Australia plans to require social media platforms to act to prevent online harm to users such as bullying, predatory behavior and algorithms pushing destructive content, the government said yesterday.
“The Digital Duty of Care will place the onus on digital platforms to proactively keep Australians safe and better prevent online harms,” Australian Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said in a statement.
The proposed changes to the Online Safety Act were announced before the government next week introduces to Parliament world-first legislation that would ban children younger than 16 from platforms including X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
Photo: Reuters
Critics have argued that removing children from social media would reduce incentives for platforms to provide safer online environments.
Social media have been blamed for an increase in children taking their own lives and developing eating disorders due to bulling and exposures to negative body images.
Rowland said that making tech companies legally responsible for keeping Australians safe was an approach already adopted by Britain and the EU.
Digital businesses would be required to take “reasonable steps” to prevent foreseeable harms on their platforms and services, she said.
The duty of care framework would be underpinned by risk assessment and risk mitigation, and informed by safety-by-design principles, the minister said.
Legislating a duty of care would mean services cannot “set and forget,” she said.
Instead, their obligations would mean they need to continually identify and mitigate potential risks, as technology and service offerings change and evolve, she said.
The categories of harm in the legislation include harm to young people and mental well-being, promotion of harmful practices and illegal activity.
The government has not said when the duty of care legislation would be introduced to Parliament or outlined the punishment for breaches.
The Digital Industry Group Inc, an advocate for the digital industry in Australia better known as DIGI, welcomed government efforts to “future-proof” the Online Safety Act.
“DIGI’s members together represent some of the safest sections of the Internet and their work to keep people safe on their services never stops,” DIGI managing director Sunita Bose said in a statement.
“While we wait for further details about this announcement, DIGI’s members will continue to deliver safety-by-design on their services and work constructively with the government to keep Australians safe online,” Bose added.
Swinburne University digital media expert Belinda Barnet described the duty of care as a “great idea.”
“It’s quite pioneering to expect that platforms that host Australian users would have a duty of care responsibility in terms of the content they show and the experiences they offer,” Barnet said.
“It’s making the platforms take responsibility and that just simply doesn’t happen at the moment. There’s an assumption that they’re a neutral third party. They’re not responsible for the impact of that content,” she said.
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS