Silencing free speech a bad idea

In view of their influence on Australians’ lives, it is indisputable that Big Tech monopolies and their social media platforms should be subject to our nation’s laws and regulations.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is promoting the Albanese government’s Misinformation and Disinformation Bill as a means to keep Australians safe online and to hold digital platforms to account.

The bill, if passed, would give the Australian Communications and Media Authority elevated powers to fine social media giants millions of dollars for misinformation and content it deems “harmful”.

But once established, the new regime would also create a powerful censorship tool, which could potentially enable governments and vested interest groups to exploit it in order to stifle political and public debate. Restricting the contest of ideas, the lifeblood of our democracy, would undermine the national interest.

On Thursday, announcing the Coalition will oppose the bill, opposition communications spokesman David Coleman noted that it gives the communications minister the power to personally order misinformation investigations and misinformation hearings. This could be wide open to abuse and an extraordinary power for a minister to hold in a democracy.

As former NSW Supreme Court judge and anti-corruption advocate Anthony Whealy told The Australian in July, the legislation would make it “easy to politicise the project and equally damaging to democracy”. The “usual definitions of truth and untruth are very difficult to apply and it’s all very subjective”, as he said.

Ms Rowland wants the bill passed by the end of the year. She argues that “doing nothing is not an option”. But pushing such controversial legislation through in haste would be a grave mistake. Too much is at stake. As the Australian Strategic ­Policy Institute warned in its submission on the legislation, more must be done to “guard against any unintended consequences”.

The warning bells being rung across the political spectrum are too serious to ignore. Mr Coleman has warned the bill would have “a chilling effect on political speech”. On the Labor side, Joe de Bruyn, former national secretary of the Shop Distributive and ­Allied Employees Association, fears the bill will empower “the faceless bureaucrats of the ACMA” to muzzle ordinary citizens’ free speech.

Mr Coleman is correct when he says the provisions of the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill are broad. Some groups are excluded from the legislation for any “reasonable dissemination” of material for academic, scientific or artistic purposes.

But an everyday individual disagreeing with those views would be deemed guilty of “misinformation”. Provided their arguments are not hate speech, defamatory, abusive or provoking violence, they are, surely, entitled to be heard and, if appropriate, have their opinions countered by others.

The explanatory notes accompanying the legislation suggest the process for the ACMA and the digital platforms to make that call about what is “disinformation” are convoluted and subjective.

Some of the criteria to make that call, the notes suggest, could be whether the information had been fact-checked, verifying claims against reliable and independent sources and expert opinions. All of which are often highly questionable.

At a time when politicians and others increasingly claim that those who disagree with them are guilty of spreading “disinformation”, the process would be problematic. And the fact that the bill specifically includes “false, misleading or deceptive information about electoral candidates or referendum proposals” goes to the heart of the democratic process.

Crossbench senators, when the bill reaches the upper house, should proceed with extreme caution. The Greens, showing contemptible disregard for Western values and open debate when it does not coincide with their far-fetched and dangerous economic and strategic policy views, want even more censorship. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the party’s communications spokeswoman, claimed earlier this month that false and misleading information was regularly published in mainstream media outlets and “that should be addressed too”.

There should be no room for hate speech, vilification, bullying or abuse online or in public debate. Such instances, and the wider problems created by Big Tech, can be addressed, however, without stifling ordinary Australians’ rights to have their say.