Owner of social media platform X, Elon Musk, has criticised the Australian Government for newly proposed laws that would fine content distribution platforms like X up to 5% of their global revenue as a penalty for allowing the spread of deliberate disinformation online.
The controversial billionaire responded to the new legislation by retweeting a comment discussing it with one word: ‘fascists’.
Fascists https://t.co/NQcR9justJ— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 12, 2024
The platform X has made no formal comment as yet.
Soon-to-retire Government Services Minister Bill Shorten hit back at Musk’s comments on Channel Nine’s breakfast show this morning.
“Elon Musk’s had more positions on free speech than the Kama Sutra. When it’s in its commercial interests, he is the champion of free speech and when he doesn’t like it ... he’s going to shut it all down,” he said.
Read: Tech Bytes: Brazilian judge threatens to shut down X; blocks Starlink bank accounts
Seriously harmful and verifiably false
The changes proposed by the government’s new Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2024 include an upgrade to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)’s powers.
The bill would enable the ACMA to gather information, maintain records, register codes and create standards to ensure social media platforms are meeting their obligations in terms of combating disinformation.
Exemptions for government content and politically authorised material have been scrapped since the bill was first proposed last year.
The new version of the bill also protects professional news, and academic, scientific, artistic and religious content.
Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland reassured the ABC that such powers would only be used when content is deemed misinformation under the law, and that it would need to be both "seriously harmful and verifiably false".
"It is a very high threshold for what constitutes serious harm," she said.
"We are also talking about harms to democracy, and we know that disinformation in particular, when spread by rogue states or foreign actors, has the potential to undermine our democracy.”
Bill places responsibility for hosted content on platforms
The minister also clarified that the bill was not aimed at individuals, but rather at incentivising social media giants to actively police their own content distribution networks.
"The platforms are not passive purveyors of content, they are curators of content," minister Rowland said.
"[The bill] actually goes to the systems and processes of the platforms and says they need to have methods in place to be able to identify and do something about it."
Reuters reports that Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said that while he had yet to examine the revised bill, "Australians' legitimately held political beliefs should not be censored by either the government, or by foreign social media platforms".
The right-wing thinktank Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) criticised the bill as being the “single biggest attack on freedom of speech in Australia’s peacetime history”.
“Misinformation legislation introduced into federal parliament today represents a chilling assault on every Australian’s right to free speech,” said John Storey, the Director of Law and Policy at the IPA.
“The new Bill broadens provisions to censor speech, which even the government’s fatally flawed first draft did not include.”
Minister Rowland emphasised the pressing need to address disinformation in digital spaces when social media platforms are not doing enough – or actively reducing their moderation activities, such as with X.
"Misinformation and disinformation pose a serious threat to the safety and well-being of Australians, as well as to our democracy, society and economy," said Australian Communications Minister Michelle Rowland.
“Doing nothing and letting this problem drag on is not an option."