When is enough actually enough?
The importance of media laws and media ethics doesn't go unnoticed. Overarching laws that protect, or limit, certain activity online are in effect in almost every country. Of course, the extent of these laws vary by country,
Australia recently enacted new legislation to punish social media companies for failing to police their platform for violent content. The Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material bill was enacted after the Christchurch shootings in mid-March. The bill comes after the shootings was mass broadcasted on Facebook Live.
The bill allows for the Australian government to enact fines on companies such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. The bill and Australian government are currently under some scrutiny due to the seemingly rushed process of enacting the bill before consulting major media companies. There is also the worry that with the implementation of such measures, actual speech could be accidentally censored. YouTube is already having this issue of censoring legitimate complaints about the service, as well as hiding videos that feature vulgar language, whether it be a single instance or all throughout the video.
In a survey by the Pew Research Center, 67% of American's agree that people should be able to publicly make comments that may be offensive to minority groups. No matter what your opinion may be on the matter, should offensive comments towards specific groups be censored? There's the issue of what is defined as 'offensive'. Something offensive in the eyes of one person may not be offensive in the eyes of another, so there must be some standard. Whatever standard the Australian government decides for their bill will certainly come under some sort of scrutiny.
Representatives from the U.N. Human Rights Council called for the withdrawal of the bill for more time for consultation. “This law, which was conceived and passed in five days without any meaningful consultation, does nothing to address hate speech,” Sunita Bose, the Managing Director of the Digital Industry Group Inc., which represents Google, Facebook and other tech giants in Australia, said.
Only time will tell how the bill will perform. Personally, it should probably be discussed more, but we'll see.
Australia recently enacted new legislation to punish social media companies for failing to police their platform for violent content. The Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material bill was enacted after the Christchurch shootings in mid-March. The bill comes after the shootings was mass broadcasted on Facebook Live.The bill allows for the Australian government to enact fines on companies such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. The bill and Australian government are currently under some scrutiny due to the seemingly rushed process of enacting the bill before consulting major media companies. There is also the worry that with the implementation of such measures, actual speech could be accidentally censored. YouTube is already having this issue of censoring legitimate complaints about the service, as well as hiding videos that feature vulgar language, whether it be a single instance or all throughout the video.
In a survey by the Pew Research Center, 67% of American's agree that people should be able to publicly make comments that may be offensive to minority groups. No matter what your opinion may be on the matter, should offensive comments towards specific groups be censored? There's the issue of what is defined as 'offensive'. Something offensive in the eyes of one person may not be offensive in the eyes of another, so there must be some standard. Whatever standard the Australian government decides for their bill will certainly come under some sort of scrutiny.Representatives from the U.N. Human Rights Council called for the withdrawal of the bill for more time for consultation. “This law, which was conceived and passed in five days without any meaningful consultation, does nothing to address hate speech,” Sunita Bose, the Managing Director of the Digital Industry Group Inc., which represents Google, Facebook and other tech giants in Australia, said.
Only time will tell how the bill will perform. Personally, it should probably be discussed more, but we'll see.
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