‘Cowards triumph’: Crackdown on social media defamation coming

Big tech companies will be forced to take more responsibility for what is posted on their websites, the Prime Minister says.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has promised to force big tech companies to take more responsibility for what is posted on their websites, saying failure to do so would allow “cowards to triumph at the expense of good”.

He was backed by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce who revealed he had personally contacted by representatives from Facebook and Instagram about “malicious lies” spread regarding his daughters.

Mr Joyce said there was “something in the works”, but there were no further specific details.

The Federal Government has been increasing pressure on the social media companies, recently indicating support for defamation reform to make them legally responsible for the content published on their platforms.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says unless action is taken against social media giants “cowards will triumph at the expense of good”. Picture: Gary Ramage/NCA NewsWire

It follows a High Court ruling last month that found media outlets were legally responsible for third-party comments left on their Facebook pages.

Mr Morrison told colleagues at the Coalition’s joint party room meeting on Tuesday that while some action had already been taken, such as passing laws to force companies like Google and Facebook to pay for news content on their platforms, there was a lot more to achieve.

“The global tech giants know we will set the pace and lead the world in ensuring what happens in the digital world has the same responsibilities and same accountabilities that apply in the real world,” Mr Morrison said.

“We are going to do more because we are seeing lives destroyed.

“We are seeing people fall apart.

“We are seeing cowards triumph at the expense of good.”

Mr Joyce told the meeting about his own experience in recent weeks where anonymous people online spread “malicious lies” about his daughter, describing it as the “straw that broke the camel’s back”.

He said bullying and misinformation on social media had a real impact on families and mental health.

“These people are smart and brilliant enough to do the diagnostics and software to make themselves billions of dollars in computer codes, then they’re also smart enough to do something to deal with this issue,” Mr Joyce told the meeting.

Mr Joyce said he had been contacted by representatives from tech giants after he spoke out about the instance involving his daughter, which he first raised addressed publicly a fortnight ago.