NSW Premier Welcomes Online Censorship, but Think Tank Asks ‘What’s Next?’

The premier of New South Wales (NSW)—site of both the Bondi massacre and a stabbing at a church in the past week—has welcomed Commonwealth government moves to prevent social media firms from hosting content depicting either incident.

However, the Melbourne-based think tank Institute for Public Affairs (IPA) has warned that the sweeping powers of the eSafety commissioner need to be constrained.

Premier Chris Minns said platforms “need to be held to account” for spreading misinformation.

“If the Commonwealth government is pursuing tougher penalties, increased fines [or] sanctions to be put in place, we would welcome it,” he said.

Following the stabbings at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd Church, a riot occurred outside after people who had been watching a live stream of the sermon began posting the stabbing incident on social media.

Six paramedics were forced to take refuge in the church for three and a half hours after coming under threat from the crowd.

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By the end of the night, one police officer had a broken jaw and another suffered facial and knee injuries.

Police have indicated that the rioters were not part of the church community.

“We believe that people not associated with the church have turned up as an excuse and become a riot that involved police,” NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said.

NSW Premier Chris Minns at Parliament House, Sydney, Wednesday, August 2, 2023. (AAP Image/Luke Costin)

Mr. Minns said the riot happened around midnight and 1 a.m., and that it was difficult for police and community leaders to “try and calm down the community when, in an irresponsible way, people put blatant lies or rumours [on social media] designed to incite [people].”

“There is still some very graphic material that I understand is up on several social media sites. It needs to come down,” the premier said.

“Firstly, it’s not adding to community cohesion or a sense of calm in the community. Secondly, it’s completely inappropriate, particularly for young people, and nobody—no parent—wants young people exposed to that kind of graphic footage.

Following the stabbings, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland announced that annual base funding for the commissioner’s office would rise by $132.1 million over four years.

But while the IPA acknowledges there is “genuine community interest in preventing gratuitous material, like footage of the Bondi massacre, circulating freely online,” it warns “there is also a community interest in ensuring members of the public can fully inform themselves about significant events.”

The Institute’s Director of Law and Policy, John Storey, told The Epoch Times that Ms. Inman Grant had strayed well beyond the scope of her role, raising doubts about what, if any, were the limits of her powers.

“The role of the eSafety Commissioner was established to give individuals suffering from online abuse or other harms an avenue to rectify that,” he said.

“Ms. Inman Grant’s role is not to police the internet. This makes her previous comments that she believes her role is to address ’misinformation' deeply concerning.

“The problem we face is that the person tasked with making this difficult balance, the eSafety Commissioner and her agency, have a track record of acting in a partisan manner and straying well beyond its role.”

Mr. Storey raised concerns that the spike in funding for the commissioner’s office will also increase her power, which could be used inappropriately.

“How long before these self-appointed powers and extra funding are being used not only to remove violent content from the internet, but also to silence ‘harmful’ opinions on matters like climate change or immigration to similarly ‘protect the community?’” he said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Rowland has announced the government is “looking at a substantial increase” in fines above what is already in the Online Safety Act.

“So not only a large amount—for example, a $3 million fine for an offence and ongoing fines—but a percentage of turnover as well,” she said.

“[Social media platforms] will need to comply with existing law, that is already their obligations. eSafety has issued [those] notices.

“Because if we needed to see any case study about what can happen when misinformation spreads at speed and scale, we only need to look at what happened in western Sydney the other night. The destruction, the damage to public property threats to life and health.

The minister said while social media giants already have “incredible powers” to examine the content on their platforms, they needed to do more.

“That’s precisely what the government has been pursuing with our mis- and dis-information rules,” she said.

“We know that the revenues of some of these online platforms exceed those of some nations and so it needs to be a meaningful and substantial penalty system that’s put in place.”