Labor women confronted Meta about threats to Australian MPs before Haines attack

Por Paul Karp — POLITICO – TOP Stories

CANBERRA — The attack on independent member of parliament Helen Haines has brought a focus on violence against elected officials, but the issue of safety was already top of mind when a representative from social media giant Meta was confronted by Labor women on Oct. 14 about threats they have received online.

Antigone Davis, vice president and global head of safety at Meta, attended the Labor status of women caucus committee last week and was confronted by MPs sharing their experience of abuse on its platforms, Facebook and Instagram, and dissatisfaction at its lack of proactive content moderation.

In January 2025 Meta made policy changes including relying on user reporting to identify much of the hateful, “lawful but awful” speech on its platforms, instead of proactively removing it without a user report. The change has led to an increase in hate on Meta’s platforms, including antisemitism.

According to two Labor MPs who attended the meeting and a further two MPs and two staffers who were briefed on its content, Labor women used the meeting to warn about the company’s lack of action against threats they receive online.

“Social media and Meta platforms have been disgusting for a long time,” said one MP at the meeting granted anonymity to discuss the content of a private meeting. “[Davis] came ready to give a presentation, ‘here’s how to block people, here’s how to use words to filter things out’ … Instead, people made her aware of what we are experiencing. It was robust.”

Two MPs and two staffers asserted that Davis was surprised at the nature of threats, including rape and death threats, although Meta disputed this characterization and proferred an alternative view that she was struck by the intensity of their experience.

The member for Boothby, Louise Miller-Frost, who did not attend the meeting, told POLITICO that she and a number of her colleagues use moderation app Areto, an AI tool to block hate, violence, scams, bot attacks and misinformation.

“It not only takes out the nasty stuff, it categorizes: is it a direct threat, is it a bot,” said Miller-Frost. “It gives us a better idea about what should be referred to the Australian Federal Police. It captures the content, hides it, and then gives us a report.”

The Labor MP who attended and spoke anonymously said she cited use of Areto in the Oct. 14 meeting and asked Davis “why are we relying on a third-party plugin, when you have all the data to do this yourselves, you choose not to.”

“This is why we’re trying to regulate social media more broadly: the approach to female MPs’ safety online is emblematic of their approach to safety online. What drives engagement, and makes them money, is outrage,” she told POLITICO.

A Meta spokesperson said “we were grateful to be invited to meet the Status of Women caucus committee and to hear directly from members about what they are experiencing on social media. It was a valuable and frank discussion, and we will continue to engage with the committee on this issue.”

“Threats of violence and sexual violence are prohibited under our policies and we actively remove violating content through a combination of automation and human review. We disable accounts that make severe threats and work with Australian law enforcement where necessary.

“Over the years, we have invested in updating and improving our policies to better protect public figures from mass harassment and sexualised abuse. We have also invested in updating and improving the controls available to public figures to better support them in managing comments and messages, and we look forward to helping members implement those tools.”

After rolling out social media restrictions for children aged under 16 in December, the Albanese government has introduced legislation for a digital duty of care just days ahead of the contentious caucus meeting. If passed, the duty of care wouldmake tech companies responsible for actively preventing serious harm on their sites.

The Coalition opposition has rejected the bill, which has been criticized by the U.S. government for its potential to facilitate censorship. But the Greens has signaled they may help pass the bill in the Senate, if it’s amended to allow individuals to sue social media companies. Communications Minister Anika Wells has agreed in-principle.

Although no motivation has been established for the 43-year-old man who allegedly targeted Helen Haines with his vehicle, debate in the aftermath has focused on the risks of MPs engaging in public events amidst increased threats and radicalization online. Wells will meet Davis next week to discuss online safety in the wake of the incident.

On Wednesday Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told ABC Radio that politics had “got more aggressive” with a “particular impact on women in politics.”

Albanese said there was “no question” that women face a different form of “vilification and aggression” online. “And the nature of it can often be sexualized. I mean, threats of rape, unfortunately, are something that most women parliamentarians can tell you they have received — and that is shocking.”

At the Antisemitism Royal Commission in July, Meta confirmed that its internal guidance stated that under its new policy statements including “immigrants are scum,” “trans people don’t exist,” and “gay people are sinners” are allowed to remain online.

“It is important to distinguish between speech that is offensive and content that could lead to offline harm,” a Meta internal document said, warning that it is “not Meta’s role to police offensiveness.”

Benjamin Good, the global director of the core policy team at Meta Platforms, told the royal commission it does not allow content that attacks others because of protected characteristics such as ethnicity, race, or religion, but it wanted users to have the ability to debate topics including immigration, gender and sexuality.

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories