There's been bipartisan condemnation of Elon Musk for his response to demands by the eSafety Commissioner to remove graphic video of last week's stabbing at the Sydney church. Support is also growing for stricter regulation of online content. Political reporter Nicole Hegarty has more.
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00:00The tech billionaire Elon Musk has taken to his own social media platform, the rebranded
00:08Twitter now known as X, to brand as censorship this demand from the e-safety commissioner
00:14to remove that material, that footage of the stabbing of a bishop at a Sydney church last
00:21Monday evening from his platform.
00:24That material has been circulating on X for a week now, while other platforms have made
00:31moves to remove it from their social media channels.
00:36He says, Elon Musk that is, says that this content does not breach the standards of X.
00:46However, politicians are united in their condemnation of his comments, his labelling of this as
00:53censorship.
00:55We've heard from the Prime Minister who's in Mackay today on his way to PNG, a rather
01:00windy Mackay this morning, where he said that it's not acceptable for Mr Musk to deny and
01:08prevent this material from being removed.
01:11This isn't about freedom of expression.
01:15This is about the dangerous implications that can occur when things that are simply
01:22not true, that everyone knows is not true, are replicated and weaponised in order to
01:30cause division and in this case to promote negative statements and potentially to just
01:42inflame what was a very difficult situation.
01:46So Nicole, there are already some ideas about what to do about this.
01:50What changes are being proposed to strengthen the powers of authorities?
01:54There are, Jeremy, and there's been moves afoot for a little while now.
01:59The government putting forward a package of reforms to address mis- and disinformation
02:04which they say is currently circulating freely online.
02:08They're pointing to the incorrect naming of a man in Sydney as being behind the Bondi
02:15Junction attacks last weekend as the latest evidence for the need for these changes to
02:21take place.
02:22What they'd like to see is the regulator, in this case the Australian Communications
02:27and Media Authority, given more powers to enforce industry standards which are currently
02:33voluntary.
02:34What that would actually mean is that where there are repeated breaches of those standards
02:39they're allowed to issue fines to those social media operators, those platforms.
02:46Initially there were some delays in that which is what's left this currently being sitting
02:52on the table for about a year or so.
02:55There were concerns that this move went too far and the opposition leader Peter Dutton
03:01had described it as Orwellian in its approach.
03:04But now we're seeing that language change and Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Simon
03:10Birmingham says the Coalition is open to supporting these changes.
03:14Take a listen.
03:15We should be able to quickly and effectively remove content that is damaging and devastating
03:21to the social harmony and fabric of society, particularly images such as terrorist attacks.
03:28We should expect that, we should demand it and we will certainly back the Government
03:31to put in place the types of powers or penalties that make social media companies pay attention.
03:38And the Government has welcomed that change in language from the Coalition.
03:43They say they're open to expanding the breadth of those laws if there's additional steps
03:49that need to be taken to prevent the kind of things that we're seeing online from occurring
03:53at this stage.
03:54But they'd like those reforms to happen sooner rather than later.