Musk calls Australian government ‘fascists’ over misinformation law

Musk calls Australian government ‘fascists’ over misinformation law
Elon Musk’s comment on the push against misinformation drew criticism and ridicule from other Australian government lawmakers. (Reuters)
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Updated 13 September 2024
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Musk calls Australian government ‘fascists’ over misinformation law

Musk calls Australian government ‘fascists’ over misinformation law
  • Australia’s Labor government unveils legislation which could fine Internet platforms up to 5 percent of their global revenue
  • The proposed law would require tech platforms to set codes of conduct to stop dangerous falsehoods spreading and be approved by a regulator

SYDNEY: Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, on Friday called Australia’s center-left government “fascists” over proposed legislation to slap fines on social media firms for failing to prevent the spread of misinformation online.
Australia’s Labor government on Thursday unveiled legislation which could fine Internet platforms up to 5 percent of their global revenue for enabling misinformation, joining a worldwide push to rein in borderless tech giants.
The proposed law would require tech platforms to set codes of conduct to stop dangerous falsehoods spreading and be approved by a regulator. The regulator would set its own standard if a platform failed to do so and fine firms for non-compliance.
Musk, who views himself as a champion of free speech, responded to a post by an X user linking the Reuters story about the misinformation law with one word: “Fascists.”
A spokesperson for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said by email that companies operating in Australia must comply with Australian laws.
“This bill improves the transparency and accountability of platforms for users and the Australian people,” Rowland said.
Musk’s comment on the push against misinformation drew criticism and ridicule from other government lawmakers.
“Elon Musk’s had more positions on free speech than the Kama Sutra. When it’s in its commercial interests, he is the champion of free speech and when he doesn’t like it ... he’s going to shut it all down,” Government Services Minister Bill Shorten told Channel Nine’s breakfast show.
Social media platforms should not publish scam content, deepfake materials and livestream violence in the name of free speech, Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones told ABC television.
In a previous clash with the Australian government, X in April went to court to challenge a cyber regulator’s order for the removal of some posts about the stabbing of a bishop in Sydney, prompting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to call Musk an “arrogant billionaire.”
The regulator later dropped its challenge against X after a setback in the federal court.
X had blocked Australian users from viewing the posts about the stabbing but refused to remove them globally on the grounds that one country’s rules should not control the Internet.


X agrees to pay Brazil fines, court orders finances unblocked

X agrees to pay Brazil fines, court orders finances unblocked
Updated 02 October 2024
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X agrees to pay Brazil fines, court orders finances unblocked

X agrees to pay Brazil fines, court orders finances unblocked
  • High-profile judge Moraes has been engaged in a long feud with Tesla and SpaceX owner Musk as part of his drive to crack down on disinformation in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO: A Brazilian judge on Tuesday ordered the unblocking of the bank accounts of Elon Musk’s X in the country after the social media platform agreed to pay more than $5 million in fines.
The ruling by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes paves the way for the suspension of X to be lifted in Brazil, where it has been off-limits to users since August 31 in a standoff over disinformation between the judge and Musk.
Moraes ordered X shut down in Latin America’s biggest country after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered.
In his latest decision, the judge ordered Brazil’s central bank to unblock X’s bank accounts so it can receive transfers and “immediately make payment of the fines indicated.”
X had informed the court it would pay fines to the tune of some $5.2 million, according to the ruling.
High-profile judge Moraes has been engaged in a long feud with Tesla and SpaceX owner Musk as part of his drive to crack down on disinformation in Brazil.
The clash between the Brazilian court and the billionaire has morphed into a high-stakes tussle testing the limits of both freedom of expression and corporate responsibility in South America’s largest country.
X had more than 22 million users in Brazil before the ban, which was put into place on August 31.
The company has in the last week started complying with the Brazilian court’s conditions to get reactivated.
Musk has repeatedly hit out at Moraes in social media posts, calling him an “evil dictator” and dubbing him “Voldemort” after the villain from the “Harry Potter” series.


Renowned Syrian journalist Safaa Ahmad killed in Israeli airstrike on Damascus

Renowned Syrian journalist Safaa Ahmad killed in Israeli airstrike on Damascus
Updated 01 October 2024
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Renowned Syrian journalist Safaa Ahmad killed in Israeli airstrike on Damascus

Renowned Syrian journalist Safaa Ahmad killed in Israeli airstrike on Damascus
  • The Israeli airstrike on Mezzeh, western Damascus, on Tuesday morning killed three civilians and wounded nine others, state news agency says

LONDON: Syria TV anchor Safaa Ahmad was killed on Tuesday morning in an Israeli airstrike on the Mezzeh district in Syria’s capital, Damascus.

State agency SANA said the strike killed three civilians, including Ahmad, and wounded nine others.

The Mezzeh district in western Damascus is home to many residential blocks, local businesses and diplomatic premises, including the Iranian Embassy.

Syria’s state television said in a statement it “mourns anchor Safaa Ahmad, who was martyred in the Israeli aggression on the capital Damascus.”

The Syrian military told SANA that Israel carried out “an air aggression with military aircraft and drones on Tuesday at dawn from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan,” targeting several points in Damascus and its outskirts.

Syria’s air defense said they intercepted and shot down most of the Israeli missiles targeting the capital and its suburbs on Tuesday morning.

Journalist Ahmad, who hails from Homs, joined the state broadcaster Syria TV in 2002 and hosted several cultural talk shows and programs, including the flagship breakfast show “Sabah Al-Kheir.”

Reports of Israel’s strikes on the Syrian capital came as its military launched ground raids in neighboring Lebanon, marking a major escalation of its onslaught, which it claims is targeting the armed group Hezbollah.


