Meta and Kick Executives Testify at Australian Antisemitism Inquiry

Executives from Meta Platforms Inc. and the streaming platform Kick testified before the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in Sydney on July 5 and 6, 2026. The inquiry focused on the challenges of moderating hate speech and the impact of recent policy shifts on the prevalence of antisemitic content.

Benjamin Good, Meta's global director of core policy, defended a January 2025 policy change introduced by Mark Zuckerberg that shifted the company toward a reactive moderation model. This approach relies more on user reports than proactive AI removal to prevent the over-policing of political and counter-speech. However, the commission presented data showing a sharp decline in removals: Facebook's actions dropped from 5.8 million in late 2024 to 1.2 million by July-September 2025, while Instagram's fell from 7.4 million to 2 million. Good rejected claims that these changes increased antisemitic content, though the commission identified several posts, including Holocaust denial, that Meta failed to remove.

Representing Kick, General Counsel Tiat Oon Ooi testified that identifying hate speech is more art than science, admitting he could not definitively say if describing Jews as evil rats breached guidelines. He also noted that much of Kick's moderation is outsourced to Serbia. Separately, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant criticized platforms for failing to monitor gore content, specifically citing X's refusal to remove videos of a December terror attack at Bondi Beach.