Elon Musk double downs on 'fascist' comments about Australian government

U.S. business mogul Elon Musk doubled down on branding the Australian government "fascists," hitting back at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese over a planned misinformation and disinformation crackdown, local media reported on Sunday.

The latest verbal assault came after Albanese, responding to a post by Musk, said social media companies have a social responsibility, echoing similar comments by leaders in many countries.

Musk, who owns Tesla and social media platform X, responded to a post on Thursday about Australia's measures with the word "fascists."

In another post on Saturday night, he wrote: "Far left fascists love censorship."

Australia's suggested regulations could impose fines of up to 5% of annual revenue on social media firms for failing to address intentional falsehoods propagated on their platforms.

Since taking over X-then known as Twitter-in 2022, Musk has drawn criticism for eliminating rules banning hate speech and disinformation and gutting staff meant to rein in racism and harassment.

In recent weeks and months, posting personally on the platform, Musk faced condemnation for saying "civil war is inevitable" in Britain and promoting the idea that only "high testosterone" men should run governments.

Australia's legislation, if enacted, would grant the federal government the authority to penalize tech giants such as X and Meta for disseminating misinformation on their platforms.

This episode has rekindled friction between Musk and Australian officials, amid the ongoing global struggle over the regulation of social media, with countries such as Türkiye and Brazil banning access to such platforms as Instagram and X, at least temporarily, over objectionable content.

In April, Albanese called Musk an "arrogant billionaire" amid a dispute over whether footage of a church stabbing in Sydney should be displayed on X.