Australia’s Communications Minister threatened that X (formerly Twitter) will be in “big trouble” if it does not comply with the country’s proposed new censorship laws.
The Australian Financial Review reported February 12 that Australian Communications Minister and Member of Parliament Michelle Rowland is waging a “crusade” to address a “litany of recent issues” she claimed are afflicting X. These comments come as she pushes her "proposed mis- and disinformation laws” that will impose standards on what speech will be permitted online.
The laws will enable the Australian government to impose hefty fines on social media companies that violate standards set by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. “[I]f X refuses to cooperate with an ACMA inquiry or comply with a code of conduct registered under the act, it could face fines of up to $3 million or 2 per cent of annual turnover,” The Australian Financial Review explained. “If it fails to comply with the ACMA standards, the penalty could be the greater of $7.8 million or 5 per cent of the platform’s annual turnover.”
Rowland repeatedly called out X owner Elon Musk and his platform in particular as one of the main reasons why increasingly heavy-handed measures are needed. She reportedly noted that the platform reinstated 6000 previously banned accounts and brought up sexual exploitation concerns. “They will have to [change],” she told The Australian Financial Review.
This is the Australian government’s latest enforcement of censorship in a long train of abuses that have violated the natural rights of Australians and even some non-Australians. The Twitter Files exposed that during the COVID-19 pandemic Australia’s Department of Home Affairs flagged 222 tweets for Twitter to remove. One of the flagged tweets came from British-based molecular biologist Tanya Klymenko who pointed out some of the flaws of the COVID-19 PCR test and said that COVID-19 was made in a lab.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
