Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email <\/a><\/p>\nThe state government will also lower the legal threshold to sue social media and artificial intelligence platforms for negligence causing psychiatric harm to children.<\/p>\n
Current laws require families to prove a child has suffered a permanent impairment of at least 10% before pursuing damages.<\/p>\n
These assessments are made by medical practitioners, who apply calculations to estimate how significant a given injury is.<\/p>\n
The changes would scrap that threshold for suits brought on behalf of minors, with further changes for adult victims to be considered.<\/p>\n
Marilyn Bromberg, an associate professor of law at the University of Western Australia who specialises in social media regulation, said the changes were a step in the right direction but should go further.<\/p>\n
So-called \u201cdemasking\u201d powers in some overseas jurisdictions had been shown to discourage harmful behaviours in some cases, she told AAP.<\/p>\n
There is no reason the reforms should not be extended to other forms of online behaviours, including defamation and cyberbullying.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a brave start, but I don\u2019t think it goes far enough,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Bromberg also welcomed moves to make it easier for families to pursue negligence claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe harms that social media can cause young people have been substantiated by compelling, peer-reviewed research,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Stronger protections would help to build on other measures, including Australia\u2019s world-leading minimum age requirements for social media, she said.<\/p>\n
Social media companies have been facing growing waves of legal challenges from families overseas.<\/p>\n
Earlier in 2026, a US jury found Alphabet\u2019s Google and Meta liable for damages in a landmark social media addiction lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The verdict was touted by some as a turning point in the global backlash against their platforms\u2019 perceived mental health harms to young people.<\/p>\n
Whether Victoria\u2019s changes would open the floodgates to similar suits in Australia remained to be seen, Bromberg said.<\/p>\n
The premier, Jacinta Allan, said the changes were overdue.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocial media and AI companies design their platforms to be addictive, and our kids are paying the price,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a platform hurts a child, families should be able to take that company to court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both reforms will be developed after consultations with Vcat, courts and other stakeholders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social media companies could be forced to identify anonymous accounts accused of online vilification, under new laws being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-809730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}