Australia’s controversial misinformation bill will not become law after the government abandoned the legislation due to opposition in the Senate, with the communications minister suggesting several other proposals that could be pursued instead. SBS News has the story.
The federal government has abandoned its controversial misinformation bill due to opposition in the Senate.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland announced in a statement on Sunday the legislation would not proceed because there was “no pathway” in the upper house.
The scrapped legislation would have given the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) power to monitor digital platforms and require them to keep records about misinformation and disinformation on their networks.
The media watchdog would have also be able to approve an enforceable industry code of conduct or introduce standards for social media companies if self-regulation was deemed to fail.
If tech giants did not meet their obligations, they could have faced a range of penalties including fines of up to 5 per cent of their global revenue.
The bill did not cover misinformation if it’s used for parody or satire or within news, academic, artistic, scientific or religious content.
Critics from across the political spectrum had concerns the bill would infringe on freedom of speech.
Dr Jay Daniel Thompson, a senior lecturer from Melbourne’s RMIT University, previously told SBS News that while the bill is “well-intentioned”, he believed it had the “potential for censorship”.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, whose party was among those opposed to the bill, told the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday that some sections of the proposed legislation were “very vague”. She said legislation needed to tackle algorithms that promote dangerous and harmful content.
“The practical implementation was just not there,” Hanson-Young said.
In her statement on Sunday, Rowland put forward several other proposals for regulating online content.
These included legislation targeting the sharing of non-consensual and sexually explicit deep fakes; measures to enforce truth in political advertising; and reforms on regulation of artificial intelligence.
“Mis and disinformation is an evolving threat and no single action is a perfect solution, but we must continue to improve safeguards to ensure digital platforms offer better protections for Australians,” Rowland said.
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