Report from ABC News Australia
In Brief – The Australian Government has released draft legislation to add a Digital Duty of Care to the Online Safety Act of 2021. A key provision is the “My Feed, My Way” initiative requiring social media platforms to give all users a choice between an algorithmically personalized feed and a feed containing only content from accounts they follow. The reforms also build on Australia’s under-16 social media ban, which the government says has led to more than five million accounts being removed or deactivated. The Duty of Care requires covered platforms to take proactive steps to protect minors from a range of harmful content, including material promoting eating disorders, pornography, misogyny, crime, dangerous stunts, bullying and serious mental distress. Online games, apps, messaging services and AI chatbots would also be required to protect under-18s from harmful design features, including addictive functions and features that negatively affect self-esteem.
Context – Domestic critics responded to the new proposal by raising censorship concerns, arguing that the draft grants the government and eSafety Commissioner sweeping, loosely defined powers to determine what constitutes “serious harm”, a criticism that harkens back to attacks on the government’s aborted 2024 effort to enact legislation requiring social media platforms to combat disinformation and misinformation identified by regulators. Internationally, Australia regulating social media is news because of the outsized attention their 16-year-old age limit for social media has garnered them. A host of governments have discussed following suit despite the impacts in Australia being questionable at best. France was a first mover in Europe, but their 15-year-old social media ban was recently struck down over freedom of speech concerns. Several US states have passed age-based social media laws, with most struck down by judges, although some are in place pending litigation. Meta’s decision to settle a big State AG lawsuit and accept a set of operational limits may become a template for social media limits in the US that may not have passed judicial muster otherwise.