Communications Minister Michelle Rowland will introduce a bill aimed at cracking down on mis and disinformation on Thursday.New laws proposed by the federal government would grant Australia's media watchdog greater powers to force tech companies to crack down on misinformation and disinformation on their platforms.
If the platforms do not comply, they could be slapped with a range of penalties, including a maximum fine of 5 per cent of their global revenue., with initial exemptions for government content and politically-authorised material scrapped. The laws will not grant any powers to ACMA or the government to take down individual posts, according to Ms Rowland, who said they were "purely a systems approach".
While there would be a "graduated approach" to issuing fines, she said there "needs to be a strong deterrence in the form of high penalties".What can Australia actually do to fight misinformation?Given freedom-of-speech concerns, technical challenges and the difficulty of taking on big tech, it makes sense that the government is keen for Silicon Valley to lead the way in developing its own code of conduct.
"We've been very clear as a government to take strong advice around this and to consult widely and to ensure that it aligns precisely with what we have under international law so as not to curb freedom of speech," she said.
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