'Mistakes are there to be made just not repeated. Let them be a temporary but valuable detour not a permanent dead end.'
- Anita Anand
Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team meddling in elections
Hacks, Bots and Blackmail: How Secret Cyber Mercenaries Disrupt Elections
Hackers Targeting Telecommunications Industry – Over 74 Million Clients’ Data Leaked
‘Corporate villain’ TikTok: How HR can address the latest social media trend HR Dive
Who are the key figures in the public sector’s most significant royal commission?
The Robodebt Files: Key player profiles:
- Kathryn Campbell
- Malisa Golightly
- Maris Stipnieks
- Annette Musolino
- Christopher Birrer
- Anna Fredericks
- Hank Jongen
- Michael Kerr-Brown
- Robert Whelan
- Serena Wilson
Reuters Institute: “TikTok is currently one of the world’s fastest-growing social networks with its addictive algorithm surfacing an endless stream of short, entertaining videos. Until recently the network had a reputation built almost exclusively on fast-moving, funny or musical memes, but stories such as Black Lives Matter, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine have helped make news a much bigger part of the mix.
Changes to the platform, enabling longer videos and the promotion of live streams, have also made TikTok more attractive for news publishers looking to engage younger audiences. Despite this, our Reuters Institute Digital News Report research suggests that news on TikTok is still mostly generated by social media influencers, activists, or ordinary people rather than by journalists. Qualitative studies of younger consumers show that although TikTok is loved for its humour and engaging presentation, many worry about the credibility of the information they see there and the potential for misinformation and disinformation. Understanding the nature of news on any social platform is a huge endeavour given the highly personalised nature of the experience and the limited availability of public data.
Partly for these reasons, in this report we focus mainly on the production of content for TikTok by publishers, as well as some independent news creators. We have tracked the extent of publisher activity across more than 40 countries, one of the first attempts to do this, and interviewed some of the most successful news organisations such as the Washington Post, Sky News, and Le Monde about their motivations and key learnings.”
‘I find it astounding’: judge slams AUSTRAC on Crown
A Federal Court judge has dressed down the financial crimes regulator, questioning whether it is serious about prosecuting the nation’s casinos after taking more than a year to bring its case against Crown Resorts to court.
The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) is suing casino operators Crown Resorts, Star Entertainment and Skycity for “innumerable” breaches of anti-money laundering laws.
Presiding on Monday morning, Justice Michael Lee told the court he read a book over the weekend which reminded him that the negotiated settlement to end the Napoleonic wars took less time.
“The Congress of Vienna took nine months to talk about the future of Europe, you’ve had 12 months to talk about admissions,” Justice Lee remarked.
“I’m not going to give any more time for there to be chit-chat between solicitors. We’re going to get the matter on,” he told AUSTRAC’s lawyers.
Justice Lee said he couldn’t believe AUSTRAC was serious about prosecuting the case given the lawyers had agreed to Crown’s request until May to settle on agreed facts and admissions, and to prepare a defence.
I just find it astounding. Why on earth would a regulator agree to a timetable like that?” Justice Lee said.
“It’s in the public interests that these proceedings be determined and be determined with alacrity.
“It’s already meandered for a year. I just want to know whether the regulator in this case is serious about running the case or not?” he asked.
“Because if they’re serious about running this case, I do not understand why they’re suggesting it’d be 15 months before the court starts managing the case.”
In March 2022, AUSTRAC filed its case against Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth in the Federal Court alleging the company breached anti-money laundering laws “innumerable times” and slamming its senior leaders for having “wholly inadequate oversight” of its compliance.
AUSTRAC alleges Crown failed to assess the risk of 60 “high risk” VIPs who bet “in excess of $70 billion” and lost $1.1 billion since March 2016. “As some of these 60 customers were customers of both Crown Melbourne and Crown Perth, they account for 83 contraventions in total,” the regulator said in a statement last year.
Crown was bought out by Blackstone last year following a slew of damaging findings, ending James Packer’s association with the casino.
The total penalties attached to the AML breaches allegedly committed by Crown exceed $1 billion in theory – it is estimated 576 alleged contraventions each carry a maximum fine of $22.2 million – but analysts have previously predicted a fine from AUSTRAC would more likely amount to several hundred million dollars.
‘Very serious about running this case’
AUSTRAC’s lawyer Michael Hodge said the regulator was “very serious about running this case”.
“As for the time that’s required … [the solicitors who are acting for Crown] are extremely experienced in relation to AML, CTF (anti-money laundering, counterterrorism financing) matters,” Mr Hodge said.
“When they say they will need to have 12 weeks to do the defence … we’re just not in a position as officers of the court on behalf of AUSTRAC to say that’s wrong. That’s the difficulty.”
