Twitter Tees Off With Veiled Criticism Of Australian Government Inquiry

Twitter Tees Off With Veiled Criticism Of Australian Government Inquiry
Andrew McKean
By Andrew McKean



Twitter has taken aim at the Australian Government during the social media inquiry into toxic online material. 

As previously reported by B&T, Twitter has already defended online anonymity as the Government pursues a hurried development of stringent social media legislation. 

But now, Twitter has come out saying that while the investigation into matters is “broad and complex” the issues being scrutinised couldn’t possibly be explored in the allocated time. 

As News.com reported, this message is a clear swipe at the Government. 

Twitter wrote, “There’s a desire to deal with the companies and issues that are most commonly in the headlines today, without sufficient consideration of how this will impact the future of the internet or where different policy objectives might be creating contradictions.”

Subsequently, Twitter requested the inquiry wait until the Online Safety Act 2021 (which is due to take effect in January) was properly implemented. 

Meta also entered into the fray, arguing that, “Policymakers should be alive to the risk of overlapping, duplicative or inconsistent rules in different laws.”

Though as per an AAP report, despite big techs concerns, anti-trolling advocates are still set to front the inquiry. 

Already anti-trolling campaigner and soon to be Sky News presenter Erin Molan has appeared before the inquiry to tell MPs how to make social media safer.

Molan herself was a victim of vicious online attacks which was in many cases perpetrated by anonymous posters. 

Foreseeably the Federal Government will continue with its plight to hold tech giants to account.

However, Twitter maintains that people are able to silence harassment with already available tools. 

Twitter also noted that in the last six months of 2020 they developed 143 million anti-spam challenges to accounts causing trouble. 




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