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Multibillionaire Elon Musk has labelled the Australian government “fascists” over the country’s proposed law to crack down on social media misinformation.
The legislation, yet to be passed in parliament, allows for fining social media companies up to five per cent of their annual revenues if they fail to take steps to “manage the risk that misinformation and disinformation on digital communications platforms poses in Australia”.
“Misinformation and disinformation pose a serious threat to the safety and well-being of Australians as well as to our democracy, society and economy,” Australia’s communication minister Michelle Rowland said.
“Doing nothing”, he added, is “not an option”.
The proposed law seeks to hold social media companies like Facebook, X, and TikTok accountable for harmful misinformation posted on their platforms.
The Australian government said the bill aims to make the platforms more transparent about how they handle misinformation.
Mr Musk, who owns X, responded to the news about the proposed law with a single word: “fascists”.
Australian politicians were quick to slam the comment.
Stephen Jones, assistant treasurer, told ABC News that Australia has the right to introduce its own laws to protect its “sovereignty”.
“This is crackpot stuff. It really is crackpot stuff,” he said of Mr Musk’s statement.
“We assert our right to pass laws which will keep Australians safe – safe from scammers, safe from criminals, and, for the life of me, I can’t see how Elon Musk or anyone else, in the name of free speech, thinks it is OK to have social media platforms publishing scam content,” Mr Jones said.
“Normal laws around false or misleading statements in the conduct of business apply everywhere except on the internet. That’s absurd.”
X did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.
Former Labour party leader Bill Shorten claimed that Mr Musk is not consistent in his views on free speech.
“Elon Musk has more positions on our free speech than the Kama Sutra,” he said.
“When it’s in his commercial interests, he’s the champion of free speech, when he doesn’t like it, he’s going to shut it all down,” he said.
Mr Musk has been in a confrontation with the Australian government over its stance on the responsibility of platforms to tackle online misinformation.
He earlier accused Australia of censorship after a judge directed X to block posts on the violent stabbing of a bishop in Sydney.
X had initially blocked posts about the stabbing for Australian users, but they were available elsewhere.
But the country’s online watchdog, the eSafety Commission, successfully applied to a federal court for a temporary global ban on the sharing of a video of the stabbing.
X said it would fight the court order to take down the posts globally.
Anthony Albanese responded to Mr Musk’s move calling him an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law”.
“The idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out-of-touch Mr Musk is,” the prime minister said.
The watchdog dropped the legal battle to have X remove the posts in June, citing “cost” as the key factor.
