July 12, 2023
Tech giant Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, says it is concerned new legislation designed to limit the spread of online misinformation could have a chilling effect on free speech in Australia, with potential for it to be abused to shut down legitimate debate.
The federal government announced legislation last month that would give the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) new powers, including a potential government-mandated industry-wide standard on misinformation and disinformation.
The laws would give ACMA the power to request specific content or posts be removed from social media sites, but some Coalition MPs have branded it an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth”.
Social media companies could be hit with fines of $2.75 million or 2 per cent of global turnover, whichever is larger, if they repeatedly fail to remove disinformation and misinformation.
Meta’s head of public policy in Australia, Josh Machin, on Tuesday told a Senate inquiry examining foreign interference through social media that the company was happy to be part of a voluntary industry code but was concerned about a compulsory government-run scheme.
Manchin said the draft legislation, which is currently open for public submissions, “empowers the ACMA to, for example, develop binding standards around misinformation and disinformation with some very substantial civil penalties and also criminal penalties for individuals who are involved”.
“That is a part of the legislation that we’re looking at quite closely,” he said.
“We can see some potential for that power to be abused, or for it to be used in a way that inadvertently chills free and legitimate political expression online. We’re thinking through some constructive suggestions.”
Committee chair Paterson is one of the Coalition MPs who have voiced concern about the legislation.
He said during the hearings he was concerned that government-enforced social media misinformation standards could have prevented Australians from discussing the notion that the coronavirus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – a theory originally regarded as fringe that later became mainstream.
The draft legislation defines misinformation as material that is unintentionally “false, misleading or deceptive” and is “reasonably likely to cause serious harm”. The definition of disinformation is similar but for material that is deliberately false.
Mainstream media organisations would be exempt from the rules.
Examples of misinformation provided with the draft include posts questioning the impartiality of the Australian Electoral Commission ahead of an election or referendum, or those that prompt people to ingest bleach to treat a viral infection.
Meta executives said the new Threads platform, a rival to Twitter released last week, would be monitored for misinformation in similar ways to Facebook and Instagram.
When announcing the laws, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said they aimed to “strike the right balance between protection from harmful mis- and disinformation online and freedom of speech”.
“Mis- and disinformation sows division within the community, undermines trust and can threaten public health and safety,” Rowland said.
The ACMA will appear before the inquiry on Wednesday.
TikTok’s Australian boss also told the inquiry that “serious changes” need to happen in the business after some employees were caught accessing journalists’ confidential information.
During the hearings, Paterson grilled TikTok representatives about their parent company’s links to Beijing and whether employees in China could access Australian user data.
TikTok’s Australian general manager, Lee Hunter, distanced the company from employees who were revealed by Forbes to have allegedly spied on US journalists after negative stories about the video-sharing app.
While denying the accusation of spying, Hunter said: “This is not what the company stands for. These employees were seeking to isolate the source of leaked confidential company information. With this serious misconduct from these rogue employees, serious changes need to happen in the business.”
He continued: “I want to reassure Australians and in particular Australian journalists their safety and security on our platform is our number-one priority.”
Paterson reiterated that he was extremely disappointed the Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat, which has an estimated 1 million users in Australia, did not make any representatives available to appear before the committee.
