Make it safe or we’ll make you do it: Australian PM tells Twitter, Meta

Social media platforms will be required to reveal the identities of anonymous online trolls or face making defamation payouts under the new legislation proposed by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

“The online world should not be a wild west where bots and bigots and trolls and others are anonymously going around and can harm people,” Morrison said at a televised press briefing.

People who believe they have been defamed online will be able to get court orders directing online giants such as Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms, the company formerly known as Facebook, to identify the individuals responsible for posts, Morrison said at a press conference on Sunday. If the social media platforms fail to do so, they will have to pay defamation costs.