Australia dumps plans for ‘disinformation’ fines

The opposition has slammed a bill that envisaged hefty penalties for social media platforms as an attempt to suppress free speech

The Australian government has scrapped plans to introduce fines for social media platforms that fail to stop the spread of “seriously harmful mis and disinformation” online. The ruling Labor Party acknowledged that its Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill stood no chance of garnering enough support in parliament.

In a statement on Sunday, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland wrote that “based on public statements and engagements with Senators, it is clear that there is no pathway to legislate this proposal through the Senate.” She accused the bill’s opponents of placing “partisanship above any attempt to navigate the public interest.” According to Sky News, the conservative Liberal-National coalition, as well as the Australian Greens, and a number of crossbench senators all refused to back the proposed legislation. The opposition criticized the bill as an attempt to suppress free speech.

Rowland urged those parties and lawmakers to support other initiatives put forward by the government with the professed aim of “strengthen[ing] democratic institutions and keep[ing] Australians safe online.” The official went on to claim that “80% of Australians want action” to address “seriously harmful mis and disinformation [that] poses a threat to safety, the integrity of elections, democracy and national security.”

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The communications minister added that the torpedoed bill “would have ushered in an unprecedented level of transparency, holding big tech to account for their systems and processes to prevent and minimise the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation online.” The legislation would have focused on such aspects in particular as bots, fake accounts, deep fakes, advertising, and monetization.

The bill envisaged fines of up to 5% of a social media platform's global revenue for failing to comply. Under it, companies would have been required by the Australian authorities to present codes of conduct, with the regulator laying down its own standards should a social media platform neglect to do so.

The Australian government has mounted a regulatory campaign of late to reign in foreign-based tech giants.

On Thursday, Rowland introduced an amendment to the Online Safety Act in parliament that would obligate social media platforms to take reasonable steps to ensure effective age-verification protections. If passed, the legislation would ban children under 16 from accessing social media, with fines of up to AU$50 million (US$32.5 million) for companies found in breach.