Social media to blame for ‘every problem we face’, says Clare O’Neil

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says ‘just about every problem’ in society is being caused or made worse by social media, declaring it is unacceptable for tech giants to make billions wreaking social havoc.

X say the bishop allegedly stabbed during a service at The Good Shepard Church in Sydney supports it remaining on the platform.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil says “just about every problem” in society is being caused or made worse by social media, declaring it is unacceptable for tech giants to make billions wreaking social havoc and leaving governments to “pick up the pieces”.

Her attack on social media companies came as lawyers representing X Corp said the bishop attacked in an alleged terrorist stabbing in western Sydney supports footage of the incident being available, during a legal challenge launched by the online safety watchdog to remove the video.

The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, won her Federal Court bid on Wednesday to extend an injunction requiring X to hide video of the alleged stabbing until the next hearing. The social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk is allegedly refusing to comply with the legal order.

The Albanese government has backed the eSafety Commissioner’s action, with Ms O’Neil saying parliaments around the world will need to take action and hold social media platforms to account for the “untold damage” they inflict.

“They are creating civil division, social unrest. Just about every problem that we have as a country is either being exacerbated or caused by social media, and we’re not seeing a skerrick of ­responsibility taken by these companies,” she told the Seven Network.

In a legal showdown that will test the limits of free speech and the nation’s digital safety regulations, the Commissioner is pursuing X to permanently remove the video and impose civil penalties on the tech giant, which could reach $782,500 a day.

X owner Elon Musk. Picture: AFP.

X Corp’s barrister Marcus Hoyne told the court the injunction “might be futile” due to the material proliferating online, suggesting that the court challenge to block the video may have increased public awareness.

He also said the alleged victim of the stabbing, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, would file an affidavit stating he was “strongly of the view the material should be ­available”.

Mr Hoyne told the court the case must grapple with the significant legal issue of the watchdog’s power to operate outside Australia. “The exorbitant jurisdiction that is being sought to be exercised here effectively operates throughout the whole world,” he said.

Judge Geoffrey Kennett said he would grant the eSafety Commissioner’s request to extend the interim injunction until the conclusion of the matter, noting that X had failed to act on orders he made on Monday to hide the posts. He said he did not “see why that further injunction should not be made forthwith”.

The extension comes as the US Senate passed a bill that would force Chinese company Bytedance to sell TikTok to an American business or face a ban, in response to fears the video platform posed a security risk.

Amid mounting calls from the Coalition, the Greens and cyber experts to strengthen online safety laws, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the government needed to consider “every method available to keep Australians safe”.

She said the government was operating under the laws “in place at the moment” to bring X Corp into line, declining to speculate on how the legislation could be bolstered while a review into the Online Safety Act was under way.

“I’m not going to come to a conclusion about that,” she said.

“It is clearly the case on a number of fronts that the emergence of these new technologies including AI, the ability for the proliferation of scams and other harms that arise from that, governments need to look at every method available to them to keep Australians safer.”

She also revealed the government was “scoping” out how a trial of age verification for social media could be carried out, ­following repeated calls from ­opposition communications spokesman David Coleman to act on the eSafety Commissioner’s recommendation.

Mr Coleman has signalled his support for a potential age limit for social media of 16 similar to a ban being considered in the UK, calling on the government to trial age verification measures. “Who on earth thinks an 11-year-old should be seeing violent material or pornographic material or other dangerous material on social media? Nobody,” he said.