TRANSCRIPT
Social media is where people come to express themselves, and to share stories about their life.
But it's also a place where it's feared wrong information can be circulated about a range of issues.
Alice Drury is the acting Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre.
"Misinformation has been around forever, for as long as humans have been around. But at the end of the day, traditional media companies are held to a higher standard of truth, not a high enough standard, necessarily, but a much higher standard of truth that social media companies simply are not subjected to. So the spread of disinformation and misinformation in this new era of social media has absolutely increased on an astronomical level. And now we're really seeing disinformation spreading like wildfire."
In Australia, one of those regulators is the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Its March 2022 report found that 82 per cent of Australians experienced misinformation about COVID-19 in the eighteen months prior to its survey, and that false information is most likely encountered on Facebook and Twitter.
But Alice Drury says there is currently a lack of regulation to combat this online misinformation.
"There are effectively no laws with respect to regulating disinformation online at the moment. There is a code of conduct that the tech companies have written themselves very broad, really ineffectual effect that really does nothing. And so it's about that we're long overdue in Australia for a regulator to step in."
The federal government hopes to change that with a new bill called the Communications Legislation Amendment.
Under the legislation, ACMA won't have power to request specific posts be removed, nor will it have a role in determining what is considered truthful.
But it will be able to seek Australia-specific data on what platforms are doing to address misinformation, and have reserve powers to ask industry players for a new code of practice on social media platforms.
The code would become mandatory and enforceable after it's registered.
University of Sydney Media and Communications Associate Professor Fiona Martin says there is a need for stronger accountability in the space.
"A lot of information disinformation is not targeted necessarily at a person. So it's designed really as propaganda to influence how people think. All we have around that at the moment is a voluntary code that the digital platform services have developed themselves. The problem with that is that the government doesn't think that it goes far enough."
The Opposition have called for the new bill to be "torn up", with Communications spokesperson David Coleman arguing it would suppress legitimate free speech in Australia.
Mr Coleman says social media companies would ultimately self-censor legitimately held views to avoid the risk of massive fines.
Fiona Martin concedes caution is required, in case there are unintended consequences for legitimate political discussion.
"I think it's a start. I don't think it's enough. You see, we've got to be very cautious because one of the things with speech regulation that we don't want is restriction of political speech. We need to be able to hear what different political parties are saying, say about the referendum, and to have a robust debate."
But Deputy Chair of Marketing at the University of Western Australia Paul Harrigan says concerns around free speech are largely not valid.
He says the larger worry is the impact that misinformation can have on society as a whole.
"I don't think freedom of speech is necessarily the priority and I'm not sure that that is under threat. I think what's under threat is people believing things that are super harmful and the polarisation in our society is basically very dangerous for democracy as a whole. I mean basically, you're delivered content that you're most likely to like, and from people that you're most likely to agree with. All you hear is reinforcement of what you already believe. And if you believe something that isn't true, that's not only not going to be corrected, but it's going to be reinforced by more and more information saying that, and more and more people, your peers, that agree with that. So it's really, really dangerous."
