Australia To Make Big Tech Liable For Citizens' Online Safety

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The Australian government plans to enact laws requiring big tech firms to protect its citizens online, the latest move by the center-left Labor administration to crack down on social media including through age limits and curbs on misinformation. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland announced the government's plan for a legislated Digital Duty of Care in Australia on Wednesday night, saying it aligned with similar laws in the UK and European Union. "It is now time for industry to show leadership, and for social media to recognize it has a social responsibility," Rowland said in a speech in Sydney announcing the measures. It would "keep users safe and help prevent online harms."

In response to the laws, Facebook and Instagram operator Meta Platforms Inc. called for the restrictions to be handled by app stores, such as those run by Google and Apple Inc., rather than the platforms themselves. The government has ignored those requests, but has yet to announce what fines companies would face or what age verification information will need to be provided. At the same time, Albanese has moved forward controversial laws to target misinformation and disinformation online, which opponents have labeled an attack on freedom of speech. Earlier this month, Albanese said the government would legislate for a ban on social media for children under 16, a policy the government says is world-leading. "Social media is doing harm to our kids and I'm calling time on it," Albanese told a news conference.

Big Tech - give us all your personal info

[jfdavis668]

So we can use it to verify your age!

Government - give them all your personal info

[thrasher thetic]

So we can punish you for wrongthink!

Re:

[MIPSPro]

Yeah, give your info to private businesses and they'll use it to sell you better products. Give it to government and they'll use it to put you in jail.

Who are Albanese

[rossdee]

Are they people from Albania?

Re:

[e3m4n]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

The Devil's in the details

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Yes, authoritarian govts without effective oversight & constraints in place could & probably would abuse such laws to their advantage. On the other hand, online social media companies have found that they can make more money by cultivating the conditions that lead to harm to citizens & undermine the institutions that we depend on for things like healthcare & democratic participation. Australia has its fair share of lunatic fringe groups & misinformation, & social media companies are amplifying them & causing real harm.

If you want to go all "USA! Freedom!" just have a quick look at the people about to enter the White House. Do you really want an anti-science politician in charge of healthcare or a conspiracy theorist in charge of national security or a white supremacist leading the military? Those idiots can do harm that ordinary people will feel in their everyday lives for the next 10-20 years.

Any country that can reign in this idiocy will have a brighter, less problematic future.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Any country that can reign in this idiocy

I heart irony

People believe what they want to believe

[Bruce66423]

Unless the truth is overwhelmingly obvious, it is far easier to go for ideas that make life easier in the short term. Over climate change, that means believing what I do doesn't matter. In economics that means believing that protectionism will make my country more prosperous, and in vaccines, it means thinking that vaccines do harm because they sometimes hurt and are an effort to get hold of.

To reject these ideas requires THINKING, which most of the population is bad at.

There are days when I'm sure we're do

What is "misinformation"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have a problem with the idea that objectively false information should not be allowed. However, who decides what is false? Even people with the best critical thinking skills get tricked. Then there is the issue of unknowns that can't be objectively stated as true or false.

It's an extraordinarily complex problem but one I feel needs to be worked on. It's clear that humans are incapable of filtering all misinformation themselves. For one thing, people have other stuff to work on besides spending all t

wat

[drinkypoo]

When is the government going to hold itself responsible for people's safety?

The government and the police aren't liable if you get assaulted on a city street, or if someone spots you on a city street, follows you to your home and assaults you there.

Why should social media sites then be liable if you get assaulted in relation to your social media activity? That's insane.

Either you're responsible for what happens on your platform or you aren't. This "on the internet" shit has got to go, it doesn't matter if it's a patent or liability. If the state isn't liable for harms done in meatspace, over which they claim dominion, then this is bananas.

People don't want responsibility or to think

[Bruce66423]

It's far easier to blame someone else.

Re:

[JaredOfEuropa]

It's "soft censorship". They don't want to censor online stuff outright, so they put some laws in place to make the platforms responsible, with vague guidelines and outlandish fines for violating them. The platforms will choose to err on the side of safety and remove whatever they think the government deems offensive themselves. The EU floated this idea a few years back to combat "disinformation"