Social Media companies face fines over proposed Federal crackdown

Social media companies could face big penalties if they don't pro-actively try to keep users safe, under a proposed federal government crackdown.

Transcript

00:00We don't have a heap of details about exactly how this would work, but we do know that the

00:07Federal Government wants to impose a digital duty of care and so it would put a legal obligation

00:13on social media companies to take steps towards preventing harm against their users.

00:20Now Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says the current Online Safety Act enables

00:26people to be able to complain about cyber abuse and then have that hopefully try and

00:33get some of that harmful content removed, but she wants to see that go a step further

00:38where it's not sort of reacting to harmful content but indeed that the social media companies

00:43are actually preventing that harmful content from getting out there in the first place.

00:48Now we have seen similar approaches happen in Europe and the UK, but an expert in this

00:55space that I've spoken to this morning, while she says this does seem like a good move,

00:59she does point out that there have been some issues I guess, particularly in the UK around

01:05this definition of a duty of care, but also exactly how it would be enforced, so how the

01:10social media companies would actually make sure they're taking those steps to prevent

01:15harm.

01:17Now in terms of how other political players have responded to this, the opposition, the

01:21Liberal Party, they say they would like to see more details.

01:25Also the Greens saying that they look forward to getting those details to be able to scrutinise

01:29them as well.

01:30What's required is a shift away from reacting to harms by relying on content regulation

01:36alone, and moving towards systems-based prevention, accompanied by a broadening of our regulatory

01:43and social policy perspective of what online harms are experienced by children.

01:50Evelyn, the opposition has raised some concerns with potential carve-outs to the planned social

01:55media ban for kids under 16.

01:57What are they worried about?

01:59Yeah, the opposition really wants to make sure that Snapchat falls under this ban.

02:05So this is what the Prime Minister was talking about last week with banning kids under 16

02:10from using social media.

02:12Now the Communications Minister, Michelle Rowland, has suggested that there will be

02:17some exemptions to the rule.

02:19She's pointed to a site like YouTube Kids, so she said she'd like to see social media

02:24sites have a sort of lower risk version that could be safer for younger users.

02:31But when she was asked about Snapchat in particular in a radio interview this morning, it was

02:36somewhat unclear whether she thought that would fall under the definition of a social

02:40media site, or whether it would be perhaps exempt because it's more of a messaging app.

02:45So the opposition, who does want to see kids under 16 banned from social media, they have

02:51been really strong that they do want to see kids banned from Snapchat as well.

02:55Now the next step here is that the legislation will be introduced into Parliament here in

02:59Canberra in the next couple of weeks.

03:02That is when some of that detail will really be worked through.