‘I pleaded guilty to journalism,’ Wikileaks’ Assange

‘I pleaded guilty to journalism,’ Wikileaks’ Assange
Updated 01 October 2024
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‘I pleaded guilty to journalism,’ Wikileaks’ Assange

‘I pleaded guilty to journalism,’ Wikileaks’ Assange
  • The Council of Europe brings together the 46 signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights, with little say over Assange’s legal fate

STRASBOURG: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday said he was released after years of incarceration only because he had pleaded guilty to doing “journalism,” which he described as a pillar of a free society.
Assange spent most of the last 14 years either holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London to avoid arrest, or locked up at Belmarsh Prison in the British capital.
He was released from jail in June, after serving a sentence for publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential US government documents.
“I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pleaded guilty to journalism,” Assange told the Council of Europe rights body at its Strasbourg headquarters in his first public comments since his release.
“I eventually chose freedom over unrealisable justice... justice for me is now precluded,” Assange said, noting he had been facing a 175-year jail sentence.
Speaking calmly and flanked by his wife Stella who fought for his release, he added: “Journalism is not a crime, it is a pillar of a free and informed society.”
“The fundamental issue is simple. Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs,” said Assange.
The trove of confidential documents released by Wikileaks included searingly frank US State Department descriptions of foreign leaders, accounts of extrajudicial killings and intelligence gathering against allies.
Assange argued his case provided an insight into “how powerful intelligence organizations engage in transnational repression” against their foes, adding that this “cannot become the norm here.”

He said that during his incarceration “ground has been lost,” regretting that he now sees “more impunity, more secrecy and more retaliation for telling the truth.”
“Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroads,” he told the hearing of the legal committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
“Let us all commit to doing our part to ensure the light of freedom never dims and the pursuit of truth will live on and the voices of many are not silenced by the interests of the few,” he said.
Assange’s case remains deeply contentious.
Supporters hail him as a champion of free speech and say he was persecuted by authorities and unfairly imprisoned. Detractors see him as a reckless blogger whose uncensored publication of ultra-sensitive documents put lives at risk and jeopardized US security.
US President Joe Biden, who is likely to issue some pardons before leaving office next January, has previously described Assange as a “terrorist.”
Assange’s timing and his choice of venue have puzzled some observers.
The Council of Europe brings together the 46 signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights, with little say over Assange’s legal fate.
Assange is still campaigning for a US presidential pardon for his conviction under the Espionage Act.


Three journalists for independent media arrested in Moscow: NGO

Three journalists for independent media arrested in Moscow: NGO
Updated 01 October 2024
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Three journalists for independent media arrested in Moscow: NGO

Three journalists for independent media arrested in Moscow: NGO
  • They were taken to a police station and two of them will be “charged with hooliganism,” the rights group said, adding that their mobile phones had been confiscated

WARSAW, Poland: Three journalists working for independent Russian media outlets were arrested in Moscow on Monday outside a concert celebrating the Kremlin’s claimed annexation of Ukrainian regions, a rights group said.
The concert marked two years since Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees annexing the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk along with the southern Zaporijjia and Kherson regions on September 30, 2022.
Citing the detainees’ relatives, human rights NGO OVD-info said one of the journalists worked at the news site Republic and the other two for SOTAvision.
They were taken to a police station and two of them will be “charged with hooliganism,” the rights group said, adding that their mobile phones had been confiscated.
SOTAvision on Telegram said its reporters — who were denied access to the celebration on the capital’s Red Square — had been arrested while interviewing spectators leaving the concert.
The outlet is one of the last Russian media still working to document the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent.
Since the launch of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has intensified its pressure on both foreign and independent press outlets in the country.
Both Republic and SOTAvision are classed as “foreign agents” by the authorities — a label used in Russia against critical voices.
 

 


Trump vows to prosecute Google for showing ‘bad’ stories on him

Trump vows to prosecute Google for showing ‘bad’ stories on him
Updated 28 September 2024
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Trump vows to prosecute Google for showing ‘bad’ stories on him

Trump vows to prosecute Google for showing ‘bad’ stories on him
  • Trump complained that the search engine displays only positive articles about his Democratic rival Kamala Harris
  • "Hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections,” he said in a post on his Truth Social platform

SAN FRANCISCO, California: Donald Trump on Friday accused Google of showing only “bad stories” about him and vowed to have the tech giant prosecuted if he gets back in the White House.
Trump provided no backing for his accusation in a post on his Truth Social platform, in which he added that the search engine displays only positive articles about his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris.
“This is an ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, and hopefully the Justice Department will criminally prosecute them for this blatant Interference of Elections,” he said in the post.
“If not, and subject to the Laws of our Country, I will request their prosecution, at the maximum levels, when I win the election.”
The Trump post came after a conservative group reported on what it said it found when doing a search on “Donald Trump presidential race 2024.”
“Both campaign websites consistently appear at the top of Search for relevant and common search queries,” Google said in response to an AFP inquiry.
“This report looked at a single rare search term on a single day a few weeks ago, and even for that search, both candidates’ websites ranked in the top results on Google.”
Google has been adamant that it does not manipulate search results to favor any political candidate.
The company does not disclose the inner workings of the software that powers its ubiquitous search engine.
However, factors known to influence search results for news stories include the timeliness and popularity of topics.
Trump is at the center of numerous criminal and civil cases in which he faces accusations including sexual abuse, paying hush money to a porn star, interfering with the 2020 election and trying to thwart the peaceful transition of power after President Joe Biden defeated him.