NADIA MITSOPOULOS:
And now, you may have heard in AM how the federal government’s proposed laws to crack down on misinformation on social media are back in the spotlight. Now, platforms like Facebook, Twitter and TikTok have come under fire for refusing to pull down what are paid ads spruiking investment scams and featuring the images of well‑known people like Andrew Forrest and the ABC’s Dr Karl. The only problem is they’re deep fakes and people are losing money to these scams. So how will the government crack down?
Well, this is Stephen Jones. He’s the Assistant Treasurer, and he spoke to me about this earlier this morning. But what I want to know from you is, are you done with these social media companies? I just wonder if they are of any benefit to you any more. Do you notice the kind of content that you’re getting? Does it offend you? Are you getting these investment scams popping up on your feed? Let me know this morning on 1300 222 720. In the meantime, have a listen to the Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones.
STEPHEN JONES:
Good to be with you.
MITSOPOULOS:
There are so many Australians being scammed by these deep fake videos of celebrities like WA mining magnate Andrew Forrest. They ask for them to be taken down and they aren’t. Why are they allowed to stay up on the internet?
JONES:
This is a very good question, and it obviously shows that the social media platforms aren’t doing their bit to ensure that Australians that are using their platforms can keep their money safe and their information safe. It’s not good enough, and we’re going to change the law to ensure that they have an obligation. When somebody reports a fake, when somebody reports criminal activity on their platform, the obligation of the social media platform, as it would be any other business operator, is to act and respond.These social media operators, whether it’s Mark Zuckerberg or whether it’s Elon Musk, they’ve got to understand they don’t operate in a law‑free environment. It’s an obligation on them to ensure they abide by the lawful directions of the regulators in this country. And for the life of me, I can’t understand when it comes to Mark Zuckerberg why it’s more important for him to remove journalists from his platform than it is to remove criminals and their content.
MITSOPOULOS:
So what will your government do about this?
JONES:
We’ve already got a raft of laws, but in the area of scams I’m introducing a new bunch of regulations throughout the course of this year which will lift the bar, not just on social media platforms but on banks and telecommunications companies as well. We are adamant that we are going to lift the bar to ensure that we can keep Australians’ money safe – $3 billion has been lost to scammers over the previous year. We want to reduce that. The measures that we’ve put in place at the moment are already working, so we’ve seen a 40 per cent reduction, and that’s good. But we see some outliers, and the outliers are the social media platforms. Meta itself – just one business – is responsible for about 70 per cent of the money lost by Australians in social media platforms to scams. So there’s a problem here, a wake‑up call to Meta and to Twitter that they’ve got an obligation to abide by the laws and the responsibilities that are placed upon them in this country.
MITSOPOULOS:
So are you talking about legislation here of mandatory standards? Can you just explain in some detail how you’ll combat this?
JONES:
So what we’ve already done is set up a National Anti‑Scam Centre, and we’ve empowered the Australian Securities and Investment Commission to pull down fake investment websites, and we’re filtering millions of millions of SMS messages. In our next wave of reform we’ll be uplifting the SMS filtering technology to block out more of that harmful content coming to people’s mobile phones. But I’ll also be introducing laws into Parliament later this year which amend our competition and consumer law to put in place tough new obligations, and we’ll have under those new codes of practice which have the force of law and imposing obligations on social media platforms and others. Those obligations will include the requirement if they're notified of harmful content, they’ve got to pull it down. If they’re notified of criminal content, they’ve got to pull it down. And if people are losing money because of their failure to act, then fines and compensation will flow from that.
MITSOPOULOS:
Okay, just on those two points then, what sort of fines are we talking about, do you know?
JONES:
There’ll be tough new fines that are put in place. It will be commensurate with the offence and the sorts of losses that consumers are experiencing. Frankly, I don’t want them to have to pay a fine because I want them to ensure they’re acting to keep their platforms safe. It is much better that somebody doesn’t lose money than they have to go to a tribunal and seek compensation because a company has done the wrong thing. Let’s prevent the harm happening in the first place.
