New laws that would make it illegal for social media companies to leave videos filmed by terrorists on their sites are being drafted by the Federal Government.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will meet with social media executives on Tuesday to discuss the laws, which would focus on videos filmed by perpetrators of extreme violence."If social media companies fail to demonstrate a willingness to immediately institute changes to prevent the use of their platforms, like what was filmed and shared by the perpetrators of the terrible offences in Christchurch, we will take action.
The proposed legislation would be modelled on existing laws that require social media companies to take down child exploitation material, and notify police if people upload it. The new laws would force social media companies to remove violent terrorist footage as soon as they are notified it is on their platform, and they would face escalating penalties, meaning the longer a platform allowed the content to remain on their site, the greater the punishment would be.
Ultimately if the offence was proved, individual social media executives could be found personally liable — provided they were based in Australia.
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