Australia Threatens Twitter with Fine Over Hate Speech

Facts

• Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant announced Thursday that a legal notice has been sent to Twitter demanding details about how the Elon Musk-owned social media platform enforces its policies concerning hateful conduct.¹
• The company has been told to respond to the regulator within 28 days or potentially face daily fines of up to A$700K (over US$475K) for as long as the breach continues.²
• Commissioner Grant claimed that failures in content moderation had "emboldened" users to spread hate on Twitter, reporting that one-third of all complaints received about online hate are happening on the platform.³
• Since purchasing Twitter for $44B in October, Musk has championed free speech and brought back some 62K banned or suspended users while slashing the workforce by 80%, including staff in trust and safety teams.⁴
• Grant previously expressed concerns that the deep cuts would leave the company unable to comply with Australian laws, as the country has led the global drive in regulating social media platforms.⁵
• According to eSafety research, nearly 1 in 5 Australians have experienced online hate. Those identifying as LGBTQ+, disabled, and First Nations Australians reportedly face online hate at double the rate of the rest of the population.⁶

Sources: ¹Washington Post, ²BBC News, ³Sky News, ⁴Forbes, ⁵Al Jazeera, and ⁶Business Insider.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by BBC News. While moderation is still happening on Twitter, there is plenty of evidence that hate speech is on the rise under Elon Musk's leadership. Neo-Nazi users and QAnon conspiracy theorists have been reinstated on the platform, and there has been an unmatched surge in anti-Semitic tweets and slurs as well as increased activity in accounts affiliated with the Islamic State.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by American Spectator. Media and political elites around the world have long indicated that they would target Elon Musk if he worked to establish Twitter as a free-speech platform and roll back Orwellian content-moderation policies. All this talk about moderating undefinable 'hate speech' and tackling misinformation is merely the woke establishment trying to censor those who do not align with its views.

Predictions