MITSOPOULOS:
And would there be compensation, so if somebody lost money through one of these scams, are you saying that there might be an – this legislation would mean they could get their money back?
JONES:
If the social – if the loss has occurred because a social media company, a bank or a telecommunications company hasn’t met their obligations, then absolutely.
MITSOPOULOS:
And who would pay? It could be the social media company, it could be the bank, it could be both?
JONES:
It could be a combination depending on who has done the wrong thing and where the fault lies. There’s been a lot of talk about let’s make the banks pay, and I can understand that because they’re the last link in the chain. But if somebody’s gone to Facebook and they’ve seen Andrew Twiggy Forrest appearing to be promoting some cryptocurrency investments and they’ve acted on that and spent their money, why do we make the banks pay when the social media platform has actually taken money from the criminal, made money out of that advertising, some consumer has lost money and we turn to the bank to pay it? I want to have the blame fall where it belongs, and if a social media platform has done the wrong thing, then they should be liable.
MITSOPOULOS:
And my guest this morning is Stephen Jones, the Assistant Treasurer, on ABC Radio Perth and WA. The eSafety Commissioner has issued Meta, which owns Facebook, and Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, a global takedown order of the video that shows last week’s stabbing of a Sydney bishop. Do they have to comply with that order currently?
JONES:
It’s a lawful order made in Australia and under the laws of Australia, and they operate in Australia. And, frankly, to have Elon Musk acting like some sort of petulant teenager and saying, “I don’t have to follow the rules,” is not good enough. He might be a billionaire, but he’s not above the law.
MITSOPOULOS:
And his argument – and he says he will challenge this in court and argue this – is that this is censorship. Does he have a point?
JONES:
Look, we all respect free speech. But free speech has its boundaries under existing law. You can’t defame somebody. You can’t add libelous or seditious or treasonous or false and misleading information, you can’t do that. And if you were a media company, if you were a newspaper, a radio station and television and you published that sort of content, you would be subject to the Australian law. Why should a social media platform like Twitter be any different? They are not above the law.
MITSOPOULOS:
So will the federal government fight this case? They’ll put money towards fighting this case?
JONES:
We will defend our laws. We will defend the eSafety Commissioner, and we’re doing it because this is all about keeping Australians safe.
MITSOPOULOS:
Do you feel like you’re playing a bit of catch‑up here, or has the world of social media moved too fast to keep up?
JONES:
I think the world of social media has moved rapidly and it’s operated as if it doesn’t have to obey the laws that apply in certain – in certain countries. That’s not good enough, and I think countries right around the world are waking up and saying this isn’t good for society, this isn’t good for democracy and it’s not good for our economies. And we need to get the balance right. We’re way out of whack at the moment and we’ve got to get the balance right. Of course free speech matters. Of course having people being able to have access to these platforms is a good thing. But the owners of these platforms have got to keep their systems and their operations safe. Twitter can’t be a factory for criminals and bots and misinformation and harmful content. Elon Musk’s value proposition to the world can’t be come to Twitter because, you know, there you’ll be able to be subject to abuse and criminal content and a peep show for murderers. That’s not the way we run a modern business, and it’s not the way a decent society operates.
MITSOPOULOS:
Minister, do you think you would ever get to a point where you’d have to consider banning any of these platforms in Australia?
JONES:
Look, I’m not a big one on banning stuff; I’m a big one on people running businesses in accordance with the values and the mores of our country and a decent society. So the call to Elon Musk and to Mark Zuckerberg is to get your show in shape. We don’t want to do – we don’t want to be going around banning things. I use Facebook. I use Twitter, and I think it’s a tremendous way of keeping in contact with friends and relatives and family and it’s a good way of seeing what’s going on in the world. But Australians have got to be able to rely on the content that’s being published on these platforms, and they’ve got to be able to trust messages that are being distributed there. And again I say, why in the case of Meta is it more important that they shut journalists off their platforms yet let criminals run riot?
MITSOPOULOS:
And that was Stephen Jones, the Assistant Treasurer. And I do want to know from you if you are done with these social media platforms.