A furious Barnaby Joyce has hit out at “social media giants” and “trolls and faceless cowards” following a “malicious” lie about his daughter.
Barnaby Joyce has stepped up his attack on social media platforms and online trolls after one of his daughters became the subject of a “devastating lie”.
Earlier this week, vile false rumours emerged that Mr Joyce’s eldest daughter, Bridgette, was in a relationship with outgoing NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro, who stood down on Monday.
Bridgette Joyce, 23, has worked in Mr Barilaro’s office as a senior adviser since February, and Mr Joyce decided to publicly speak out about the rumours yesterday, condemning them as “utter rubbish” and calling for action to be taken against social media giants which allow “character assassinations” to be published.
Today, the Deputy Prime Minister and National Party leader again hit out at the broader problem in a scathing op-ed published in The Sydney Morning Herald.
In the piece, he slammed the “devastating, soul-destroying, career-ending lie” about his daughter that sparked a “national scandal”, and said it was time to protect not only his own family, but “so many other children from the literal filth that is the ‘content’ of so many online platforms and their miscreant authors”.
He called out the “people and organisations” behind the likes of Google, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok that have “made themselves rich beyond our comprehension in the business of providing these platforms”, and argued it was therefore their responsibility to crack down on inappropriate content on their sites.
“Advertising revenue pours into their coffers while the traditional Fourth Estate of newspapers and investigative journalism move to further cost-cutting measures to stay afloat, many now as a social service rather than as an effective profitmaking business,” Mr Joyce writes.
“The proper inquiry into power, politics and social issues has been replaced by anonymous, slanderous, nebulous, mindless glitter.”
Mr Joyce argued the public had the right to expect that these firms “do not make their money by dropping character bricks on the heads of innocent private individuals”.
“It is reasonable to ask that an organisation with the competency to make itself among the biggest companies in the world also has the competency to monitor the content that makes it the money,” he continued, adding they should “honour a social contract not to demean and destroy people”.
“Twitter, it is not the trolls that inspire the devastating mental health issues. The trolls don’t have a voice unless you give them one, and you do!” he said, adding “the platform must be held liable”.
Mr Joyce pointed to the US, which currently has a Senate Commerce, Science and Transport Sub-Committee inquiry into the actions of online platforms and their effects on children, and said that Australian Attorney-General Michaelia Cash had this week pushed for a national, uniformed approach to defamation reform, following a High Court judgment that the administrators of social media platforms are liable.
But he also argued it was a global problem, and that a unified approach was the only way to “finally bring some decency into what has, in so many instances, become a cesspool of unaccountable trolls and miscreants”.
“Parents across the globe have had enough of picking up the pieces of damage that the billionaires are causing to their families. I am only one,” he concluded.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison joined Mr Joyce’s crusade, telling reporters the public can expect the government to do more “in this space”.
“Social media has become a coward’s palace where people can go on there, not say who they are, destroy people’s lives, and say the most foul and offensive things to people, and do so with impunity,’’ he said.
“Now that’s not a free country where that happens. That’s not right. They should have to identify who they are, and you know, the companies, if they’re not going to say who they are, well, they’re not a platform any more, they’re a publisher. They’re a publisher.
“So, people should be responsible for what they say in a country that believes in free speech. I think that‘s very important. You can expect us to be leaning further into this.”
News.com.au contacted Mr Barilaro’s formerr media contact for comment.
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