Australia puts Twitter on notice for hate speech content

[Spotty]

Summary

The Australian eSafety Commissioner has put Twitter on notice regarding hate comments (racism, homophobia, etc) on the platform after a rise in reports relating to hate content since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter in October 2022.

 

Twitter is obligated to respond to the notice within 28 days explaining what their plan is to deal with hateful content on its platform. If Twitter fails to respond they will face fines of $700,000 AUD (approximately $475,000 USD) per day until they respond.

 

Quotes

Quote

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has issued a legal notice to Twitter seeking information about what the social media giant is doing to tackle online hate on the platform. 
 

eSafety received more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past 12 months than any other platform and has received an increasing number of reports of serious online abuse since Elon Musk’s takeover of the company in October, 2022.  
 

The rise in complaints also coincides with a slashing of Twitter’s global workforce from 8,000 employees to 1,500 including in its trust and safety teams, coupled with ending its public policy presence in Australia. 
 

This is at the same time a ‘general amnesty’ was announced by Musk in November, which reportedly saw 62,000 banned or suspended users reinstated to the platform, including 75 accounts with over 1 million followers. 

 

The eSafety Commissioner also stated that Twitter is an 'absolute bin fire' and that Twitter is not enforcing its own site rules and reports suggest Twitter is giving special treatment to Twitter blue paid subscribers who break the platforms rules.

Quote

“Twitter has always been fiery in terms of discourse, but it’s turned into an absolute bin fire,” she said.

Inman Grant said Twitter’s policies prohibited hateful conduct on the platform but rising complaints to eSafety and reports of the toxic content remaining on the platform showed that Twitter was probably not enforcing its own rules.

[...]

The CCDH also found that those paying for a Twitter blue tick seemed to enjoy a level of impunity when it came to the enforcement of Twitter’s rules governing online hate, compared with non-paying users – and even had their tweets boosted by the platform’s algorithms.

 

 

My thoughts

The eSafety commission seems to be laying blame on the changes made at Twitter after Elon Musks takeover, including pointing blame on the sacking of thousands of Twitter employees in the trust and safety team as well as Musk's decision to unban thousands of accounts. You can't solely blame Musk for Twitter being a hateful, toxic platform - but it sure seems like he's made things worse.

 

This notice really just requests Twitter to provide details for what they plan to do to tackle hate speech on the platform. I'd be curious what will happen if they deem Twitter's response unsatisfactory? Twitter will probably just wait 27 days and then give some pathetic response on what they 'plan' to do and then never actually follow through with it. I don't believe Australia's eSafety commissioner has any actual powers to compel Twitter to make changes.

 

Now that Musk has stepped down from CEO and Linda Yaccarino has taken the position maybe Twitter will start rolling back some of the changes Musk made.

 

Sources

https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/esafety-demands-answers-from-twitter-about-how-its-tackling-online-hate (press release from the eSafety Commissioners office)

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/22/australias-esafety-umpire-issues-legal-warning-to-twitter-amid-rise-in-online-hate

Edited June 22, 2023 by Spotty

[emosun]

This just in , Australia notices that twitter is a terrible place more at 11

[Kisai]

10 minutes ago, Spotty said:

 

 

Now that Musk has stepped down from CEO and Linda Yaccarino has taken the position maybe Twitter will start rolling back some of the changes Musk made.

 

They should roll back to where Twitter was on Nov 29 2021. Just UNDO everything that's happened since Dorsey left. The site wasn't perfect then either, but the site was at least not a "bin fire". That said, Dorsey was a cryptobro and probably would have driven Twitter into the ground had the rug not been pulled out from under cryptocurrencies in 2021. Enter cryptobro Elon Musk, the sucker to be left holding the bag.

 

Cryptocurrencies are now very dead, and it took Elon buying Twitter only to wreck it in days. Turns out Elon was just a big idiot who finally had to pay for opening his big mouth.

