Australian Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has criticized Twitter for censoring U.S. President Donald Trump‘s Twitter account and enforcing a double standard. The Australian lawmaker said Twitter’s refusal to remove an image of Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian insulting an Australian soldier shows that Twitter holds conservatives and communists to two standards.
After the violence at the U.S. Capitol, social media Twitter claimed President Trump was “inciting violence” and announced a permanent ban on his personal account, which has a large following. This came at a time when Australian Prime Minister Morrison was on vacation, and Acting Prime Minister and National Party leader John McCormack did not agree with Twitter’s approach.
On Jan. 11, McCormack told the ABC, “There are a lot of people who have said and done a lot of things on Twitter before that have not been subject to that kind of censure, or censorship.”
But he also said it was Twitter’s own decision.
On the same day, Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg also said, “As Voltaire said, ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I defend your right to say it.’ These (blocking) decisions are being made by commercial companies, but I personally am uncomfortable with what they are doing.”
Australian Liberal National Party MP George Christensen said in a Facebook post on Jan. 9, “(Twitter) treats conservatives as one rule and communists as another (rule).”
He reminded that the image posted by Communist Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian was still up on Twitter, and that Twitter had not appended the “fact-checking” text to his tweet, nor had it been corrected.
On Nov. 30 last year, Zhao Lijian posted a picture on his Twitter account of an Australian soldier holding an Australian flag over the head of an Afghan child, holding a bloody dagger to the child’s neck.
At the time, Morrison had asked Twitter to remove the composite image, which insulted the Australian soldier, but Twitter refused.
The social media giants that blocked President Trump’s account include Facebook and Instagram, in addition to Twitter, prompting the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to call on the Australian government to introduce new regulatory measures to avoid such actions by social media leading to restrictions on freedom of expression.
Rod Sims, chairman of the ACCC, told the Sydney Morning Herald, “Obviously the digital platforms (of social media) do have some control over what we see and read …… How much (control) we can give to social media is facing a defining issue and we need to let the government make the decision, not the digital platforms.”
Last July, the Australian government announced it would introduce its first media industry code of conduct, requiring social media platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay Australian media organizations for original journalism. The bill is currently being considered by the Australian government. The social media giants have argued for years that they only provide a platform for public discussion and are not responsible for content.
NSW Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg argued that the blocking of Trump’s social media accounts was a watershed moment, proving that social media giants are publishers and are responsible for the content posted by their users.
As social media giants blocked conservative speech, many conservatives moved to the new social media platform Parler to post their comments, but the Google Store and Apple Store immediately took down the Parler App. This also highlights how the influence of social media giants can directly suppress other application platforms that are not under their control.
Christensen launched an online petition asking Australia’s communications minister to introduce new laws that would prohibit social media platforms from censoring legitimate speech in Australia.
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