In the worst cases, the authority could take the social media platform to court to argue that it had made a systemic and egregious failure to stop falsehoods and should be subject to a civil penalty to be decided by a judge.
The bill does not address Coalition concerns about ACMA officials making judgment calls about misinformation.
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The Bondi Junction knife attack on April 14 sparked false claims on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that the attacker was a Muslim and also false posts that he was a Jew, leading the Seven Network to name the wrong man for the murder of six people.
The proposed laws aim to require social networks to have systems in place to remove posts that would be seriously harmful, misleading or deceptive rather than more minor falsehoods.
Political content that is considered to pose serious harm to the integrity of an election is a focus of the bill.
Labor sought a deal in parliament one year ago for the first version of the misinformation and disinformation regime, but the Coalition said the draft bill should be thrown out.
Rowland said doing nothing was not an option because misinformation posed a serious threat to society.
“The government is committed to keeping Australians safe online, and that includes ensuring the ACMA has the powers it needs to hold digital platforms to account for misinformation and disinformation on their services,” she said.
Coalition communications spokesman David Coleman signalled his concerns about key features in the government’s first draft.
“What we can say is that the last misinformation bill was grotesque, was one of the most appalling pieces of legislation ever put forward by an Australian government,” he told the ABC on Wednesday afternoon.
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“It was just a shocking piece of legislation. So look, let’s see what they come out with, but if it’s anything like the last one, then it will have a lot of problems.”
In separate laws also to be revealed Thursday, sites will be forced to shield kids from targeted advertising as part of a children’s protection code included in a package of privacy reforms.
Australians will also gain the right to sue for serious invasions of privacy under the changes overseen by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, although media outlets would be exempt.
The long-awaited changes will not include a European-style right for a person to have information about them wiped from sites such as Google.
Albanese this week revealed the first steps of a plan to block children from social media. Asked in parliament why he was taking this step while not heeding calls for a blanket ban on gambling ads, Albanese said betting promotions should not be targeted at kids but argued against a total ban.
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The prime minister said most gambling harm stemmed from pokies, not sports betting, and claimed some advocates wanted to ban gambling altogether – a claim rejected by Tim Costello, one of the chief advocates for a ban on gambling advertising.
“I think we need to make sure that adults can be adults, but children can be children,” Albanese said, in his most revealing answer to date on a proposed gambling package.
“And the connection as well between sport and gambling needs to be broken because sport should be enjoyed for what it is, sport. That is an important focus of why we are undertaking these reforms.”
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