The proposed bill requires social media, search engines, and apps to assess risks and prevent serious harms like child exposure to pornography, bullying, or crime-glorifying content, with fines up to $109 million for breaches.
Critics, including Shellenberger who recounted staffers defending powers to block U.S. execution videos while sparing local massacre coverage, warn it enables broad censorship and government fake accounts for disinformation.
Well, that was wild. I’m at the Australian Parliament and just left a meeting with two staffers for the governing party. They told us that the government needed more power to censor things like the upcoming US execution of Nidal Hasan.
When I asked why they needed to censor that video, one said it was to prevent copycat killings. Copycat killings by governments? I asked. Er, no, they said. Copycat killings like of a backpacker, several decades ago.
So, under that logic, I pointed out, the government should censor things like last year’s Bondi massacre, where two Muslims killed 15 people, no? Well, that was news, they said. Didn’t they realize their bill would allow the government to censor news? They didn’t seem to know, or care.
They also admitted that they did not know that the bill would allow the government to create and operate an unlimited number of fake social media accounts to attack its political enemies and spread disinformation. Having presented them with information they had never heard about a bill they had clearly not read, they emphasised to us, strenuously, that they were moving forward with the bill.
So there you have it. The government wants the power to arbitrarily censor scenes of violent crime, or violence, for any reason. And it wants the power to use an unlimited number of fake accounts to wage offensive disinformational warfare against the Australian people. –Shellenberger
The government plans to drop ministerial discretion on harm definitions amid backlash, shifting it to parliament, as debate weighs online safety against free speech.