‘They don’t exercise common human decency’: Andrew Forrest’s fresh attack on Meta and X

Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest says the social media giants must be forced to domicile their local operations in Australia so they can be more accountable for ‘harmful content’.

Andrerw Forrest and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. He says he is willing to work with the federal government to take ‘immediate and effective action’ to rein in Meta.

Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest says Meta, X and other tech companies should be forced to domicile their local operations in Australia so they can be held accountable for “harmful” content published across their platforms and “exercise common human decency”.

Dr Forrest is suing Meta in California, saying a 30-year-old US law allows it to dodge Australian regulators and claim immunity for publishing illegal material, such as scam advertisements.

Australia’s first eSafety Commissioner, Alastair MacGibbon, has called on digital platforms to face the same regulation as traditional media, urging Labor to amend the Online Safety Act to include a mandatory code of conduct which compels tech companies to comply with Australian law.

Two of the biggest tech companies, Meta and Elon Musk-owned X Corp – formerly known as Twitter – have fallen foul of Australian regulators, which are fighting an uphill battle to rein in the social media titans.

The current eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has launched legal action against X after it refused to take down footage of last week’s alleged terrorist stabbing in western Sydney.

X’s inaction prompted a rebuke from Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil, who said “just about every problem” in society was being caused or made worse by social media, and it was unacceptable for tech giants to make billions of dollars wreaking social havoc and leaving governments to “pick up the pieces”.

Australia's eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant. Picture: Martin Ollman

Dr Forrest said he was willing to work with the federal government to take “immediate and effective action to stop these foreign companies from hiding behind a lie that they do not do business in Australia”.

“Like most Australians, I’m appalled by the lack of accountability from global social media companies, who believe they don’t need to exercise common human decency and act as if they’re beyond the law,” he told The Australian.

“They must be held to account for harmful content and scams which pollute their platforms. A critical first step is for social media giants to be required to run their Australian platform as registered Australian companies, to ensure they are accountable under Australian law, and to be prohibited from subjecting Australians to exclusive California law.

“If they profit from Australians, they should not be able to hide behind Californian laws that leave Australian users exposed.”

Dr Forrest said the Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta – parent company of Facebook – repeatedly snubbed his requests to remove scam ads featuring his likeness that have fleeced some Australians of their life savings.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb has branded Meta as the worst tech titan to deal with in regard to stamping out financial crime.

Meta as attracted condemnation over the proliferation of scams across its platforms. It has also been accused of “strong” bias after its artificial intelligence tool named Gough Whitlam as the nation’s best politician, ignoring the two longest serving – and conservative – PMs, Robert Menzies and John Howard.

Meta's AI tool initially refused to generate an image of two men kissing.

Andrew Forrest’s image in a scam advert.

Its AI tool also initially refused to generate an image of two men kissing, despite creating one of a man and woman, and two women in romantic embraces.

“Oops! I can’t generate that image. Can I help you imagine something else?” Meta’s AI tool said.

Meta defended the technology, saying it was “new” and “may not always return the response we intend, which is the same for all generative AI systems”.

Dr Forrest said he has taken action as part of a crusade to protect the “innocent and vulnerable”, and to stop Meta “overriding democracy all over the world”.

But earlier this month, the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions dropped charges laid against the social media giant from Dr Forrest over its fraudulent advertising.

DPP prosecutors said they decided to discontinue all charges against Meta Platforms after accepting a brief of evidence in the case, leaving Dr Forrest’s Californian case as his last chance in his years-long quest to hold Meta to account.

In the US, social media companies are immune from liability for the content posted by third parties under a 30-year-old federal law – a position Dr Forrest is challenging on the basis that he says Meta knowingly accepts money from criminals to publish their advertisements.

“(It was) designed of course to help the internet. But it doesn’t; it overrides democracy all over the world,” Dr Forrest said this month.

“This law means that these tech companies can publish the actions of criminals on their platform because they’re getting money for it. (Meta is) turning the other way, and retirees all over Australia – many of whom haven’t even been to America – by having this law imported into their back yard (makes) them vulnerable for losing all their hard-earned savings.”

Meta's AI tool was able to generate an image of two women kissing but not two men.

Meta AI tool was able to generate an image of two men kissing after being contacted by The Australian.

Meta attracted more controversy this week when it launched its latest AI tool, which unlike Google’s version dodges political questions after suffering a series of initial embarrassing setbacks and accusations of bias.

After The Australian contacted Meta, a spokesman said the AI tool could generate pictures of two men kissing, in a similar way it depicts a man and woman, and two women in similar romantic embraces.

“As we gradually make this available in more markets, we will constantly release new updates and make improvements to our models to make them better,” the spokesman said.

The AI tool, which has been incorporated into Meta’s main platforms of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is operating essentially like a beta version in which Meta is fixing flaws after being alerted to them.

“Addressing viewpoint bias in generative AI systems is a new area of research,” Meta said.

“We continue to make progress toward reinforcing this approach for Meta AI’s responses but as we’re seeing with all generative AI systems, it may not always return the response we intend. We’re also exploring additional techniques that can address it along with user feedback.”