Censorship: Australia Law Passes Over Free Speech As Abhorrent

[grarpamp]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/04/australia-passes-social-media-law-penalising-platforms-for-violent-content
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/s1201_first-senate/toc_pdf/1908121.pdf
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/19/04/04/0419203/australia-passes-law-to-punish-social-media-companies-for-violent-posts

Australia passed sweeping legislation Thursday that threatens huge
fines for social media companies and jail for their executives if they
fail to rapidly remove "abhorrent violent material" from their
platforms. The law puts Australia at the forefront of a global
movement. It comes less than a month after a gunman, believed to be an
Australian white nationalist, distributed a hate-filled manifesto
online before using Facebook to live-stream the massacre of 50 people
at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Written quickly and
without much input, the measure goes as far as any other democracy's
attempt to punish multinational tech platforms for the behavior of
their users. "The legislation criminalizes 'abhorrent violent
material,' which it defines as videos that show terrorist attacks,
murders, rape or kidnapping. Social media companies that fail to
remove such content 'expeditiously' could face fines of up to 10
percent of their annual profit, and employees could be sentenced to up
to three years in prison," the report adds. "Companies must also
inform the police when illegal material is found."

"This law, which was conceived and passed in five days without any
meaningful consultation, does nothing to address hate speech, which
was the fundamental motivation for the tragic Christchurch terrorist
attacks," said Sunita Bose, the managing director of the Digital
Industry Group. "With the vast volumes of content uploaded to the
internet every second, this is a highly complex problem that requires
discussion with the technology industry, legal experts, the media and
civil society to get the solution right -- that didn't happen this
week."


One cannot stop what cannot be seen.
Stop the censors you can see.