The new law came on the same day (April 4) that New Zealand police charged the man accused of the Christchurch Mosque shootings with 50 charges of murder and 39 of attempted murder.
Communications Minister Mitch Fifield, making the case for a tougher approach to social media companies who allow violent videos and other posts to appear online, said “It's important that we make a very clear statement to these social media organisations, that we expect their behaviour to change."
Australia's move follows the Christchurch mosque shootings on March 15th, which were broadcast by the gunman live on Facebook, in a video which was then widely shared for more than an hour before being removed.
Copies of the video continued to appear online for some time afterwards.
It is now an offence in Australia for companies, such as Facebook Inc and Alphabet's Google, which owns YouTube, not to remove any videos or photographs that show murder, torture or rape without delay.
Companies must also inform Australian police within a "reasonable" timeframe. "Today, we are legislating against the weaponisation of social media. We're introducing a tough regime against the misuse and abuse of online platforms."
The broadcast of the Mosque shooting video was condemned at the time by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who described it as 'unacceptable'.
Mitch Fifield says it is perfectly reasonable to accept that what is unacceptable in the physical world should also be unacceptable in cyberspace.
"The approach of this government to the online environment is that the rules and norms that apply in the physical world should also apply in the online world. That's why we established the world's first E-Safety Commissioner to be a one stop shop for advice, education and enforcement."
The new law would see social media companies fined up to 10 percent of their annual global turnover and executives jailed for up to three years if violent content is not removed "expeditiously".
Attorney General Christian Porter says while he accepts it is hard for social media companies to police all video clips immediately, what happened on March 15th was clearly unacceptable. "What is a reasonable belief, what is expeditious will always depend on the circumstances and should one of these matters go to prosecution and trial that would be a determination for a jury. But using the Christchurch example, I can't precisely say what would have been the point of time at which it would've been reasonable for them to understand that this was live streaming or playable on their site and they should have removed it, but what I can say, and I think every Australian would agree, it was totally unreasonable that it should exist on their site for well over an hour without them taking any action whatsoever."
