Australian conservatives' push to make promoting crime online an offence, with powers to take down violent content

By general agreement, incitement to violence has always been subject to censorship and prosecution so this in not a far-out proposal but the devil is in the detail.  The laws against it in various jurisdictions try to define what it is and set boundaries to it but prosecutions under such laws have been difficult and there are controversial cases

Australia has long had laws against “hate speech” but even attempts to enforce them have been rare.  Judge Mordechai Bromberg’s absurd conviction of Andrew Bolt under section 18C of the RDA in a race-related prosecution seems to have chilled all further urge to action.  As Bromberg is Jewish, everybody wants to walk away from the potential complexities of the matter

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has called for powers to take down harmful online content to be extended to social media posts “glamorising” violence and criminal activity, with new offences to punish those who “post and boast”.

The Coalition will introduce a private members bill into parliament next week that would grant the eSafety commissioner powers to issue take-down orders and criminalise the act of promoting crime online.

The bill would create a new Commonwealth offence to criminalise posting material that depicts violence, drug offences or property offences to increase a person’s notoriety, punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment.

It would also provide sentencing options to ensure courts could prohibit individuals convicted of that offence from using social media for up to two years.

The commissioner’s current take-down powers only allow posts to be removed with the cooperation of the hosting social media company.

Mr Dutton said the offences were a “common sense” proposal that he urged the government to support.

“I hope that the government is able to pick it up quickly because I think Australians want an answer from the prime minister about what we can do at a federal level,” Mr Dutton said.

“When I was a policeman many years ago you’d go to a break-and-enter, largely it was someone breaking in to steal goods or money to fuel a drug habit.

“Today we know cars are being stolen and people’s houses are broken into … because kids if they’re part of a gang or if they’re part of a culture where they can post an image of a motor vehicle … or a designer handbag, or if they’re standing in a bedroom with an elderly lady asleep or cowering behind them, that brings them great kudos online, and it gives them notoriety, and it glamorises their crime.”

Renewed calls to turn the tide on youth crime

Dubbed a “wicked” problem with the power to shape elections, youth advocates fear punitive measures will fail to address the underlying causes of crime.

The Coalition has campaigned on issues of crime in recent weeks, both ahead of the Dunkley by-election in Victoria and the Queensland state election due to be held in October.

Monthly crime data shows there has been a long-term trend downwards of crime in Queensland and fewer young offenders as a percentage of all offenders, however assaults, rape and shop thefts have risen since 2003.

Crime rates also appear to have returned to trend after dropping off during the COVID pandemic.

Some states have already moved to ban criminal “posting and boasting”, with New South Wales announcing earlier this week it would create new penalties for people who shared vehicle thefts or break-and-enter offences, and make it tougher for young people to get bail.

University of Queensland Associate Professor Renee Zahnow said “posting and boasting” laws already existed in Queensland, but they had been difficult to enforce.

Dr Zahnow also said posting crimes was an issue beyond content that promotes those acts, and that governments should also be thinking about crimes posted out of community safety concerns, as well as crimes that identify victims.

“The government and police pick up on the posting and boasting because that’s the most offensive to the public. But the other thing we need to start to think about is more broadly not just when people are putting up their own offences and boasting about it, but they can still get the same infamy from other people putting up posts on them committing offences,” Dr Zahnow said.

“[And] If the victim is involved they are automatically identified.”

Dr Zahnow said if the eSafety commissioner were granted takedown powers, those could also extend to powers to pull content that identifies victims of crime.

But she noted even though there were benefits to “posting and boasting” laws, they would do little to actually reduce youth offending.

“They’re not going to stop crime rates. Young people who are doing this stuff don’t care. You don’t steal a car and put your video online of you doing it, and then think, ‘Oh someone is going to charge me for putting it online.’

“[however] we might not see changes now … and it’s very hard to measure, but the benefit might be that we don’t see other young people do these offences later, maybe the young brother, or the young kid who lives down the street.”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-14/dutton-push-criminalise-social-media-crime-promotion/103586388

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