Australia's Parliament passed legislation on Thursday that could imprison social media executives if their platforms stream real violence such as the Christchurch mosque shootings. The law has made it a crime for social media platforms not to remove "abhorrent violent material'' quickly. Arthur Moses, president of the Australian Law Council, the nation's top lawyers group, said the law could lead to media censorship and prevent whistleblowers from using social media to shine a light on atrocities because of social media companies' fear of prosecution. Executives of Facebook, Google, Twitter, internet service providers and Australian phone companies met Prime Minister Scott Morrison and three ministers last week to discuss social media regulation. Morrison wants to take the Australian law to a Group of 20 countries forum as a model for holding social media companies to account.

Source: Stuff April 04, 2019 07:07 UTC