The name of the incident 'Christchurch mosque shootings' still sends shivers down the spine. On 15 March 2019, during Friday Prayer, two consecutive terrorist attacks at mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand took place. The gunman who killed as many as 49 people in the attack had streamed the attack live. Few weeks after the incident, Australia passed a a law that will hold social media houses and ther executives accountable if violent content posted on the social media handle is not “expeditiously removed" from respective platforms.
The new law states if the media houses including Google, Twitter, and Facebook fail to remove photos and videos posted on their platforms that show murder, torture, or rape, criminal charges will be filed against them, as soon as possible. The law further propagate that not only will the companies will delete the photos or videos, but the companies also have the responsibility of inform Australian police of the inappropriate content within a “reasonable” time frame, it was reported.
However, the law has not defined the words 'expedious' and 'reasonable time'. But the media companies that fail to do the required within stipulated time period will be fined up to 10% of their annual global turnover. Apart from this, the executives of the defaulting companies will be jailed for up to three years.