CANBERRA/SYDNEY – Australia's top-ranking intelligence official and police officer have accused social media companies of fuelling misinformation and extremism.
Director-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Mike Burgess and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw on Wednesday urged social media companies to do more to crack down on extremism and track criminals.
Technology is not above the rule of law, they said in a joint speech to the National Press Club in Canberra, warning that artificial intelligence will make radicalization easier and faster.
READ MORE: Aussie PM calls X's fight against removal of church stabbing posts 'extraordinary'
Australians on the open and dark web are being exposed to extremist poison that social media companies are refusing to snuff out, said Kershaw. "Instead of putting out the embers that start on their platforms, their indifference and defiance is pouring accelerant on the flames."
Targeting individuals is a regular strategy of Musk as he goes after governments which try to exert more oversight of content on social media
The speech comes as the federal government is engaged in a dispute with X, formerly known as Twitter, over footage of a stabbing at a Sydney church earlier in April that the Australian Federal Police labeled as an act of terrorism.
The Federal Court of Australia on Monday issued X with a two-day injunction to remove the footage for all users globally after the platform initially responded to an order to do so from the eSafety Commissioner by blocking the content for Australian users only.
In March, the commissioner warned social media companies that they would face fines worth tens of millions of dollars if they failed to remove terrorist, violent extremism, and child abuse content.
Musk targets senator, gun laws
Escalating his battle over the court order to remove the stabbing footage, Elon Musk said an Australian senator Jacqui Lambie should be jailed and suggested the country's gun laws were meant to stop resistance against its "fascist government”.
On Tuesday, Lambie, an independent senator for the small island state of Tasmania, deleted her X account to protest against the publication of the footage and urged other politicians to do the same, saying Musk had "no social conscience or conscience whatsoever". She added Musk should be jailed.
When an unnamed X user posted overnight that it was Lambie who "should be in jail for censoring free speech on X", Musk replied to his 181 million followers, "Absolutely. She is an enemy of the people of Australia".
A representative for Lambie declined to comment.
ALSO READ: Musk decries Australian court 'censorship' of X terror posts
Targeting individuals is a regular strategy of Musk, the world's third-wealthiest person, as he goes after governments that try to exert more oversight of content on social media.
In Brazil, Musk has been singling out a judge who told X to block some accounts as part of an investigation into digital militias, calling him a "dictator".
Musk widened his attacks on Australia, including promoting a post from an unnamed but verified X user which said the country "disarmed all of their citizens in 1996 so that they cannot resist their fascist government", a reference to a gun buy-back and registration scheme after the country's worst mass shooting. Musk responded with an exclamation mark.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neill said social media companies created "civil division, social unrest ... and we're not seeing a skerrick of responsibility taken".
"Instead, we're seeing megalomaniacs like Elon Musk going to court to fight for the right to show alleged terrorist content on his platform," she added.
X and Musk have said they had complied with the temporary takedown order but would appeal it. The footage remained visible on X in Australia on Wednesday.
