The federal government has tabled the first draft of its Digital Duty of Care laws in parliament on Tuesday, which plan to allow users to decide if their social media content is served up by algorithms.
What we know:
In the proposed opt-in/opt-out system, platforms like TikTok, Instagram or Facebook would need to send account holders a push notification asking them to decide if they want to receive recommended content (ABC).Liberal frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce accused the Albanese government of politically motivated censorship and limiting free speech. “They are wanting to control the media to benefit them, not the Australian people,” Price said (SMH).Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denied the initiative, dubbed “my feed, my way”, is about government control, but instead was about “putting choice back into the hands of Australians online” (ABC).The Greens spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said the opt out policy does not go far enough. “Opt out is a recipe for big tech to manipulate and to get around it. They’ve got a lot of money, and we know that big tech will be looking for every crack, every possible workaround” (The Guardian).Albanese is expected to present the plans at the United Nations general assembly in New York in late September (The Guardian).
Read more: The Anika Wells interview (The Saturday Paper)