The Australian government is threatening to impose fines of up to $475,000 a day on Twitter if it is not satisfied the platform is doing enough to censor alleged “hate”, with the country’s “eSafety Commissioner” complaining that the reinstatement of some previously suspended accounts has “emboldened extreme polarisers, peddlers of outrage and hate, including neo-Nazis”.
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who was a Twitter executive before the Elon Musk takeover, alleges there has been a “worrying surge in hate online” and the platform “appears to have dropped the ball”.
Her department says the rise in complaints it has received coincides with Musk’s takeover and the “slashing of Twitter’s global workforce from 8,000 employees to 1,500 including in its trust and safety teams”. It has issued a legal demand that he explains “what the social media giant is doing to tackle online hate” under Australia’s Online Safety Act.
Like the United Kingdom and the European Union, Australia lacks First Amendment-style free speech protections. Musk has previously indicated that Twitter would submit to upcoming EU censorship laws, and its compliance with government requests for content restrictions has actually increased under his leadership.