 

At any rate, basically the result is that Twitter is going to get "myspace'd" out of existence once everyone decides they would rather the awful user experience of Mastodon, or deal with Dorsey again with bluesky.

 

Or you know, nope the hell out of social media, which would be healthier.

[VanayadGaming]

I don't know what they are talking about. The stats show that the hateful speech content has been lower, and that CP/bot spam is at an all time low compared to what it was before. Is there room for improvement? Yes. Is it better than it was before? Also yes.

[PDifolco]

I don't even use Twitter nor care of what it's in, but this furiously look like some Orwellian political control over speech

The "eSafety" Grand Inquisitor isn't even giving any real facts ...

[Taf the Ghost]

Normally they use German authorities to do this type of side moderation. Guess someone wanted to use Australia this time, though they've been trying to use them to back channel stuff in the last 5 years on the regular.

 

While I'm not Musk fan, it took until he bought the place and firing most of "Trust & Safety" for them to remove a lot of the very illegal content. 

 

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, VanayadGaming said:

I don't know what they are talking about. The stats show that the hateful speech content has been lower, and that CP/bot spam is at an all time low compared to what it was before. Is there room for improvement? Yes. Is it better than it was before? Also yes.

What's the source that hate speech is lower since Musk's takeover and what statistic is it based on? Is that based on the number of accounts Twitter has banned for hate speech?

 

If the number of people banned for hate speech has dropped since Musk's takeover it might not represent less hate speech on the platform. It just represents fewer people being banned for hate speech. If Twitter has been failing to act to remove hate speech from its platform since Musk's takeover it wouldn't be surprising if fewer accounts have been banned for hate speech. That might be the problem - the people posting hate speech aren't being banned.

 

Twitter could have also redefined their definition of hate speech since Musk's takeover which excludes a lot of content that might have previously been considered by Twitter to be hate speech. That might also be why fewer people are being banned for hate speech (if that is the case) and why Twitter isn't removing content it would have previously removed, which could also be why there's been a rise in complaints.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Spotty

[PDifolco]

37 minutes ago, Spotty said:

What's the source that hate speech is lower since Musk's takeover and what statistic is it based on? Is that based on the number of accounts Twitter has banned for hate speech?

 

If the number of people banned for hate speech has dropped since Musk's takeover it might not represent less hate speech on the platform. It just represents fewer people being banned for hate speech. If Twitter has been failing to act to remove hate speech from its platform since Musk's takeover it wouldn't be surprising if fewer accounts have been banned for hate speech. That's might be the problem - the people posting hate speech aren't being banned.

 

Twitter could have also redefined their definition of hate speech since Musk's takeover which excludes a lot of content that might have previously been considered by Twitter to be hate speech. That might also be why fewer people are being banned for hate speech (if that is the case) and why Twitter isn't removing content it would have previously removed, which could also be why there's been a rise in complaints.

I think everything is now measured by "how medias report random dudes being offended by posts"  

 

[Serin]

Good on us

[SeriousDad69]

Realistically, why does Australia think they can do this? Does Twitter have employees or business assets located there? Just tell them to f-off, Australia isn't an important enough market to warrant paying that much or reducing freedom of speech for.

It's like some states in the US are trying to defacto ban adult websites by making users upload their ID to gain access, all it did was make google searches for "VPN" in those states multiply overnight.

[Brooksie359]

How would they realistically fine twitter that much money everyday? I mean I don't think twitter has any assets in Australia. I mean is every company now accountable to any country that has an issue with how they are run and can just fine them whenever they feel like it?

[SeriousDad69]

2 hours ago, PDifolco said:

I don't even use Twitter nor care of what it's in, but this furiously look like some Orwellian political control over speech

The "eSafety" Grand Inquisitor isn't even giving any real facts ...

It's pretty crazy what you can get arrested just for saying in the anglo countries that aren't America. Universal freedom of speech is definitely something that the people that have it take for granted.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

What's the source that hate speech is lower since Musk's takeover and what statistic is it based on? Is that based on the number of accounts Twitter has banned for hate speech?

