Australia Threatens Social Media Laws That Could Jail Tech Execs (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Following the livestreamed New Zealand mosque shooting that left 50 dead in Christchurch, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is looking to crack down on extremist content on social media. Morrison will on Tuesday meet with Australian executives of Facebook, Twitter and Google to discuss extremist content legislation that would punish these companies' executives with jail time, the Australian Financial Review reports. Local internet service providers will also be present at the meeting.

Details of the proposed legislation aren't yet known. However, Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which applies to any company operating in the continent, showed that tech companies can change their global practices to appease local legislation. News of Morrison's meeting with tech executives comes on the same day that his government announced increased punishment for companies misusing user information. Maximum penalties for misuse of private data was raised from AU$2.1 million to AU$10 million -- or 10 percent of the company's domestic revenue, or three times the value gained from that misuse of data.

Comments

Size matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Whilst GDPR shows that tech companies can change their global practices to appease local legislation - Australia is tiny compared to Europe, so I suggest the big tech companies show the Australian Government the finger, stop providing all services into Australia, and then wait for the inevitable citizen uprising which will force the Government to retract from their stupidity.

Re:Size matters

[thereddaikon]

Read up on the East India Tea Company. Was very much an international corporation with a standing army and navy and successfully subjugated empires on its own. Their downfall only came about when they bit off more than they could chew. People look to SciFi for hypercorps like Tyrell and Wayland-Yutani that have more power than nations but they should look to the past. They existed once.

Re:Size matters

[lgw]

Read up on the East India Tea Company. Was very much an international corporation with a standing army and navy and successfully subjugated empires on its own.

Sort of. Mercantilism is hard to understand in a modern context. The East India Company was far more in bed with the government than any modern corporation, and its only because of that that it was allowed it's own armed forces. The British government saw it as a free British army/navy, and there was enormous overlap between ownership in the EIC and power in the government.

Much economics of the time was of the form "you pay the government for a monopoly (or earn it by supporting the government militarily), you make whatever money you can" and while the EIC was a bit abstracted from that, it wasn't far. While it wasn't "Lord Soandso has the salt monopoly as part of his domain granted by the Queen" it was "the EIC is granted a charter by the Queen, and Lord Soandso owns a big chunk".

Nobody reads the titles

[MBGMorden]

This doesn't make any sense to me.

Being from the US it's tempting to make a "freedom of speech" argument, however since this is Australia I won't even go down that path. Looking at it from a purely logistical standpoint - how on Earth is a company supposed to suppress LIVESTREAMS of "extremist content". Even a human reviewer won't know what's going on until sometime specific happens.

The best they could ever hope for would be to just have a really good user reporting system but even with that you're not going to stop the first group of people from seeing it. All this will do is enforced is basically to make tech companies simply not allow livestreaming. And heck even outside of livestreaming for something like Youtube they can't possibly human review all uploaded content to know if it's against the rules.

To me, whether there's nefarious motive behind it or sincerely good intentions, this seems like a governmental push to get us back to the 1950's era of curated content only coming from official sources, rather than people actually sharing information among themselves.

Re: Nobody reads the titles

[Anonymous Coward]

^^ Parent has hit the nail on the head.
Govts HATE the loss of media control and will jump on any excuse to seize it back.

Re:Nobody reads the titles

[MBGMorden]

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety".

I don't buy into the "maybe we don't need livestreams" argument. The free and open exchange of information and ideas is paramount to a free society. Restricting that speech is a crime far greater than any terrorist could hope to achieve.

Re:Nobody reads the titles

[penandpaper]

Remember, you can still setup your own server and host your own livestream

Up until your hosting providers cuts you off. Or until you are de-indexed. Or your payment processor cuts you off. Or your bank refuses your business.

What we have learned is that it doesn't matter if it is "your own ". Harpies will form a mob until that person/entity/idea is gone from the internet and destitute in meat space.

At what point is it of similar burden to create your own phone network to make a phone call to your neighbor than it is to air a controversial opinion online? Why is it acceptable for "nazi's" to speak hate speech on a phone line and not the internet?

Stupid politicians

[pete6677]

Yay, another politician looking to make a name for themselves by regulating something they have no understanding of. What could go wrong?

well sure

[cascadingstylesheet]

Infidel beheadings, of course, will continue to be broadcast unimpeded ...