‘Roman amphitheatre stuff’: Big tech, media warned over livestreamed US execution

Social media platforms and media outlets have been warned to show caution about broadcasting a planned livestreamed execution in the United States, but doubts remain about the federal government’s ability to block the footage from being viewed in Australia.

The Pentagon announced last week that the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, would be livestreamed on December 3.

The execution is expected to be carried out by firing squad, which would make it the first killing of its kind in the US since World War II.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young wrote to Communications Minister Anika Wells and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on Monday calling for them to do whatever it takes to stop footage of the “abhorrent” firing squad from being available in Australia.

Plans for the livestream drew condemnation across the political spectrum, with One Nation Senator Barnaby Joyce decrying it as “Roman amphitheatre stuff”.

“I certainly don’t want any children, or anybody to be honest, to witness another human being being shot by a firing squad,” Joyce told News24.

A group of eminent Australians has called for the government to do more to live up to its reputation as a leading opponent of the death penalty, warning there could be a repeat of the execution of the Bali Nine ringleaders without reform.

A spokesperson for the Department of Communications said: “Broadcasters must comply with rules about reporting on violent or distressing content.

“It would be expected they exercise strong editorial control over their coverage and act responsibly in reporting on this matter.”

Hanson-Young said in her letter to Wells and Inman Grant: “This is an unconscionable, abhorrent act that will undoubtedly expose an immeasurable number of people, including Australians and their children, to traumatic, barbaric content that has absolutely no place in any society, let alone ours.

“I urgently ask you to confirm that you will take whatever action is necessary to ensure that the US administration’s livestream execution will not be accessible on the Australian internet or broadcast on Australian free-to-air or streaming services.”

She urged the government to levy “very large fines” if streaming and social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Meta broadcast or replayed the execution.

Opposition treasury spokesperson Tim Wilson said he found the prospect of a livestreamed execution “enormously problematic”, but said he had concerns over censorship.

“We shouldn’t be promoting that sort of violence,” Wilson said. “But the challenge is going to be: how do you do that in a way that doesn’t amount to a censorship ban on the internet?”

Labor frontbencher Julian Hill said he found the “whole thing abhorrent”.

“As for the proposition that such a thing would be broadcast live stream, I don’t want Australians to have to view that. I don’t want them able to view it,” he told News24.

“But the honest answer is, I don’t know what legal powers exist to block. I don’t know how effective such things would be.”

“Broadcasting executions traumatises viewers and normalises state killing. Public executions are carried out in Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea. The United States should not be borrowing from that playbook.”

Sara Kowal, who leads Monash University’s anti-death penalty clinic, said: “The Albanese government is right to urge platforms to exercise restraint ... Broadcasting executions traumatises viewers and normalises state killing.”

In a letter to Foreign Minister Penny Wong and fellow ministers, a group of prominent lawyers, former politicians and human rights advocates warned Australia’s opposition to the death penalty is being undermined by laws that leave police cooperation with execution-prone countries insufficiently regulated.

The group includes former Labor minister Barry Jones, High Court chief justice Michael Kirby, senior barristers and legal advocates who say the government must ensure the mistakes of the past cannot be repeated.

Australia has publicly opposed the use of capital punishment for drug offences while maintaining crime cooperation with countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Singapore and China, all of which retain the death penalty for some drug-related crimes.

The Australian Federal Police shared 296 pieces of intelligence relating to drug exports from Myanmar after the 2021 military coup, even as the regime resumed executions and retained capital punishment for certain drug offences.

The Capital Punishment Justice Project ambassadors said the risks exposed by the case of the Bali Nine have never been fully resolved, more than a decade after Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed by firing squad in Indonesia.

Pastor and anti-death penalty campaigner Christine Buckingham said the world was going backwards on the death penalty, meaning Australia needed to play a greater leadership role in the Indo-Pacific.

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