A taskforce of Australian government agencies and social media companies set up to counter violent extremism online following the Christchurch terror attack has been quietly disbanded.
The revelation that the taskforce was wound up last year comes in the wake of the Buffalo shooting in the United States, as the government faces fresh criticism about its response to the 2019 terror attack by an Australian man.
The white 18-year-old male charged with the murders of 10 people at a convenience store in Buffalo, New York on Saturday cited the Great Replacement Theory and the manifesto of the Christchurch shooter in his own manifesto.
In response to the Christchurch attack, the government convened a taskforce made up of government bodies, internet service providers and social media platforms to help tackle online extremism from far right and white supremacy groups in Australia.
They made recommendations to government in June 2019, including to work to proactively remove terrorism and violent material online, and routinely report back to government on how different aspects of implementing the report were being achieved.
But since then, the taskforce has met just three times, with the last meeting in May 2021, when the taskforce was disbanded and responsibility shifted to the eSafety commissioner and Department of Home Affairs.
A spokesperson for the department told Guardian Australia content was still referred to social media platforms for removal, and between 1 January 2020 and 15 March 2022, there were 5,930 items of terrorist and violent extremist content referred for removal, 4,271 of which were removed.
Australia is a member of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) and through this, a content incident protocol was activated to limit the spread of the online material associated with the Buffalo attack, the spokesperson said.
The example provided was a podcast/videocast launched in September 2021 called Fearlessly Australian. It is hosted by boxer Danny Green, who interviews other Australians including Robert Irwin, NRL legend Nathan Hindmarsh, an ADF officer and a UFC star.
The accompanying Facebook page currently has 338 followers.
Guardian Australia sought comment from the Coalition.
An inquiry established in December 2020 by the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security inquiry examined extremist movements and radicalism in Australia. It was established after Labor had pushed for an inquiry specifically focused on far-right extremism. The then home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, watered down the terms of reference to cover religiously motivated and ideologically motivated extremism, with references to the far right omitted.
Paterson recommended the next parliament finish the inquiry.
Labor has also not responded to a request for comment. In additional comments made to the Social Media and Online Safety inquiry report, Labor members Tim Watts and Sharon Claydon recommended Home Affairs evaluate how it notifies social media providers about terrorist and violent and extremist content on platforms, noting Meta had told the committee it had not received any intelligence on that from Home Affairs.
