Introduction by Croakey: The Trump Administration’s plans to carry out the first military execution since 1961 and to livestream this event, scheduled for 3 December, have caused shock and horror around the world.
Australia’s online safety regulator says it does not have the power to “proactively prevent” the firing squad execution being shown in Australia, but argues that platforms have a responsibility to protect users from harmful content, the ABC reported today.
Swinburne University media lecturer Dr Belinda Barnet told the ABC that the situation highlighted the need for the Government’s Digital Duty of Care Bill, which is being introduced into Parliament this week, as it will require platforms to take steps to reduce the risk of harm to users.
“At the moment there is no onus on the platforms to protect all of us in Australia from what you could call harmful content,” Barnet said.
The safety and wellbeing of children are at risk, both from this specific event and the wider digital environment, writes Ariana Kurzeme, Director of Policy and Prevention at the Alannah & Madeline Foundation.
Ariana Kurzeme writes:
If US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has his way, the execution of a man who murdered 13 people will be livestreamed for the world to watch within weeks. For Australians who haven’t witnessed a public state-ordered execution since the 1850s, this brings home important and timely questions about digital safety.
Whether people want to see it or not, this graphic footage will likely crop up through algorithmic feeds, autoplay and group chats – putting it within easy reach of millions of children, including here in Australia.
As an organisation founded in memory of two little girls killed at Port Arthur, the Alannah & Madeline Foundation believes we should not be glorifying gun violence of any kind. A firing squad presented as public spectacle does exactly that.
Australians have repeatedly shown they support strong gun controls, and the death penalty is prohibited across the country. The values Australian families hold about violence, firearms and the taking of life should not be overridden by whatever a foreign government chooses to broadcast and a platform chooses to amplify.
This is an important test for our federal politicians who are considering the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill. Much of the public conversation about online harm still assumes children find disturbing content because they go looking for it, but that is rarely the case.
Platform features such as autoplay, recommendation systems, trending feeds and peer sharing can put violent material directly in front of a child who was watching something entirely unrelated. A clip forwarded in a group chat for shock value can be seen before a child has any idea what it is.
Children have told us this themselves. In consultations with more than 800 children and young people, the Foundation heard about feeds that serve increasingly extreme material and reporting tools that seem to achieve very little.
One primary school student, frustrated by the spread of graphic “gore” videos, asked: “What is the CEO even doing?”
Research from the eSafety Commissioner shows almost three in four Australian children have seen or heard content associated with harm online, including fight videos.
Public health concern
The consequences are a genuine public health concern. Exposure to graphic violence can cause distress, fear, anxiety and trauma. Children who see graphic footage of a person being killed can experience fear, intrusive images, nightmares, anxiety and a lasting sense that the world is unsafe.
The impact is often greatest for children who have already lived through violence or loss.
Repeated exposure carries its own risk. When violent content becomes a routine part of what appears in a feed, it can normalise violence and desensitise young people to serious harm.
Through our work with children affected by trauma, we see how early experiences shape a child’s sense of safety and their understanding of what is acceptable. An execution packaged as content sends a troubling message about both.
Parents, carers and schools are already working hard to keep children safe online and cannot be expected to intercept every clip on every platform once harmful material has gone viral.
The burden of managing these risks should not rest solely on children, families and teachers, particularly when the risks are created by the way digital products are designed.
That’s why the Digital Duty of Care is so important. It would require platforms to identify and mitigate foreseeable harms before they occur – acting after content has gone live would no longer be enough.
For the duty to work, it must be enforceable, backed by a regulator with the resources and powers to impose meaningful penalties, and it must apply across messaging, gaming, search and AI-powered services as well as social media.
We already expect cars, toys and medicines to be made safe before they reach children.
Digital environments should meet the same standard. Children deserve online spaces that are safe by design, with protections that reduce the likelihood of being exposed to harmful and traumatic content in the first place.
• Ariana Kurzeme is Director of Policy & Prevention at the Alannah & Madeline Foundation. The Foundation’s submission on the exposure draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 is here. A joint submission with several other organisations and experts is here.
Further reading
- Livestreaming US execution would breach prohibition of torture, UN rights office warns
- Amnesty International: Livestreaming firing squad execution would compound cruelty of the death penalty
See Croakey’s archive of articles on digital platforms
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