Meta, X, ABC and SBS to Face Royal Commission on Media Role in Amplifying Hate

Meta will appear before the royal commission into antisemitism when public hearings resume on June 29 to examine the role of media organisations in amplifying hate. The commission will focus on Facebook, X, ABC and SBS. Meta confirmed it has prepared a submission and will give evidence.

ABC and SBS have provided statements to the commission and earlier this year ordered staff not to delete emails, photographs and documents relating to antisemitism, social cohesion and the Bondi attack. The Bondi terrorist attack on December 14 killed 15 people, most of them Jewish.

Before the public hearings, the commission held in-camera sessions on possible security failings that preceded the attack.

NSW Police had quietly dismantled a taskforce created to combat antisemitism, share intelligence and patrol high-risk Jewish events in the period leading up to the Bondi attack. Israeli-born academic Tali Pinsky, who moved to Australia last year, told the commission in May that she reported Facebook posts glorifying Hitler and likening Jews to rats.

Meta responded that the posts did not violate community standards.

The Tackling Hate Lab submitted a report to the commission showing a sharp rise in antisemitic and Islamophobic content after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. 5 million interactions on X and about 57,000 Tumblr posts from more than 50,000 accounts between 2022 and 2025.

4 times and its structure became more sophisticated, according to the report’s principal investigator Dr Andrea Giovannetti of the Australian Catholic University.

In the 48 hours after the Bondi attack, researchers found online hate increased on major platforms. One in five posts on X contained anti-Muslim content, and new forms of antisemitism rose sharply, including material blaming Jewish Australians for actions of the Israeli state.