Former Facebook ANZ CEO Stephen Scheeler has told Luke Grant social media platforms perform a difficult balancing act in choosing to allow or censor content. 

Mr Scheeler said platforms can’t simply allow anything to be published.

“Depending on the country, there are some restrictions already in place … things around child pornography and terrorism, there are laws around that.

“Facebook and Twitter remove that content and if they allowed it up, they’d probably face prosecution.”

The requirement to censor some content creates a hazy line for addressing controversial posts, such as those deemed to be inciting violence.

Currently in the US, big technology platforms are not held responsible for the content published on their sites and cannot be sued, which, as Mr Scheeler pointed out can have its issues.

“But if you swing the other way and say they can be sued for everything on their platforms, the amount of censorship … will just go through the roof.

“Some middle ground needs to be reached.”

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