Political leaders up for a fight with billionaire tech giants over misinformation and violent content online

Politicians from across the aisle say they want tougher sanctions on social media companies to curb the spread of misinformation and violent content online.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton left the door open to supporting the government’s second attempt at misinformation laws, but only if they struck the right balance.

“We are happy to have a look at anything that the government puts forward,” Mr Dutton told Sky News.

“We don’t want to impinge on your ability to express a view in a democracy. It’s a key fundamental element of who we are that people express their views, but they need to do it respectfully,” he said.

Elon Musk-owned X has vowed to “robustly challenge” orders from Australia’s e-safety regulator to remove posts relating to an alleged knife attack made against Mar Mari Emmanuel at Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley on Monday night.

The social media giant said the demands risked global censorship after it was threatened with daily fines of up to $785,000 AUD if it failed to comply.

Federal Labor frontbencher Murray Watt said the public were fed up with tech giants ignoring the rule of law and argued they had a social responsibility to their millions of users.

“Quite frankly, I think the public’s had a gutful of these narcissistic billionaires who think that they are above the law,” Senator Watt told Sky News on Sunday.

“They have a responsibility as producers and disseminators of information to do the right thing for the public.

“They make a lot of money off the public, billions of dollars a year, and I think they owe us all a responsibility and they should comply with the laws like everyone else does.”

Mr Dutton said social media companies viewed themselves as “above to law” and vowed to back efforts to strengthen existing online safety laws.

“The fact is that X and Meta and other companies have a presence here. They literally turn over billions of dollars worth of revenue in the Australian economy and I think what they’re worried about is the flow onto other markets if Australia’s laws are upheld,” he said.

“That’s all the more reason for us to take a stance. It’s important for us but for other democracies as well.”

Calls to enforce tougher penalties on tech companies have grown after distressing images of the live-streamed stabbing of a Christian bishop and a knife attack in Bondi Junction two days earlier have been widely accessed across social media sites.

The unrelated incidents have sparked debate about the spread of misinformation after false claims about each attacker’s motive and identity rapidly circulated online.

In the aftermath, the federal government has reaffirmed to push on with new online safety legislation, introducing it to parliament later this year.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said the Coalition’s support for the new laws depended on the contents and structure of the Bill.

“What we don’t want is a situation where the government sets up some regulator that has little control over removing that type of violent content, but ends up sitting in judgement about whether or not what people say in a political debate … is true or not,” he said.

“If the government can get the balance right, listen to and get the wave of criticism, and then get that right with strong powers in relation to social media companies held to account, that would be a positive step forward.”