Tech billionaire Elon Musk has labelled the Australian government as “fascists” over proposed new laws to crack down on digital misinformation, particularly on social media websites. 

Under the proposed legislation, which have yet to pass Parliament, social media companies could be fined up to 5% of their annual revenue if they fail to take steps to “manage the risk that misinformation and disinformation on digital communications platforms poses in Australia”.

“Misinformation and disinformation pose a serious threat to the safety and well-being of Australians, as well as to our democracy, society and economy,” Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said in a statement on Thursday. “Doing nothing and allowing this problem to fester is not an option.” 

The proposed legislation is the latest fight between Australia’s government and global tech giants. Over the past year, the government has taken Musk’s X, formally known as Twitter, to court to attempt to remove a violent video of a terrorist attack and flagged it would introduce age limits for teenagers using social media.

In an explanatory memo accompanying the legislation, the government made clear it wanted to set a high standard for what qualified as misinformation. In addition, the laws will carve out exceptions for “professional news, content that would reasonably be regarded as parody or satire” as well as “the reasonable dissemination of content for any academic, artistic, scientific or religious purpose”.

However, in a short post on X on Thursday, Musk called the Australian government “fascists” for trying to introduce the laws, setting up his latest showdown with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his centre-left Labor government.

The new laws will need the support of either the centre-right Liberal National opposition or enough left-wing Greens and independent senators to pass.

In an interview with Sky News after the introduction of the laws, opposition Home Affairs spokesman James Paterson flagged his scepticism towards the legislation.

“Australians legitimately held political beliefs should not be censored by either the government, or by foreign social media platforms,” he said. 

  - Bloomberg