Labor ministers hit back at US billionaire, saying he is inconsistent on free speech and calling his comment ‘crackpot stuff’ * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Elon Musk has called the Australian government “fascists” over new legislation aimed at tackling deliberate lies spread on social media. Social media companies could be fined up to 5% of their annual turnover under the commonwealth’s proposed laws. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Meta’s director of privacy policy declines to say whether such an option would be offered to Australians in the future * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Meta is using the public Facebook and Instagram photos and posts of its users to train artificial intelligence and, while European users have been allowed to opt out of the mass-scraping of their content, Australian users do not have that option, a parliamentary committee has heard. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram paused the launch of its AI product in Europe in July due to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy rules, and as a result of GDPR law. Meta was ordered to stop training its large language model on data from European users on privacy concerns, and Meta has given European users an opt-out option. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...