Elon Musk and the Australian government agree on at least one point: their verbal jousting need not be disturbed by pretensions of decorum. On Friday, September 13, Public Services Minister Bill Shorten accused the owner of the social network “more positions than the Kama-sutra has.” The day before, the billionaire had described Australian decision-makers in a post as “fascists”. Nothing less.
The tone rose after Canberra introduced a bill on September 12 to combat disinformation. The bill provides that Australia will impose fines of up to 5% of its annual turnover on internet platforms if they fail to prevent the spread of fake news online. This initiative aims to protect public health, citizen security and the integrity of elections. The next legislative elections are due to be held at the end of May 2025.
Evoking a “social responsibility” networks, Labor government leader Anthony Albanese said on Saturday: “If Mr. Musk doesn’t understand this, it says more about him than it does about my government.” Immediate response from the billionaire: “Far-left fascists love censorship.”
During the last Australian federal election – a referendum held in October 2023 to ask voters to decide on the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, through the creation of an advisory body, and where the “no” vote had emerged victorious – the wildest rumours had spread on social media, sowing fear and doubt among citizens. In just a few months of campaigning, public opinion had changed.
“Preserve a certain degree of social cohesion”
“Obviously, this is not the only factor that explains the results of the referendum, far from it, but these platforms certainly have an impact.” says Terry Flew, professor of communication and digital culture at the University of Sydney. “It is interesting to note that, in this law, the determining factor is not whether the information is factual or not, but whether it causes harm or not to a part of the community. These measures should therefore not be seen as an attempt to police the truth, so to speak, but rather as a means of preserving a certain degree of social cohesion in the face of often highly polarized online environments.adds the academic.
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