Censorship ‘won’t combat fake news’, says James Paterson

Censorship of Australians on social media is a dangerous path, say critics, as the Albanese government pushes ahead with laws to fight fake news.

Liberal senator James Paterson. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The Coalition has attacked moves by the Albanese government to combat fake news on ­social media platforms, saying restrictions on free speech are not the answer to the rising spread of online disinformation.

“There are other more direct means of dealing with this problem without censoring Australians,” opposition spokesman on cyber security James Paterson told The Australian.

Disinformation, particularly when wielded by foreign authoritarian governments against dem­ocracies, is a serious issue that demands a serious response, Senator Paterson said, “but so is maintaining freedom of speech for all Australians”.

Social media giants have been threatened with millions of dollars in fines if they fail to remove misinformation and disinfor­mation from their platforms, under draft legislation revealed by Communications Minister Michelle Rowland.

The new laws would give the nation’s media regulator – the Australian Communications and Media Authority – power to hold digital platforms such as Google, Facebook and TikTok to account for spreading fake news.

The penalty for breaching an industry standard would be $6.88m or 5 per cent of a company’s global turnover, which in the case of Facebook (owned by Meta) could be more than $8bn.

While mainstream media organisations would be exempt from the new laws, concerns have been raised that the legislation risks stifling debate on legitimate issues of discussion such as the safety of vaccines or evidence about the origins of Covid.

Opposition communications spokesman David Coleman said the Coalition had “real concerns” about the proposal, noting “this is a complex area of policy and government overreach must be avoided … [The] public will want to know who decides whether a particular piece of content is misinformation or disinformation.”

Under the draft bill, misinformation is defined as unintentionally false or misleading content; disinformation is intentionally disseminated to cause serious harm. Harm is defined as “hatred against a group in society on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion or physical or mental disability” as well as “disruption of public order” and “harm to the Australian environment”

Examples provided with the draft are misinformation that undermined the impartiality of the Australian Electoral Commission ahead of an election or referendum, or misinformation that caused people to ingest bleach to treat a viral infection.

The ACMA will not have power to demand specific content or posts be removed from digital platforms

Unveiling the draft laws, first mooted by the Morrison government, Ms Rowland said the government had no intention of stifling freedom of speech but aimed to “keep Australians safe”.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland Picture NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

Senator Paterson pointed to alternative measures being examined by the Senate select committee on foreign interference through social media, which he chairs and which is likely to soon make recommendations.

One submission to that committee is the Australian government should mandate that all social media platforms publicly disclose the content they censor and make it an offence to censor content where that has not been publicly disclosed to users.

Both the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre have recommended such an approach. “Transparency is the key to ensuring that censorship (including extraterritorial censorship) does not unduly restrict the exercise of free speech in Australia”, the HRC said in a submission to the committee.

The HRC declined to comment on the proposed ACMA legislation, saying it was preparing a submission, but pointed The Australian to its submission to the Senate committee as an indication of its position.

The new legislation has been broadly supported by the Digital Industry Group Inc, a not-for-profit industry association representing companies that include Apple, eBay, Google, Meta, TikTok and Twitter.

“In principle, DIGI supports the granting of new powers to the ACMA broadly consistent with their previous recommendations, and we will be closely reviewing the legislation and look forward to participating in the public consultation,” DIGI managing director Sunita Bose said.

DIGI chief executive Sunita Bose. Source: Supplied.

“DIGI is committed to driving improvements in the management of mis- and disinformation in Australia, demonstrated through our track record of work with signatory companies to develop and strengthen the industry code. DIGI shares the government’s strong commitment to protecting Australians from harms related to misinformation and disinformation, as demonstrated through our work developing and overseeing the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation.”

The voluntary code has so far been adopted by eight signatories – Apple, Adobe, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Redbubble, TikTok and Twitter.