The communications minister, Anika Wells, tells the National Press Club that the government won’t be ‘controlling free speech’ through Labor’s proposed digital duty of care laws. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP View image in fullscreen The communications minister, Anika Wells, tells the National Press Club that the government won’t be ‘controlling free speech’ through Labor’s proposed digital duty of care laws. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP Australian politics ‘Manosphere’ podcasts and moon-landing conspiracy theories to remain online under new laws, Wells says Communications minister rebuts claims that Labor’s digital duty of care laws would lead to government control of speech
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Prefer the Guardian on Google Australians could still “listen to manosphere podcasts” or “say the moon landing was fake” under proposed new online safety laws, Anika Wells has stressed as she rubbished claims they would lead to government censorship
The communications minister also said she was considering updates to the digital duty of care laws to allow individual Australians to directly sue big tech companies flouting the new rules. This has been a key demand from the Greens for their support for the laws, while the Coalition accuses Labor of plans to “secretly control Australian speech”.
“This is not about what people say on the internet,” Wells told the National Press Club on Thursday. “It’s about what platforms do on the internet, and your right to disagree with me or the government or believe whatever you want to believe will not be impinged by a digital duty of care.
“Your right to be free from harm, hopefully, will be improved.”
Wells said that “if adults listen to manosphere podcasts, or people post their views about the government, or make memes, or want to say the moon landing was fake – they can continue to do so without restriction”.
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“We are not controlling free speech, and we are not conducting covert surveillance,” Wells said.
The digital duty of care laws, introduced into parliament on Thursday after months of discussion and consultation, would add several planks to Australia’s online safety regime. The government said it would place “an overarching obligation” for tech platforms “to provide a safe online environment for all Australians”, and replacing an existing range of online codes and standards with a broader duty-of-care requirement to protect users from certain “harmful” content.
Wells has suggested misogynistic, pro-terror, suicide and self-harm, or eating disorder content would be captured by the laws, which will apply to platforms such as social media, online games, apps and chatbots.
“If you build it, you are responsible for its risks,” Wells said, likening the reforms to having seatbelts in cars.
Digital duty laws still allow manosphere content and conspiracy theories, says Wells – video “We must shift the burden from the shoulders of victims to the companies that are creating the environments where harms occur.”
The changes also provide for what the government has dubbed “my feed my way”, allowing social media users to opt-out of algorithmic content feeds and instead see content only from pages they have actively chosen to follow. Platforms face fines of more than $100m for non-compliance.
But the reforms have been met with ferocious oppositi…