Sydney church stabbing: social media pages ‘infamous’ for spreading misinformation taken down

Social media pages “infamous” for spreading misinformation have been taken down after the Wakeley church stabbing attack, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, said on Thursday, while expressing alarm at the “wildfire” of rumour and graphic content still proliferating on tech platforms.

On Monday night YouTube was live broadcasting Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel’s service at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church.

A 19-year-old man, Dani Mansour, fronted court on Thursday charged with riot, affray and damage to property for his alleged actions outside the church, where an estimated 2,000 people gathered on Monday night.

Since end-to-end encrypting communications on the platform as a measure to protect user privacy, Meta no longer has access to the content of messages so cannot monitor what is spreading.

Minns told reporters on Thursday that NSW police and the state government were concerned about the amount of unsubstantiated rumour and graphic content still accessible on social media sites.

On Wednesday night, a spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner said Meta had complied with the notices, while the compliance of X – the platform formerly known as Twitter before it was bought by the billionaire Elon Musk in 2022 – was still being reviewed.