Social media move Australia must make
For too long, tech platforms have operated outside Australian law, causing immeasurable harm. Here’s what we must do next.
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The Tech monopolies – especially social media networks such as Meta, TikTok and X – choose to operate outside our legal system.
In the space of just one generation, we have gone from magic to madness.
Remember when we first discovered search – when we learned we could find out anything we wanted to know at the click of a button?
Remember when our phones became smart? When we started sharing photographs and memories?
Remember our first video calls with family we hadn’t seen for years?
This was before online scams and blackmail, before cyber-bullying and revenge porn; before doxing and trolling, deep fakes and conspiracies; the surveillance economy and political interference; before terrorists live-streamed massacres; and sites celebrated anorexia as a glamorous lifestyle; before the epidemic of loneliness and anxiety; before the algorithms turned us into addicts.
Recent research in Australia asked 3000 social media users about their digital lives and attitudes.
Seven out of every 10 said they or someone they know had first hand experience of negative issues on social media.
For teenagers the number is even higher. There is no doubt our children are paying the price.
And our economy is also. The National Anti-Scam Centre reports that Australians lost $2.7 billion to scams last year.
Misinformation and disinformation, designed to cause real harm are also leading people down dangerous algorithmic rabbit holes.
West Australian Newspapers reported in March about the unprecedented explosion in online child sexual exploitation, with 32 million reports on major platforms each year.
And this is just the tip of a very large iceberg.
In the words of Cyber Security Minister Clare O’Neil: “Just about every problem that we have as a country is either being exacerbated or caused by social media, and we’re not seeing a skerrick of responsibility taken by these companies.”
So, why is this happening?
Because on social media, bad behaviour is good for business.
The social media giants profit from evil videos, bullying, con artists, and glamorising eating disorders.
In the words of a British father who lost his child to suicide: “they monetise misery.”
In Meta’s case, according to a recent report in the UK’s Sunday Times Magazine, that profit is a staggering $US136 million every single day.
With Meta’s decision to walk away from its deal to pay Australian news companies for their content, our industry is in new territory once again.
After Meta had turned off the news in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented that Meta was “prioritising profit over safety” when devastating wildfires forced tens of thousands to evacuate their homes without access to news.
Faced with that scenario playing out in Australia we can’t let ourselves be bullied.
Meta must be designated under the Media Bargaining Code and challenged to negotiate in good faith.
This current battle in my industry is part of a much larger struggle though, a struggle that will encompass and impact more industries and more people.
As a nation we must not blink now.
America has already given the tech industry the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card when it gave Tech companies a blanket legal exemption from responsibility under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
It created a “Silicon Valley Sovereignty” that now lets them get away with anything.
It’s time to stop asking for change and start demanding change.
The words Social Licence describe the permission companies have to operate within
a society. The Tech Monopolies should also be made to pay a licence.
This Social Licence would be a package of laws and requirements that Tech monopolies would need to meet if they want access to Australian consumers.
The licence should insist that each platform has an effective consumer complaints handling system.
Other measures to be included in this licence should be:
• The anti-competition framework set out by the ACCC which would address the problem of the monopolised digital advertising markets.
• A contribution to the money we are spending tackling mental health problems.
• A requirement for tech platforms proven to be the media’s unavoidable trading partners would be to honour the Media Bargaining Code deals for larger publishers and to contribute to a fund for small publishers serving local communities.
And Penalties?
Penalties that include criminal sanctions for companies that agree to the licence, but then break the rules.
And ultimately the power to block access to our country and our people if they refuse to play by our rules.
Australians overwhelmingly say social media should play by the same rules as the rest of us, with 83 per cent agreeing that the Tech monopolies should be subject to Australian regulations and law.
It’s time for a digital environment that protects vulnerable people rather than preys on them.
It’s time to protect our children, our parents and our national identity.
It’s time the Tech monopolies played by Australian rules.
It’s time for a reset.
Originally published as Social media move Australia must make
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