Political lies to be captured in Labor misinformation regime

Labor will expand its plans to crack down on lies on social media by adding political content into misinformation laws before the federal election, setting up a dispute in parliament about whether the revised plan will curb free speech.

The bill gives federal authorities the power to force tech giants to act on alerts about damaging falsehoods and stop them spreading before they cause serious harm, citing the lies spread about the Bondi Junction knife attack this year as proof of the need for tougher laws.

The government is seeking to pass new laws to combat political falsehoods spread on social media – but the opposition is wary.Credit: Matt Davidson

But the revised draft retains a controversial feature that allows ministers to ask the Australian Communications and Media Authority to investigate a social media platform, despite Coalition calls for this to be removed because it could allow political leaders to meddle in decisions.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland will put the misinformation bill to parliament on Thursday in a bid to resolve more than a year of disputes over drafts that triggered objections from the Law Council of Australia and civil liberties groups about the threat to free speech.

The plan keeps exemptions for the media and will also ensure that satire, parody and religious content will be protected, but it now includes political communications.

To settle fears the federal regulator would decide what was true or false in competing claims about online misinformation, the government has decided the authority will leave those decisions to the social media platforms so they must act on falsehoods and complaints from the community.

The scheme does not give ACMA the power to prosecute individuals who make false claims., although they can order content moderators to explain how they handle questionable posts.

The federal authority will instead require the social media platforms to set up clear schemes to act on the spread of falsehoods, and could issue warnings or remedial directions if they fail to do so.

In the worst cases, the authority could take the social media platform to court to argue that it had made a systemic and egregious failure to stop falsehoods and should be subject to a civil penalty to be decided by a judge.

The bill does not address Coalition concerns about ACMA officials making judgment calls about misinformation.

The Bondi Junction knife attack on April 14 sparked false claims on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that the attacker was a Muslim and also false posts that he was a Jew, leading the Seven Network to name the wrong man for the murder of six people.

The proposed laws aim to require social networks to have systems in place to remove posts that would be seriously harmful, misleading or deceptive rather than more minor falsehoods.

Political content that is considered to pose serious harm to the integrity of an election is a focus of the bill.

Labor sought a deal in parliament one year ago for the first version of the misinformation and disinformation regime, but the Coalition said the draft bill should be thrown out.

Rowland said doing nothing was not an option because misinformation posed a serious threat to society.

“The government is committed to keeping Australians safe online, and that includes ensuring the ACMA has the powers it needs to hold digital platforms to account for misinformation and disinformation on their services,” she said.

Coalition communications spokesman David Coleman signalled his concerns about key features in the government’s first draft.

“What we can say is that the last misinformation bill was grotesque, was one of the most appalling pieces of legislation ever put forward by an Australian government,” he told the ABC on Wednesday afternoon.

“It was just a shocking piece of legislation. So look, let’s see what they come out with, but if it’s anything like the last one, then it will have a lot of problems.”

In separate laws also to be revealed Thursday, sites will be forced to shield kids from targeted advertising as part of a children’s protection code included in a package of privacy reforms.

Australians will also gain the right to sue for serious invasions of privacy under the changes overseen by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, although media outlets would be exempt.

The long-awaited changes will not include a European-style right for a person to have information about them wiped from sites such as Google.

Albanese this week revealed the first steps of a plan to block children from social media. Asked in parliament why he was taking this step while not heeding calls for a blanket ban on gambling ads, Albanese said betting promotions should not be targeted at kids but argued against a total ban.

The prime minister said most gambling harm stemmed from pokies, not sports betting, and claimed some advocates wanted to ban gambling altogether – a claim rejected by Tim Costello, one of the chief advocates for a ban on gambling advertising.

“I think we need to make sure that adults can be adults, but children can be children,” Albanese said, in his most revealing answer to date on a proposed gambling package.

“And the connection as well between sport and gambling needs to be broken because sport should be enjoyed for what it is, sport. That is an important focus of why we are undertaking these reforms.”

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