Facebook and other online platforms could face steep penalties for failing to block violent video, under a new Australian law passed in the wake of the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand.
“The internet is not an ungoverned space,” Australian Attorney General Christian Porter said this week during a parliamentary debate over the legislation. “Internet platforms must take the risks posed by the spread of abhorrent violent material online seriously. The new offenses will therefore be accompanied by criminal penalties.”
Those penalties include stiff fines for offending corporations and up to three years’ imprisonment for individuals who fail “to ensure the expeditious removal of audiovisual or audiovisual material that is recorded by the perpetrator or an accomplice and that depicts specified abhorrent acts and violent conduct.”
Porter touted the law as a response to the massacre at a mosque in Christchurch last month. The suspected shooter, an apparent white supremacist and an Australian citizen, livestreamed the attack, broadcasting to the world the murder of at least 50 people.
“The material was livestreamed on Facebook and available on that platform for almost an hour and 10 minutes until the first attempts were made to take it down,” Porter said. “Simply put, we find that unacceptable.”
The bill was unveiled Monday and passed into law on Thursday, a pace that troubles even some supporters of the legislation who worry about the legislation will lead to unintended censorship.
“This bill is clumsy and flawed in many respects,” Mark Dreyfus, an opposition lawmaker, warned during the debate. “Not even New Zealand, where the Christchurch atrocity occurred, has attempted to make this change in such a short time frame.”
Porter’s team included “exemptions for violent material to be broadcast or hosted if it is used for certain purposes, including law enforcement, court proceedings, research, artistic work or journalism,” NPR noted.
