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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called social media a “coward’s place” where people can verbally abuse one another under the cover of anonymity and says that he is planning further action to deal with this kind of abuse online.
Prime Minister Morrison also said that the people who are allowed to write foul and offensive comments and use online platforms to vilify and harass people should be held accountable for the content that they put out.
“Social media has become a coward’s palace,” he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.
“People can just go on there, not say who they are, destroy people’s lives, and say the most foul and offensive things to people, and do so with impunity.”
The Prime Minister said that if companies do not stop people from needing to prove their identity online they would become publishers, rather than platforms.
This statement from Morrison follows after Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce called for the crackdown of social media giants after “completely and utterly fictitious” rumours about his family spread online.
The deputy prime minister slammed the multiple posts suggesting that former NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro’s retirement from politics was due to him being in a relationship with one of Joyce’s daughters.
“It’s total and utter rubbish,” Mr Joyce told ABC radio on Thursday.
He said that it is essential for Facebook and Twitter to stop people from spreading fake news online.
“From my own personal experience of recent times, you have got to get to a point where you say enough is enough,” Joyce said. “These platforms just say ‘oh well it’s too hard to control”.
“It’s not too hard for you to collect your billions of dollars from it and apparently it’s not too hard for you set up vessels to avoid tax in Australia,” he adds.
Joyce said he will be speaking to US politicians who are currently conducting a congressional inquiry that has revealed explosive allegations against the social media giant, Facebook.
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist, has told a hearing that the company was dishonest about their efforts in dismantling misinformation and has even gone as far as favouring fake news in their algorithm as it generates more income for the company.
Haugen also said that Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook in 2012, could have a toxic effect on young girls but the data was being ignored.
Facebook chief, Mark Zuckerberg, has described Haugen’s testimony as false and insists the company cares deeply about safety.
Joyce said that currently, the Australian government is pumping millions of dollars into mental health initiatives that could be seriously be damaged by social media.
“One of the greatest mechanisms of the destruction of people’s mental health is sitting on the kitchen table or in the corner of the room,” he said.
“If you go to any school and talk to any parent, this is one of the greatest fears – the destruction of their children by innuendo, by slurs.”
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher also backed these statements saying that online tech giants had gotten away with this for far too long and it is no longer acceptable to the community or government.
Fletcher suggested that Australia’s defamation laws need to be overhauled to ensure that social media giants will face the same rules followed by traditional media companies.
Defamation laws are mainly the responsibility of state and territory governments. Attorney-general’s across the country are now considering consistent reforms.
Dee Antenor is an experienced writer who specialises in the not-for-profit sector and its affiliations. She is the content producer for Third Sector News, an online knowledge-based platform for and about the Australian NFP sector.