 

If the number of people banned for hate speech has dropped since Musk's takeover it might not represent less hate speech on the platform. It just represents fewer people being banned for hate speech. If Twitter has been failing to act to remove hate speech from its platform since Musk's takeover it wouldn't be surprising if fewer accounts have been banned for hate speech. That might be the problem - the people posting hate speech aren't being banned.

 

Twitter could have also redefined their definition of hate speech since Musk's takeover which excludes a lot of content that might have previously been considered by Twitter to be hate speech. That might also be why fewer people are being banned for hate speech (if that is the case) and why Twitter isn't removing content it would have previously removed, which could also be why there's been a rise in complaints.

I do think twitter has redefined hate speech because Elon thought it was a bit too broad which in some instances I sorta agree. Then again I am from the US where we have a much broader freedom of speech than alot of other countries and is more guaranteed. Still if they are seeing legitimate hate speech on Twitter I wouldn't be surprised at all seeing as it's an online town Square and people oj Twitter are generally unhinged which is why I stay away from the platform. 

[PDifolco]

3 hours ago, emosun said:

This just in , Australia notices that twitter is a terrible place more at 11

Or maybe Twitter noticed Australia became a terrible place  

[Spotty]

43 minutes ago, SeriousDad69 said:

Realistically, why does Australia think they can do this? Does Twitter have employees or business assets located there? Just tell them to f-off, Australia isn't an important enough market to warrant paying that much or reducing freedom of speech for.

 

34 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

How would they realistically fine twitter that much money everyday? I mean I don't think twitter has any assets in Australia. I mean is every company now accountable to any country that has an issue with how they are run and can just fine them whenever they feel like it?

I'm not entirely sure to be honest.

Twitter has an Australian subsidiary they use for conducting business in Australia. I believe they shut down their Australian offices last year and later fired most of the Australian based staff when Musk took over though. They sell advertisement opportunities to Australian businesses and they also sell Twitter blue subscriptions to Australian users. The government could possibly seize assets from Twitter Australia if they refused to pay their fines, though I think that would be extremely unlikely. As far as I know all Twitter has to do is formally reply to the notice within 28 days. Really should be no reason they don't reply, I don't foresee Twitter actually ignoring it and being fined.

 

I must admit I'm not actually sure what the specific laws are in Australia regarding hate speech on social media sites like Twitter and what obligations those companies have to prevent & remove it. 

 

52 minutes ago, SeriousDad69 said:

Just tell them to f-off, Australia isn't an important enough market to warrant paying that much or reducing freedom of speech for.

Would it really be reducing free speech if they're just talking about Twitter enforcing the rules on the platform that Twitter themselves set? My understanding is the type of content the Australian eSafety Commission is complaining about is content that is already against Twitter's rules. The problem is Twitter isn't enforcing those rules to a satisfactory extent.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

 

I'm not entirely sure to be honest.

Twitter has an Australian subsidiary they use for conducting business in Australia. I believe they shut down their Australian offices last year and later fired most of the Australian based staff when Musk took over though. They sell advertisement opportunities to Australian businesses and they also sell Twitter blue subscriptions to Australian users. The government could possibly seize assets from Twitter Australia if they refused to pay their fines, though I think that would be extremely unlikely. As far as I know all Twitter has to do is formally reply to the notice within 28 days. Really should be no reason they don't reply, I don't foresee Twitter actually ignoring it and being fined.

 

I must admit I'm not actually sure what the specific laws are in Australia regarding hate speech on social media sites like Twitter and what obligations those companies have to prevent & remove it. 

 

Would it really be reducing free speech if they're just talking about Twitter enforcing the rules on the platform that Twitter themselves set? My understanding is the type of content the Australian eSafety Commission is complaining about is content that is already against Twitter's rules. The problem is Twitter isn't enforcing those rules to a satisfactory extent.

