AAWAA has welcomed the opportunity to comment on an exposure draft bill aimed at providing the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) with new powers to combat misinformation and disinformation. Whilst a well-judged act could do much to address the problem of online harm, a poorly constructed act will only exacerbate current problems and undermine public trust in the ACMA. For this reason, we hope the government takes the time necessary to get this legislation right. We hope the minister recommends referring a revised bill to the appropriate parliamentary committee and that the committee chooses to conduct a public inquiry. We look forward to the minister’s Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights and the scrutiny of that statement by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Read our full submission, below, which covers government measures to combat misinformation and disinformation; balancing freedom of expression with combatting misinformation and disinformation; a human rights approach; definitions of misinformation, disinformation, and hatred; the bill’s technical design; engaging fact-checkers and experts; government immunity; duplication; complaint procedures; mandating periodic reviews; and parliamentary scrutiny.
In the main, however, we identify two broad concerns with the proposed bill. In the first instance, social media is contributing to an alarming increase in mental health issues impacting vulnerable young people, especially girls. Despite some token adjustments to what are known as ‘recommender systems’ (that is, systems that use selective algorithms to filter suggestions to end users based on the analysis of personal data), digital platform and services providers continue to direct users to particular websites and platforms that exacerbate a range of mental health problems; these include eating disorders and childhood gender dysphoria. Combined with this, ‘algorithmic audiencing’ (which amplifies messages to specific audiences) is contributing to the accelerating spread of extreme misogyny and homophobia, impacting people of all ages.
A second concern is that social media companies have a shameful track record of actively censoring women who have advocated for women’s sex-based protections and of deplatforming critics of medical interventions for gender dysphoric children. In particular, we note cases of Australian feminists banned from Twitter for many years; Reddit and YouTube have also censored critics of gender ideology. Detransitioners (those who regret, and believe they were harmed by, their previous medical transition) are being similarly censored. At the same time, digital platform and services providers have readily provided forums for those who advocate violence against women and especially against feminists. The UN Rapporteur for violence against women and girls has also noted the phenomenon of social media companies removing women from social media platforms for expressing opinions and beliefs regarding our needs, rights, and protections based on sex and/or sexual orientation.
