jurisdiction.
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