‘Fly swatter for killer bees’

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner told the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion last Thursday that she has been handed inadequate tools to fight online hate, likening her powers to being “given a fly swatter to kill a swarm of killer bees”.

Julie Inman Grant said responsibility for tackling online antisemitism must shift decisively onto tech platforms, which she said already had sophisticated moderation systems but chose not to deploy them fully in Australia.

She warned that a promised Commonwealth “digital duty of care” could take up to two years to legislate – too long for the Jewish community to wait – and proposed making an existing voluntary EU online hate code mandatory as an interim fix.

Inman Grant said research has shown antisemitic hate content has spiked around milestone national and world events.

The commission also heard from three police forces about their engagement with the regulator.