ScoMo Warns Social Media Chiefs: Clean Up Your Act
An angry Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called in Australian leaders from Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter to demand that they take greater responsibility for violent or disturbing content published on their platforms or face a legislative crackdown.
Comms Minister Mitch Fifield and Attorney-General Christian Porter will join the PM and like ScoMo will be demanding that the Internet giants adopt new measures to remove hateful content from their social media platforms.
Fifield has already warned that, if the social media giants don’t act to prevent repeats of what followed last Friday’s massacre in Christchurch, the Government will. “The time has come for those who own and manage platforms to accept a greater responsibility for how they’re used,” FiField told The Australian.
“A best-endeavours approach is no longer good enough. It’s clear that while social media companies have co-operated with authorities to remove some of that disgusting content, more needs to be done. If they won’t act, we need to.”
Facebook vice-president Chris Sonderby this week claimed the gunman’s video was viewed fewer than 200 times as it went out live but it then was re-broadcast at least 4000 times (some believe the figure may have been much more) before it was removed from the platform.
Sonderby said Facebook removed about 1.5 million videos of the attack in the first 24 hours. Some 1.2 million of those were blocked at upload, preventing them from being seen via Facebook, he claimed.
Stephen Sheeler, a former Facebook CEO in Australia and New Zealand, said big tech must now consider banning live-streaming altogether.
