Violent content bill could ‘criminalise journalism’

Media companies warn their journalism could be criminalised under a government crackdown.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said the last thing the government wanted to do was prevent mainstream media reporting news.

Australia’s media companies have warned that their journalism could be criminalised and news stories forcibly removed from websites and television broadcasts under the Morrison government’s legal crackdown on tech giants, which is set to ­become law today.

The Law Council of Australia also declared the legislation could have “serious unintended consequences” and should not be rushed through parliament on the final sitting day ­before the election, expected next month.

The Sharing of Abhorrent ­Violent Material bill is designed to prevent another terrorist ­attack from being live-streamed online, in the wake of the Christchurch massacre. The bill passed in the Senate last night and is expected to pass in the House of Representatives today with Labor’s support.

Under the legislation, social media executives could be jailed for up to three years or a company fined 10 per cent of its annual global turnover if they failed to expeditiously remove the content within a reasonable time.

Platforms around the world would also have to notify the Australian Federal Police if they knew their service was streaming abhorrent violent conduct that occurred or was occurring in Australia or face fines of up to $168,000 for an individual or $840,000 for a corporation. News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian, had wanted to be exempted from the bill amid concerns media organisations would be caught in the crosshairs and penalised for news reports. A News Corp Australia­ spokeswoman said the company supported the intent of the legislation and making digit­al platforms liable for what they made available to the world, but the bill went beyond this.

“While we have worked with the government to try to minim­ise the impact, this law risks criminali­sing news reporting and provides significant powers to the eSafety Commissioner to take down news content,” she said.

“In the rush to pass this law, it will not be subjected to any ­review. Given the known consequences of the legislation on news reporting, we strongly recom­mend the government and the opposition agree that the ­bipartisan Parliamentary Joint ­Committee on Intelligence and Security review this law immed­iately after the election.”

NewsMediaWorks chief exe­c­­u­tive Peter Miller, whose ­org­an­­is­ation represents the inter­ests of News Corp Australia, Nine and Seven West Media, said freedom of speech and the independence of the media were at stake.

Free TV chief executive ­Bridget Fair labelled the legislation “flawed” and also called for an exemption from the laws, noting­ news outlets had extensive editorial processes and standards in place.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said the last thing the government wanted to do was prevent mainstream media reporting news, and companies would be targeted only if they carried audio or vision produced by the perpet­rator or their associates. “The material (targeted in the bill) emanates from the perpet­rator, so (there is) a very distinct difference between Channel 7 having a camera­ outside the Lindt cafe siege, which in every tech­nical sense is the video recording of murder,” Mr Porter said.

Material captured under the bill includes acts of terrorism, murder, attempted murder, torture­, rape or kidnapping.

Mr Porter and Communications Minister Mitch Fifield yesterda­y met representatives from Telstra, Vodafone, Optus, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Amazon, the Digital Industry Group, Communi­cations Alliance and the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Facebook was invited but did not attend after sending mid-level staff to a meeting with Scott Morriso­n last week.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus claimed the bill was a “failure” ­because social media executives would not be jailed, as the Prime Minister had vowed.

ALP sources argued the bill did not target individual social media executives but only companies, pointing out that no single person was classified as an internet servic­e provider, hosting service provider — such as Amazing Web Services, which hosts Netflix — or content service provider, such as Facebook.

“Labor has serious concerns that this bill has been poorly drafted and will not achieve its intended purpose,” Mr Dreyfus said.

“Let’s be clear: Labor ­believes that social media companies can do better and they must do better. What happened following the Christchurch attack must never happen again.

“Labor will not stand in the way of this bill, despite our concerns. A Labor government will refer this bill immediately to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ­Intelli­gence and Security for ­review, as would be the normal course of events if this bill had been given an adequate amount of time for consultat­ion and scrutiny.”

Mr Porter’s spokesman said the bill “does provide for executives of major social media companies to face penalties for offences”.

The Australian understands an executive could be charged under the new offences if they are complici­t in a reckless failure to ­expeditiously ­remove content or they do not quickly notify the AFP of the ­material.

Mr Porter insisted it was important the government acted this week before parliament went into caretaker mode for the election.