Australia announced on Friday that it would hold a parliamentary inquiry to look into the negative impacts of social media platforms, saying they have significant reach and control over what Australians see online, with almost no scrutiny.
The government has criticised social media platforms for not being quick enough to remove violent posts and seeks more oversight over content posted on Meta's (META.O), opens new tab Facebook, ByteDance's TikTok and Elon Musk-owned X.
"Across a range of issues, whether it be the issue of domestic violence, whether it be the radicalisation of our young people, across a range of areas, something that keeps popping up over and over again is the role of social media," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters.
"(They) can be very positive but also can have a negative influence which is there."
Albanese's Labor government is already in a legal fight with Musk's X over a regulatory order asking the platform to take down videos of the stabbing attack on an Assyrian church bishop in Sydney last month.
The government said it was still determining the terms and scope of the inquiry and did not specify who it would ask to testify. Some Australian parliamentary inquiries have powers to summon individuals to hearings.
@Mandat3PretzelsForward4wks4W
How is this even a debate? Every form of authoritarian control throughout human history has started as control "for the public good and safety."
I have to commend Musk, though. He understands what is at stake. Legacy media, including the WSJ, attacks him with regularity. I actually set my watch to the frequency of Higgins' WSJ hit pieces on Musk—more reliable than using a clock.
@LobbyistFoxNo Labels4wks4W
What do authoritarian regimes (Fascist, Marxist, Communist) all have in common? Two things:
Gun control, and censorship. In many cases, corrupt 'private' organizations willingly jump in to 'help' and 'advocate' for the repression. Media outlets tend to be the worst at assisting oppressors...while they demand freedom for themselves. Quite a paradox, eh?
Dozens of those fully gun-controlled regimes lead the world with the highest homicide rates...gun and non-gun homicides.
Dozens of those highly-censored regimes lead the world in other forms of repression, too.
@Freedom764wks4W
They also destroy the free market, all three of them. Note that, No Labels. Taxation is theft.
Australia and New Zealand are no longer open and free societies. Rather, they are woke authoritarians pretending to be free.
@Freedom764wks4W
Canada's that way as well.
The government said it was still determining the terms and scope of the inquiry and did not specify who it would ask to testify. Some Australian parliamentary inquiries have powers to summon individuals to hearings.
@ISIDEWITH4wks4W
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