Social media giant, Meta, has appeared at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, defending its record on stopping online abuse. E-Safety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has slammed social media platforms for failing to monitor so-called "gore" content.
Listen to Australian and world news and follow trending topics with SBS News Podcasts.
TRANSCRIPT
Social Media giant, Meta, is once again under scrutiny in Australia over content regulation.
The US company that owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads has appeared at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, answering questions about how it regulates antisemitic content on its platforms.
One of the focuses of the inquiry is how the tech platforms moderate content.
In January 2025, Meta's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, announced a suite of changes, including dropping fact checking for community notes contributed by users.
In Meta's statement, it claimed to have taken action on 5.8 million Facebook posts from October to December 2024, but after the changes, that number dropped to 1.2 million from July 2025.
Benjamin Good, Global Director of Content Policy at Meta Platforms Inc, tells the inquiry that they want a balance between stopping hateful content and protecting free speech.
"In the area of hate speech which we now call hateful conduct, that is a very serious problem we have to avoid, of course we want to remove as much violating content as possible. But in this area, if we over-enforce, there is a considerable risk that we will silence people who are actually members of the affected communities trying to speak out against hate."
Mr Good also says the changes to content moderation allow more discussion on issues including gender and immigration, and the company has no tolerance for hateful content that contributes to antisemitism.
But Meta also told the commisison it does not have a standalone policy to combat antisemitism.
Instead, it relies on what Mr Good calls a comprehensive suit of polices that have a multifaceted approach to the issue.
"The reason why we do it that way is because antisemitism is a nefarious and multifaceted problem, it evolves, it's coded, it unfortunately crosses into different subject matter, and so we have to use different policies to enforce antisemitism."
Mr Good says currently, Meta relies on two approaches: using machine learning and A-I to remove posts classified as containing hateful content, and responding to reports from users.
But the inquiry also heard Meta failed to remove a Holocaust denial post on Instagram between 2020 to 2023.
During this period, Meta received six reports about the post - two of which were reviewed by human moderators.
Besides Meta, Live streaming site, Kick, which was founded by Australian billionaire Edward Cravan in Melbourne in 2022, also appeared before the inquiry.
Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, founder of database CyberWell which tracks online antisemitism, told Commissioners only 50 per cent of antisemitic posts that CyberWell flagged to social media platforms were removed.
"The unevenness and differences in terms of the way that the social media respond connect to also specific narratives like conspiratorial self-victimisation, and if that's considered violating the policy, most of the default will have it to highly constest dependent, and the second the platform will tell you something that is highly contest dependent, that means it's up to them."
Monday's hearing follows strong criticism from eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant.
She recently condemned X, formerly Twitter, for refusing to remove videos of the Bondi beach terror attack, in which 15 people died in December.
"We fight hard against X in terms of not allowing that post more on Bondi content, they said it's not any worse that you would see in a gore movie. These are mainstream platforms that are fighting for the right and ability to distribute and monetise this content."
Meanwhile, Muslim communities in Australia have found themselves facing more online abuse than before, according to a new report.
A Muslim father of three was assaulted outside a mosque in Melbourne's southeast in late June.
Speaking to AAP anonymously, the man later found he was filmed and the video was spread online, attracting anti-Muslim comments that were described as shocking.
The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils says the incident represents a broader escalation of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric.
