Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday called the Australian government “fascists” over plans to crack down on misinformation online.
Social media companies could face fines up to 5% of their global revenue if they enable the spread of misinformation, under a law proposed Thursday by Australia’s Labor government.
Tech platforms would be required to establish codes of conduct for how to stop dangerous misinformation from spreading, which would have to be approved by a regulator. Platforms that failed to do so would be fined and required to follow a standard set by the regulator instead.
Musk, who considers himself a free speech advocate, made the one-word comment in a repost on his social media platform X of an article about the proposed legislation.
Australian officials accused Musk of hypocrisy.
“Elon Musk’s had more positions on free speech than the Kama Sutra,” Government Services Minister Bill Shorten told the Australian network Channel Nine on Friday. “When it’s in its commercial interests, he is the champion of free speech and when he doesn’t like it, he is, you know, he’s going to shut it all down.”
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones called Musk’s comment “crackpot stuff,” and said the proposed law was a matter of protecting Australian sovereignty against global tech platforms.
“For the life of me, I can’t see how Elon Musk or anyone else, in the name of free speech, thinks it is OK to have social media platforms publishing scam content,” Jones told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“Publishing deep-fake material, publishing child pornography. Livestreaming murder scenes,” he continued. “I mean, is this what he thinks free speech is all about?”
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said misinformation and disinformation posed a serious threat to Australians’ safety and well-being, “as well as to our democracy, society and economy.”
“Doing nothing and allowing this problem to fester is not an option,” she said.
“These penalties are high,” she said during a second reading of the bill on Thursday, referring to the potential 5% fines. “However, they may be necessary.”
This is not Musk’s first clash with Australian authorities.
In Australian federal court this week, a lawyer for X argued that a fine of 610,500 Australian dollars ($388,000) issued by an online safety regulator last year over the handling of child sexual abuse material did not apply to X since the fine was imposed on Twitter, which no longer exists. The case is one of several that are ongoing between X and the Australian regulator, eSafety.
In April, Musk accused Australia of censorship after a court ordered X to remove graphic content related to a stabbing attack on a Sydney bishop that was streamed online. At the time, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called Musk an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law.”
The Australian regulator later dropped its legal effort after a federal court refused to extend a temporary order to block the graphic content.
