Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has issued a stern warning to social media users and platforms, after misinformation spread about the identity of the Bondi Junction stabber and angry messages sparked riots when a bishop was stabbed.
Six people were fatally stabbed during a rampage at the Westfield shopping centre in Sydney’s east on Saturday, ending only when a brave police officer shot dead attacker Joel Cauchi.
Distressing footage quickly spread via social media platforms – namely X and Facebook – prompting online witchhunts as an innocent person was falsely named as the perpetrator.
Beyond that, graphic and violent footage made its way onto newsfeeds and ‘For You’ pages across the world, prompting an intervention by the government’s e-Safety commissioner.
Similarly, footage went viral of a 16-year-old boy allegedly stabbing Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during a live-streamed sermon at the Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakely, with voice notes and Whatsapp messages inflaming the riots.
In the days since the tragedy and again on Friday, Mr Albanese slammed social media platforms for not acting quicker to protect users.
Six people were fatally stabbed during a rampage inside Westfield in Sydney ‘s east on Saturday, ending only when a brave police officer shot dead attacker Joel Cauchi
Similarly, footage went viral of a 16-year-old boy allegedly stabbing Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during a live-streamed sermon at the Christ The Good Shepherd Church
‘It shouldn’t need the eSafety commissioner to intervene to direct companies, in this case X and [Facebook owner] Meta, to take down violent videos that show people who have lost their lives as result of what occurred with the perpetrator committing that atrocity on Saturday,’ he said.
‘Social media makes all of us publishers of content, we all have a responsibility.’
The PM warned he is ‘prepared to take whatever action is necessary to haul these companies into line’.
‘We’ve made that very clear because of the damage that a failure to act can have.’
Mr Albanese said onlookers who took the video, and others who later received that footage, should have sent it to police in order to assist in the investigation, rather than posting it online.
‘I also make this point that the police made last Saturday, which is that for people who had video footage of last Saturday, their first thought should not have been to post it online.
‘Their first thought should have been to forward it to police to assist their investigations. We all have, because social media makes all of us publishers of content, we all have a responsibility.’
Mr Albanese said social media companies needed to ‘start to understand their social responsibility that they have to others as well, because that’s where they get their social licence.’
Earlier in the week, the PM described social media as a ‘scourge in many ways’.
The PM has no qualms about taking social media platforms to task – and warned he is ‘prepared to take whatever action is necessary to haul these companies into line’
Shoppers sign a condolence book during the re-opening of Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre on April 19
‘The lack of responsibility, it must be said, as well of some of the social media operators that we know about allowing content to be circulated which is clearly misinformation.’
He criticised the Seven Network for picking up misinformation – like the innocent university student who was wrongly named as the perpertrator, and running it on the news.
‘How is it that a mainstream media organisation just put that up?’ he said.
The student has a common Jewish surname, and was targeted by anti-Semetic social media pages.
Mr Albanese said traditional media outlets also had a responsibility to be accurate and fair.
The PM has made no secret of his dislike for social media.
Mourners were welcomed back into Westfield Bondi Junction on Thursday to mourn, before all stores officially re-opened on Friday
During a wide ranging interview with former Melbourne talkback host Neil Mitchell in 2023, he was asked a hypothetical question about what he’d do if he were to become a dictator.
He said banning social media ‘would be handy’.
‘Keyboard warriors who can anonymously say anything at all and without any fear; the sort of things they would never say to you face-to-face, they can just assert as fact and it worries me,’ he said.
‘What that’s doing, combined with the pressure that is on modern journalists, is to be really be obsessed with the short-term cycle.’
Mr Albanese was quick to state that, in reality, he was not ‘a supporter of dictatorships’.
Almost 500 civil servants are employed by the eSafety Commissioner and the Australian Communications and Media Authority, according to its latest annual report.
The eSafety Commissioner lauds itself as the ‘first government agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online’.
It is run by former Twitter Director of Public Policy, Australia & SE Asia, Julie Inman-Grant, who receives an annual salary of almost $445,000.
Mr Albanese said part of his government’s strong action includes quadrupling funding for the eSafety commissioner.
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