Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has issued a legal notice to Twitter regarding the hateful conduct present on its platform, threatening fines of $700,000 per day.
eSafety received more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past 12 months than any other platform, with these reports escalating since Elon Musk’s takeover of the company in October.
Musk’s ‘general amnesty’ saw 62,000 banned or suspended users reinstated to the platform, including 75 accounts with over 1 million followers.
“We are seeing a worrying surge in hate online,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.
“eSafety research shows that nearly 1 in 5 Australians have experienced some form of online hate. This level of online abuse is already inexcusably high, but if you’re a First Nations Australian, you are disabled or identify as LGBTIQ+ you experience online hate at double the rate of the rest of the population.
“Twitter appears to have dropped the ball on tackling hate. A third of all complaints about online hate reported to us are now happening on Twitter.
“We are also aware of reports that the reinstatement of some of these previously banned accounts has emboldened extreme polarisers, peddlers of outrage and hate, including neo-Nazis both in Australia and overseas.”
If Twitter fails to respond to the most recent notice within 28 days, eSafety warns they could face maximum financial penalties of nearly $700,000 a day for continuing breaches.
eSafety is far from being alone in its concern about increasing levels of toxicity and hate on Twitter, particularly targeting marginalised communities.
“We need accountability from these platforms and action to protect their users and you cannot have accountability without transparency and that’s what legal notices like this one are designed to achieve,” Inman Grant said.
