Plans to toughen safety requirements for the big tech platforms are on ice potentially until after the election. A review has recommended hefty fines for companies that breach a duty of care around content including child exploitation and substance abuse.
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00:00This is kind of the product of years of process trying to work out how to essentially, yeah,
00:12make the rules more difficult, make the regulations tougher for big tech companies, all the social
00:18media platforms that are so well known to us.
00:22And they're looking at a pretty big stick here.
00:26Alternative fines, you know, up to 5 per cent of global revenue, which could stretch into
00:33the billions, as you can imagine, for a company such as Meta, for example, or 50 million.
00:40That's the alternative, whichever is larger, but you can imagine that it would be the first
00:44figure.
00:45That's what a court could do.
00:47Ten million is the civil penalty that's being threatened here.
00:53They're looking to kind of capture the biggest platforms in a tiered approach.
00:57So any platform or service that reaches more than 10 per cent of Australia will be automatically
01:02included in these new tougher rules.
01:07It's all being underpinned by a duty of care, as you mentioned.
01:11So this is really shifting.
01:12This is something the government has committed to because they haven't responded to the proposal
01:18that Delia Ricard has made, a senior public servant who's reviewed the law.
01:23That's all going to be tabled before Parliament today.
01:25We don't have the government's response.
01:26But the one thing they have committed to unambiguously, and this was back in November, is a duty of
01:32care which would make it so that the platforms themselves have to take responsibility for
01:37preventing harms from happening in the first place, rather than just responding to them
01:42in whack-a-mole style, which is the system we have now.
01:46If these proposals are taken on by the government or whoever is in government after the election,
01:53it would be a really significant change for Australia.
01:56These fines are really hefty.
01:57This would be pretty groundbreaking stuff if it was to be adopted, right?
02:01Well, groundbreaking in one sense, but not in another, in that we are really – and
02:05I don't think there's any shame in this, by the way – but cribbing the model from
02:09the EU and the UK, who have gone out on this first.
02:12They have proposed similar fines, a similar size, I think maybe even a little higher,
02:176%.
02:18So we're kind of matching what is happening in other jurisdictions, not in every jurisdiction
02:25of course.
02:26In the US, we see significantly less and we see Donald Trump signalling that he's going
02:30to have a lighter regulatory touch, to put it mildly, when it comes to big tech companies.
02:36We've seen a pretty cosy relationship and it was very evident on Inauguration Day, but
02:42you can see it elsewhere too.
02:43Very cosy relationship with some of these tech CEOs.
02:47And we're hearing also that these changes may have to wait now until the other side
02:51of the federal election.
02:52What are we to make of the timing of that?
02:54Well, there's a couple of factors here, right?
02:57I mean, we're expecting an election and we don't know when, but there may be as little
03:01as a couple of sitting weeks left before the parliament is dissolved, which is just not
03:07enough time to get reforms of this magnitude through.
03:10I mean, this is just the report, then it's got to be drafted and then, you know, all
03:14the processes that we're familiar with in terms of how laws get made.
03:18But the other factor here is, of course, Donald Trump's readiness to impose tariffs.
03:25And we've been seeing that play out.
03:27I mean, you know, we've been talking about it all day when it comes to even close allies
03:32such as Canada and Mexico, there's no reason to believe that Australia would be exempt.
03:38And Donald Trump has also signalled that, in fact, I think directly threatened in the
03:42case of at least the UK and the EU, that tariffs could be on the table for tech regulation
03:51in response to tech regulation.
03:54So it's definitely going to factor in the decision making of any future government when
04:03it comes time to decide how hard to go on this proposal that we're going to see more
04:10of today.
04:12And it'll be a very difficult decision for them, I imagine.