Move to reel in tech giants

Massacre video sparks law push

SOCIAL media giants would face huge fines for failing to remove violent and illegal content under a major crackdown being considered by the Morrison Government in the wake of the Christchurch attack.

Company executives could also face criminal convictions and websites could be barred from Australia’s network under a suite of proposals that have been flagged during highlevel meetings in recent days.

A growing number of MPs have joined calls for new laws directed at social media, after a video of the murders in New Zealand was livestreamed and shared widely on Facebook.

News Corp can reveal the Federal Government is considering enacting “world-leading” legislation to clamp down on the sharing of illegal content online.

Fines, criminal penalties, and new government powers to shut down platforms could be fast-tracked within weeks.

But the Government has not yet settled on a final policy.

The revelations come as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced her government would overhaul the country’s gun laws in the wake of the shootings at two Christchurch mosques, which killed 50 people.

It also emerged yesterday: THE gun store where accused killer Brenton Tarrant bought guns used in the massacre was still selling AK-47s and M16s. WITNESSES said still greater carnage was avoided because Tarrant didn’t find Al Noor Mosque’s female section, at the rear of the building. NEW South Wales Police have searched two addresses where Tarrant’s relatives live.

Victorian Liberal MP Jason Wood, a member of the power- ful Parliamentary Joint Committee On Intelligence and Security, said “massive fines” were the only way to clamp down on social media giants.

“They obviously have the technology to stop it straight away and choose not to.

“The only way to make them change is major, major fines,” Mr Wood said.

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, chairman of the intelligence committee, said social media platforms should not be treated differently to other broadcasters, so there should be incentives or penalties to encourage change.

Labor MP Anthony Byrne, the deputy chairman of the intelligence committee, wants new laws making executives personally responsible for content, so they would be criminally liable for failing to take timely corrective action.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz, another intelligence committee member, said social media companies should take this as a “matter of social and corporate responsibility”. But if they didn’t then the government “ought to consider a big stick approach”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday while social media companies did co-operate with requests to shut the terrorist live-stream down, they had been unable to owing to limitations.

“There needs to be the capability to shut these horrific things down,” he said.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said he would be speaking with technology companies about how they could improve the detection of dangerous content before it was shared online.

There were 1.5 million videos of the attack removed in the first 24 hours on Facebook. The company says the majority of the videos were taken down before they were uploaded, but about 300,000 were not.