I guess my question would be what if those weren't twitters rules? I mean I guess they wouldn't be able to work in Australia because they don't conform to their laws would be my guess. I would say that if twitter only has to reply then yeah they are going to do so but the real question is what comes after. I mean what if Australia doesn't like the answer? I would imagine that the Australian market might not be big enough to justify bending over backwards to please them and they could potentially just pull out of Australia if they are being forced too much. I mean it does seem a bit arbitrary as to how much hate speech slipping through the moderation team is too much. It's not like twitter wasn't bad prior to Elons takeover so it seems odd that they would be so surprised when they find hate speech as its unrealistic to think all hate speech will get removed especially if Australia's definition of hate speech is different than twitters. 

[wanderingfool2]

50 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Would it really be reducing free speech if they're just talking about Twitter enforcing the rules on the platform that Twitter themselves set? My understanding is the type of content the Australian eSafety Commission is complaining about is content that is already against Twitter's rules. The problem is Twitter isn't enforcing those rules to a satisfactory extent.

Based on the article, it seems as though they based the inquiry on the number of complaints they received.  I'm assuming Twitters response is going to be along the lines that actual hate speech is less visible as a whole than it was prior to that point; which may or may not be true, but one does have to note that the reports of all the hate speech increases and stats started the moment he purchased the company...before even his "changes" were even mentioned.

 

The issue I have with some of the studies they cited though is the methodology they used to pertain the numbers; and what constitutes as "hate speech".  I mean strictly speaking in the last WAN show at the 17:40 could be classified as hate speech based on what I've seen as some of the example tweets CCDH reported, (ie classifying anyone who had a moustache as a sex offender and it's clear at least one person was offended by it).

 

At least the CCDH in one of the studies they did reported "hate" tweets (majority of their example tweets were hate tweets, others are somewhat marginal), their approach was reporting and waiting 4 days to see what happened.  Speaking from experience, Twitter even before would rarely react within 4 days.  There's even the case before Musk bought it where the department of homeland security had to get involved before they took down CSAM.

 

I don't deny that there is hate speech, and there is a good chance it might have increased as well; but I think the simple analytics they are using isn't necessarily a good indication...if lets say you have 10 hate speech tweets that gets 10,000,000 impressions total, but 10,000 hate speech tweets that get 10,000 total impressions; under the way things appear to be collected currently Twitter would fair less favorably for having 10,000 tweets than the 10 tweets but in a practical sense the 10 tweets had more impact.

 

 

On a side note, maybe it's just me, but at least in my feed has had a drastic down tick in terms of outright porn type of content on as I'm just scrolling through my feed.  It annoyed me before that I couldn't scroll through my feed in public before simply because it seemed ads with see through shirts or other things like that would pop into my feed.  After a few months, it's settled to the point where it's a very rare occurrence now.

[Sauron]

5 hours ago, Spotty said:

This notice really just requests Twitter to provide details for what they plan to do to tackle hate speech on the platform. I'd be curious what will happen if they deem Twitter's response unsatisfactory? Twitter will probably just wait 27 days and then give some pathetic response on what they 'plan' to do and then never actually follow through with it. I don't believe Australia's eSafety commissioner has any actual powers to compel Twitter to make changes.

Well, they could obscure the site in Australia. It's already expected the EU will do so eventually since in its current state Twitter is simply not able to comply with their requirements.

4 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

It's not like twitter wasn't bad prior to Elons takeover so it seems odd that they would be so surprised when they find hate speech as its unrealistic to think all hate speech will get removed especially if Australia's definition of hate speech is different than twitters. 

All they're asking is for twitter to try, which it used to do and is no longer able to both due to musk's policy changes and due to the mass layoffs.

1 minute ago, wanderingfool2 said:

one does have to note that the reports of all the hate speech increases and stats started the moment he purchased the company...before even his "changes" were even mentioned

Look at it another way... after the purchase a bunch of people thought they couldn't get banned for hate speech any more so they started posting hate speech, unaware that the policies would still be in place at that point. Right now visibility on the site can simply be bought so the idea that it's less visible now is laughable. Musk himself seems incapable of going a whole day without personally retweeting hate speech...

