The Federal Government has introduced a new bill to crack down on the spread of misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms. Breaches of the law could see tech companies face fines of up to 5% of their annual revenue.
The new legislation comes after a previous version of the bill was delayed over concerns about freedom of speech suppression, including from the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Here’s what you need to know.
The problem
The Federal Government says while digital platforms have brought “significant benefits” to Australians, they can “also serve as a vehicle for the spread of misleading or false information that is seriously harmful”.
According to the Australian Media Literacy Alliance, 80% of Australians say the spread of misinformation on social media needs to be addressed.
The Government previously released a draft bill on this matter, but was criticised for including broad definitions for terms like ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’ and ‘harm’.
At the time, the Australian Human Rights Commission said the definition of these terms were “broad and vague“.
The Commission said this risked “enabling unpopular or controversial opinions or beliefs to be subjectively labelled as misinformation or disinformation, and censored as a result”.
The Coalition said the proposal would “lead to digital companies self-censoring the legitimately held views of Australians to avoid the risk of massive fines”.
New bill
In the wake of this feedback, the Federal Government introduced a new bill this week to address the same issue.
Under the new proposed bill, content can be defined as misinformation or disinformation if it is verifiably false, misleading, or deceptive and can contribute to “serious harm”.
Serious harm is defined as: harm to the operation of government or public health, the vilification of a group, physical injury, damage to critical infrastructure, or imminent harm to the economy.
ACMA
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is the government agency that regulates and upholds standards for the industry.
Under the proposal, it will have new powers to allow closer monitoring of digital platforms, including the power to set its own rules and issue fines to companies for non-compliance.
ACMA won’t have the authority to take down individual pieces of content or user accounts.
Alongside these new powers for the media regulator, the proposal also adds new requirements for digital platforms themselves.
Under the legislation, platforms would be required to publish their misinformation and disinformation policies, risk management strategy and media literacy plans.
Penalties
If a digital platform breaches the law, it could face penalties of up to 5% of its annual global revenue.
For example, Meta turned over $US134 billion last year. In this scenario, 5% of its annual global revenue would be $US6.7 billion.
Individuals who are found to have spread misinformation could face fines of more than $300,000.
Opposition
The Coalition opposed the previous draft, saying it would “suppress legitimate free speech in Australia.”
Speaking to the ABC on Wednesday, Shadow Communication Minister David Coleman said that if the new bill is “anything like the last one then it will have a lot of problems”.
Elon Musk
Following the introduction of the new law, X owner Elon Musk labelled the Australian government as “fascists” in a one worded tweet.
The comment comes after the recent legal battle between Musk and Australian authorities, which began after Musk’s company refused orders to take down graphic videos of a stabbing at a church in Sydney’s western suburbs.
Musk says he’ll continue to refuse all requests to removed any type of content on his site, saying “freedom of speech is worth fighting for”.
