Social media executives based in Australia could face jail time for failing to remove extremist video content under new laws proposed by the government in the wake of the Christchurch mosque shootings.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will outline the new criminal penalties at a meeting with Facebook, Google and Twitter representatives in Brisbane on Tuesday, but cyber experts say it's an empty threat.
Mr Morrison wants an undertaking that social media platforms will be made safe, after the Christchurch gunman was able to livestream his attack on two mosques.
"We want to same rules to apply in the online social media world that exist in the physical world," Mr Morrison told reporters on Tuesday.
But Nigel Phair, director of UNSW Canberra Cyber, said the new laws were targeting the wrong people.
"The penalty is only for Australian domiciled executives and on the whole they're marketing executives, not those responsible for running and maintaining the platform," Mr Phair told SBS News.
While Facebook removed 1.5 million copies of the video, Mr Morrison said the original footage was online for 69 minutes.
Under the draft legislation based on existing laws dealing with child exploitation material, it would be a criminal offence not to remove terror content or violent video as quickly as possible once the platform is alerted to it.
Penalties would include fines and jail time, but Mr Phair did not think it would come to that.
"We're never going to see the fines used and we're not going to see jail time used."
Mr Phair, who spent more than two decades with the Australian Federal Police, urged the government to instead focus on educating the public about their social media use.
"The role of government here needs to be focused on Australian citizens, focused on trying to engender into people what it means to be a good digital citizen."