4 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

On a side note, maybe it's just me, but at least in my feed has had a drastic down tick in terms of outright porn type of content on as I'm just scrolling through my feed.  It annoyed me before that I couldn't scroll through my feed in public before simply because it seemed ads with see through shirts or other things like that would pop into my feed.  After a few months, it's settled to the point where it's a very rare occurrence now.

Porn is not hate speech... and since as far as I know there's no specific new policy I'll attribute the reduction in porn ads to the fact that advertisers on the site in general have drastically decreased since Musk's takeover because they no longer want to be associated with what goes on on the platform.

[Kisai]

6 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Porn is not hate speech... and since as far as I know there's no specific new policy I'll attribute the reduction in porn ads to the fact that advertisers on the site in general have drastically decreased since Musk's takeover because they no longer want to be associated with what goes on on the platform.

Consensual porn is not hate speech. Non-con NSFW and certain adult themes (such as mind-control/hypnosis, vampires, children/babies/animals present in any context) cause companies like VISA have a fit and they will threaten the site's access to merchant services.

 

So it's VISA and the advertisers who want to chase NSFW material off the internet. If it's not the most boring vanilla porn ever, VISA will have a reason to kill the site hosting it. Advertisers won't advertise on anything that shows cleavage or buttocks, or if the content contains any offensive language, even if the person who used the word or term was oblivious to it's offensive nature.

 

[Brooksie359]

19 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Based on the article, it seems as though they based the inquiry on the number of complaints they received.  I'm assuming Twitters response is going to be along the lines that actual hate speech is less visible as a whole than it was prior to that point; which may or may not be true, but one does have to note that the reports of all the hate speech increases and stats started the moment he purchased the company...before even his "changes" were even mentioned.

 

The issue I have with some of the studies they cited though is the methodology they used to pertain the numbers; and what constitutes as "hate speech".  I mean strictly speaking in the last WAN show at the 17:40 could be classified as hate speech based on what I've seen as some of the example tweets CCDH reported, (ie classifying anyone who had a moustache as a sex offender and it's clear at least one person was offended by it).

 

At least the CCDH in one of the studies they did reported "hate" tweets (majority of their example tweets were hate tweets, others are somewhat marginal), their approach was reporting and waiting 4 days to see what happened.  Speaking from experience, Twitter even before would rarely react within 4 days.  There's even the case before Musk bought it where the department of homeland security had to get involved before they took down CSAM.

 

I don't deny that there is hate speech, and there is a good chance it might have increased as well; but I think the simple analytics they are using isn't necessarily a good indication...if lets say you have 10 hate speech tweets that gets 10,000,000 impressions total, but 10,000 hate speech tweets that get 10,000 total impressions; under the way things appear to be collected currently Twitter would fair less favorably for having 10,000 tweets than the 10 tweets but in a practical sense the 10 tweets had more impact.

 

 

On a side note, maybe it's just me, but at least in my feed has had a drastic down tick in terms of outright porn type of content on as I'm just scrolling through my feed.  It annoyed me before that I couldn't scroll through my feed in public before simply because it seemed ads with see through shirts or other things like that would pop into my feed.  After a few months, it's settled to the point where it's a very rare occurrence now.

Honestly I remember they had said that the way they deal with hate speech was not deleting but rather suppressing it so nobody sees it. I think one issue might be that because their paid subscribers get their tweets pushed in the algorithm it might make hate speech that was supposed to be suppressed might get pushed instead. 

[Brooksie359]

17 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Consensual porn is not hate speech. Non-con NSFW and certain adult themes (such as mind-control/hypnosis, vampires, children/babies/animals present in any context) cause companies like VISA have a fit and they will threaten the site's access to merchant services.

