Australian Government is reportedly drafting tough new criminal laws to crackdown social media laws ensuing the Christchurch, New Zealand massacare which left 50 dead. These new laws can bring down Tech Executives from Facebook, Google, Twitter and other social media platforms as a result these executives can end up behind bars if they fail to remove terrorist content under a legislative crackdown being prepared by the Australian government in response to the Christchurch terrorist attack.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is threatening to impose severe penalties on social media companies if they do not voluntarily make drastic changes to restrain the spread of extremist material on their services.
“We need to prevent social media platforms being weaponised with terror content,” Morrison said in a statement. He further added, “If social media companies fail to demonstrate a willingness to immediately institute changes to prevent the use of their platforms, like what was filmed and shared by the perpetrators of the terrible offences in Christchurch, we will take action.”
Morrison will be meeting the Australian Executives of Facebook, Twitter and Google to discuss extremist content legislation that would punish these companies’ executives with jail time, the Australian Financial Review reports. Local internet service providers will also be present at the meeting.
“The tech industry needs to do much more to protect Australians’ data and privacy,” said Communications Minister Mitchell Fifield.
Details of the proposed legislation aren’t yet known. However, Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which applies to any company operating in the continent, showed that tech companies can change their global practices to appease local legislation.