Tech giants call for bill’s disinformation focus

The tech industry wants Labor to amend its proposed misinformation laws to limit the scope of the bill to disinformation only.

Chinese social media platform TikTok has called on the Albanese government to make amendments to proposed laws designed to combat online misinformation. Picture: AFP

The industry association representing tech giants has called on Labor to amend its proposed laws to combat online misinformation to limit its scope to disinformation, and for the penalty to be lowered to avoid “incentivising” platforms to censor speech that might be considered contrary to government positions.

The Digital Industry Group – which includes Google, Meta, TikTok and X – is also pushing for stronger safeguards to be included in the bill to protect free speech, warning it could “discourage” media diversity.

In its submission responding to the bill, DIGI warned that the bill would “inevitably” require the Australian Communications and Media Authority to make a judgment on whether content was “false, misleading or deceptive”, recommending that a statutory review be carried out after a year “to assess its impact on freedom of speech and communication, privacy, and other human rights”.

“As drafted, the threat of high penalties, the broad power of the ACMA to make standards, combined with the low bar for misinformation and disinformation, collectively incentivises platforms to take down speech that runs contrary to government or regulator positions – eg, issues of public concern like climate change,” the submission reads.

The bill will grant ACMA the power to fine social media giants millions of dollars for online mis­information and disinformation it deems “harmful”, and threatens ­social media giants with an ­industry standard if self-regulation fails.

The proposal signifies a further crackdown on tech giants which have already committed to DIGI’s code of practice, committing them to reducing the risk of online misinformation, reducing its spread, and releasing yearly transparency reports.

Chinese video platform TikTok has criticised the bill for its differing definitions of disinformation as content that is spread with the “intent to deceive or cause serious harm”, arguing the code’s focus on harmful misinformation propagated through “inauthentic behaviours” should be preserved in the legislation.

The social media platform, with 8.5 million active users across the country, has been criticised for its espionage risk because TikTok’s staff in China can access Australians’ data.

Security experts have also raised concerns that the platform could be compelled under Beijing’s national security laws to “secretly co-operate” with Chinese intelligence agencies.