 

So it's VISA and the advertisers who want to chase NSFW material off the internet. If it's not the most boring vanilla porn ever, VISA will have a reason to kill the site hosting it. Advertisers won't advertise on anything that shows cleavage or buttocks, or if the content contains any offensive language, even if the person who used the word or term was oblivious to it's offensive nature.

 

Wait what is the problem with vampires? I mean I am not a fan of twilight as much as the next guy but that seems like a weird distinction. 

[Dirtyshado]

2 hours ago, SeriousDad69 said:

Realistically, why does Australia think they can do this? Does Twitter have employees or business assets located there? Just tell them to f-off, Australia isn't an important enough market to warrant paying that much or reducing freedom of speech for.

Because they can, cause there are laws, they are not optional.

 

Because the last time Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Valve, Sony, Bethesda, Amazon any of those tech companies claimed "We are American, we don't abide by your laws"... they learn very quickly that Australian laws are written different to US laws. They can't use terms of service to circumvent law. That despite the whinging and moaning, the companies know its easy to comply with Australia law, but hold out to the last possible second to see if they can lobby and deal for a weakening of the law.  

 

In the end the tech companies are bluffing, we Australians know it, cause even a small market share is not something you sacrifice after 10-15 years, you will basically be surrendering those users to your competitors.   The cost of complying with an Australian law is not worth the lose in revenue, and it opens a floodgate of issues in the future. 

 

Its also a huge risk if other countries (or companies) see Twitter do it, they might just think... "Its really that easy to get rid of Twitter, and do it out of spite!", you saw how quick Silicon Valley jumped on the US congress the second they got a whiff Tik Tok could get banned.  I can imagine Facebook use third party lobbying of the EU Government to get Twitter banned for breach EU Social Media laws. 

 

And despite the idea that "Freedom of the Speech" is an excuse to say whatever whenever without consequence... the United States of America and all those Tech Companies signed mutual binding agreements saying they will reduce hate speech, violence, abuse, and terrorism on the internet. (I believe Twitter is under an agreement with the FCC to comply with similar US tech laws, or face huge fines for previous breeches)

[wanderingfool2]

18 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Look at it another way... after the purchase a bunch of people thought they couldn't get banned for hate speech any more so they started posting hate speech, unaware that the policies would still be in place at that point. Right now visibility on the site can simply be bought so the idea that it's less visible now is laughable. Musk himself seems incapable of going a whole day without personally retweeting hate speech...

Visibility can be bought to a certain extent.  Hateful comments can still be flagged, hateful comments can still be essentially shadow banned.

 

Just now, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly I remember they had said that the way they deal with hate speech was not deleting but rather suppressing it so nobody sees it. I think one issue might be that because their paid subscribers get their tweets pushed in the algorithm it might make hate speech that was supposed to be suppressed might get pushed instead. 

But a question becomes have there been studies involving that with published numbers?  That's the issue, that from what I've seen the majority are just basing it on Tweets, instead of also looking at analytics.

 

24 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Porn is not hate speech... and since as far as I know there's no specific new policy I'll attribute the reduction in porn ads to the fact that advertisers on the site in general have drastically decreased since Musk's takeover because they no longer want to be associated with what goes on on the platform.

It wasn't just the ads though, it was in general promoted tweets etc, it's why I mentioned side note.  Also the whole advertisers who dropped Twitter were the major brands, the ones that showed see through tops and things like that I doubt really cared about it (plus they didn't go away immediately)  While it's not hate speech, the whole general lack of action I think speaks volumes to what it was like before on Twitter.  CCDH gave a total of 4 days of reporting a tweet to conclude that Twitter Blue subscribers were "immune".  I mentioned this in a Twitter thread well prior as well, but I waited over 6 months before finally giving up in regards to a tweet that was worse than some of the examples CCDH gave.

 

8 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Wait what is the problem with vampires? I mean I am not a fan of twilight as much as the next guy but that seems like a weird distinction. 

