‘Fascists’: Elon Musk Responds to Proposed Penalties for Disinformation About X

Getty Images | Dan Kitwood

Elon Musk has slammed the Australian government, calling it “fascist” over proposed legislation that could impose hefty fines on social media companies if they fail to comply with rules aimed at combating disinformation and online fraud.

The billionaire owner of social media site X posted the word “fascists” on Friday in response to a bill that would strengthen the ability of Australia’s media regulator to hold companies accountable for content on their platforms and potentially impose fines of up to 5 percent of global revenue. The bill, which was proposed this week, has not yet been passed.

Musk’s comments have been met with criticism from senior Australian politicians, with Australian Finance Minister Stephen Jones telling ABC that the rules were “quirks” and that the legislation was about sovereignty.

Bill Shorten, a former Labor leader and cabinet minister, accused the billionaire of only defending free speech when it was in his commercial interests. “Elon Musk has had more positions on free speech than the Kama Sutra,” Shorten told Australian radio.

This is the second time Musk has confronted Australia over technology regulation.

In May, he accused the country’s e-safety commissioner of censorship after the government agency took X to court in an attempt to force him to remove graphic footage of the Sydney stabbing. The court later dismissed the e-safety commissioner’s application.

Musk has also become embroiled in a bitter dispute with authorities in Brazil, where the Supreme Court ruled last month that X should be banned because it failed to remove or suspend some accounts accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech.

Australia has been a leader in efforts to regulate the tech sector, putting it in opposition to the largest social media companies in the world.

The Government this week pledged to introduce a minimum age for using social media in a bid to combat “screen addiction” among young people.

In March, Canberra threatened legal action against Meta after the Facebook and Instagram owner announced it would withdraw from a world-first agreement that paid media companies to link to news articles.

The government also presented new privacy protection measures to parliament on Thursday that would impose hefty fines and potential prison sentences of up to seven years for those found guilty of “doxxing” individuals or groups.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government pledged this year to ban doxxing – the posting of personal information online for malicious purposes – after details of a private WhatsApp group involving hundreds of Australian Jews were released online.

Australia is one of the first countries to introduce laws banning doxxing, and is also expected to introduce a series of laws in the coming months to regulate how personal data can be used by AI.

“These reforms strengthen the rules,” said Monique Azzopardi of law firm Clayton Utz.