eSafety disputes censorship concerns over online safety bill
The Digital Duty of Care legislation has cleared the House of Representatives but requires crossbench backing in the Senate.
By Quang Dinh
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has disputed technology companies’ warnings that proposed Australian online safety requirements could lead platforms to censor content excessively to avoid liability. The Digital Duty of Care legislation would require companies to identify and prevent potential harms, with penalties reaching A$109 million.
Appearing before a Senate inquiry, Inman Grant said she had seen no evidence of excessive censorship by companies, particularly during the past two years. She argued that their business models encouraged them to maximise engagement by displaying material, including content harmful to Australians.
A senior Google executive in Australia warned the inquiry that an age-check requirement could mean excluding under-18s from Gmail. The provision would require age checks where children risked encountering pornography.
Representatives of Meta, TikTok and Snap also raised concerns about the discretion regulators could have in determining harm. Inman Grant said lawmakers could define harmful content more narrowly if they believed the bill was too vague, adding that greater specificity would assist enforcement.
She attributed most excessive content removals to automated moderation without human oversight, rather than regulatory pressure.
The government wants passage by the year’s end. The bill would also let users switch off algorithmic recommendations and view posts solely from accounts they follow.
