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