Australia Follows EU, UK Steps With Misinformation Bill

The Australian government announced on Monday (March 21) that it will introduce new legislation this year to combat harmful disinformation and misinformation online.

The legislation will provide the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) with new powers to hold Google, Meta, Twitter and other tech companies accountable for harmful content on their platforms. With this announcement, Australia follows the steps already taken in Europe and the U.K. to make Big Tech companies responsible for the content posted in their platforms.

“Digital platforms must take responsibility for what is on their sites and take action when harmful or misleading content appears,” Minister for Communication, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts Paul Fletcher said.

The new legislation will complement the recently passed Online Safety Act that also seeks to protect minors and adults from illegal and restricted content online.

ACMA will be given new powers to request data from the Big Tech companies about how they have handled misinformation and disinformation. Additionally, ACMA will also be able to enforce industry codes and make industry standards. Unlike other jurisdictions like the U.K., where the code of conduct is a non-binding instrument for companies, in Australia the code of conduct established in the Online Safety Act is mandatory for social media platforms, search engines, internet service providers and many other companies operating online.

This is an important change as codes of conduct usually work on a voluntary basis, but in this case, the ACMA will have the ability to hold platforms accountable if their voluntary efforts are inadequate or untimely. The industry and ACMA have already worked together on the Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation that was launched in February 2021 and commits the signatories to take action to reduce the impact of harmful information.

Yet, the Australian government is planning to step up its efforts to control misinformation and it may review that code or design a new one to put more protections in place.

The announcement did not include any reference about the possible sanctions that companies would face if they failed to comply with AMCA’s requirements. Last week, the U.K. government introduced the Online Safety Bill that included requirements for digital platforms to tackle misinformation and harmful content, but in a last-minute addition, the government included criminal sanctions for executives who don’t comply with the regulator’s requests. The European Commission didn’t go so far as the U.K. in the Digital Services Act to include criminal sanctions, but the EU regulator will have additional powers to force the companies to remove legal but harmful content.

Read also: Australia Mulls Regulations For Apple Pay, Google Pay, Other Big Tech Players

The Australian government has been very active in the last year passing new regulation affecting Big Tech companies. At the beginning of 2021, the parliament ratified a code forcing Big Tech companies to pay news media businesses a fair compensation for the content they generate.

In August 2021, the government looked into the best way to overhaul its current infrastructure for financial regulation to enable stronger oversight of digital wallets and payments from Big Tech companies like Apple, Google, WeChat and others. The results of this revision may be announced in the second half of 2022. The regulations being considered could empower the treasurer to classify Big Tech platforms as designated payment systems. Currently, companies like Google Pay and Apple Pay fall under alternate regulations.

The new misinformation and disinformation act would be introduced to parliament in late 2022, therefore, the approval of a final bill will likely be pushed back to 2023.