Maybe some term that means something else?

 

[Brooksie359]

12 minutes ago, Dirtyshado said:

Because they can, cause there are laws, they are not optional.

 

Because the last time Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Valve, Sony, Bethesda, Amazon any of those tech companies claimed "We are American, we don't abide by your laws"... they learn very quickly that Australian laws are written different to US laws. They can't use terms of service to circumvent law. That despite the whinging and moaning, the companies know its easy to comply with Australia law, but hold out to the last possible second to see if they can lobby and deal for a weakening of the law.  

 

In the end the tech companies are bluffing, we Australians know it, cause even a small market share is not something you sacrifice after 10-15 years, you will basically be surrendering those users to your competitors.   The cost of complying with an Australian law is not worth the lose in revenue, and it opens a floodgate of issues in the future. 

 

Its also a huge risk if other countries (or companies) see Twitter do it, they might just think... "Its really that easy to get rid of Twitter, and do it out of spite!", you saw how quick Silicon Valley jumped on the US congress the second they got a whiff Tik Tok could get banned.  I can imagine Facebook use third party lobbying of the EU Government to get Twitter banned for breach EU Social Media laws. 

 

And despite the idea that "Freedom of the Speech" is an excuse to say whatever whenever without consequence... the United States of America and all those Tech Companies signed mutual binding agreements saying they will reduce hate speech, violence, abuse, and terrorism on the internet. (I believe Twitter is under an agreement with the FCC to comply with similar US tech laws, or face huge fines for previous breeches)

Us tech laws doesn't say anything about hate speech as hate speech is not illegal in the US. The other things you referred to are illegal so to lump them together is weird as I am pretty sure there wouldn't be any need to sign an agreement when the laws on the book require those to be moderated in good faith. That being said tech companies have the right to moderate hate speech without being considered a publisher so maybe that is what you are thinking about? Also while Australian market is somewhat important its also depends on what Australia asks. If what they ask cost enough twitter might just pull out of Australia. Honestly with Elon as the owner I wouldn't be surprised if he just pulled out of the Australian market push comes to shove and he seems pretty adamant about freedom of speech and he has already made alot of weird questionable decisions so what stops him from doing so again? 

[Spotty]

I've been trying to think of it from the perspective of the eSafety Commission. They're set up to receive complaints from Australians about hate speech and other issues they might experience online (child abuse, terrorism, etc). For dealing with hate speech their normal process is likely just acting as an intermediary to forward the complaints to these websites and act as a formal representative. I'm guessing in most cases they receive a complaint, validate the complaint, forward it to the social media site to review, then the social media site likely responds by removing the offending content in most cases. What I'm guessing has happened recently is Twitter has stopped responding to them when they've tried forwarding complaints and any resolution the commission has tried to get from Twitter has stalled. I'm not sure what powers the eSafety Commission has but without Twitter's cooperation in removing the content there's probably not really a lot the eSafety Commission can do regarding individual complaints they receive. The system only works as long as the social media giants are cooperating. It's probably in Twitter's best interest to respond to the complaints and remove offending content. If they ignore it then the system doesn't work and in the long run it might end up leading to tougher regulations against social media companies. 

My guess is this notice they've sent Twitter is just a way to try and force Twitter to respond to their complaints and work with them again instead of just ignoring them. 

 

From the perspective of the eSafety Commission, what else would you have them do? If you were them and you were receiving complaints about hate speech and Twitter wasn't cooperating to remove it how would you deal with it?

 

It wouldn't surprise me if it's just that due to the thousands of people they fired Twitter just does not have the workforce required to deal with all of these requests. They're also currently being sued by the music industry for failing to respond to copyright infringement notices on the platform. Seems like it's a systemic issue at Twitter.

There's also reports of Twitter being evicted from offices after failing to pay rent. I think Musk has just cut costs on everything to the point where Twitter cannot function the way it needs to and he's just hoping to get out and recoup some of his investment before the walls fall down.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Spotty