Elon Musk criticizes Australia law designed to combat misinformation News
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Elon Musk criticizes Australia law designed to combat misinformation

Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X (formerly Twitter), called the government of Australia fascists on Friday for introducing a bill that would impose fines on social media companies that fail to prevent the spread of misinformation online.

Joining a global movement to regulate global social media platforms, Australian Communications Minister Michelle Rowland introduced a bill on Thursday that would fine online companies up to 5 percent of their global revenue for facilitating misinformation. The proposed law would mandate that digital platforms establish codes of behaviour and receive regulatory approval in order to prevent the spread of harmful misinformation. If a platform does not comply, the regulator would create its own standards and penalize those that do not meet its requirements.

According to Rowland, information would need to be “seriously harmful and verifiably false” in order to qualify as misinformation or disinformation under the new legislation. Additionally, she stated that the Australian Communications and Media Authority would not have the authority to remove individual posts.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responded to Musk’s comments on Saturday, stating social media companies have a social responsibility, and “if Mr Musk doesn’t understand that, that says more about him than it does about my government”.

Services Minister Bill Shorten also weighed in during the Channel Nine’s breakfast show, stating ” 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”.

X previously battled the Australian government in court in April to contest a cyber regulator’s request to remove posts regarding a Sydney bishop who had been stabbed. X restricted Australian users from accessing the articles, but refused to delete posts discussing the stabbing from the internet globally, arguing that one nation’s laws should not govern the whole world. The extension of the injunction that blocked the article from Australian users was denied by a Federal Court judge in May, ending the restrictions, according to SBS News.

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