Digital Duty of Care Bill: Groups Push Legal Weapon Aimed at Big Tech
Jewish and Muslim groups are urging the Albanese government to let Australians sue US tech giants over online hate, as Labor weighs a private right of action in its Digital Duty of Care Bill to win Greens support. Google opposes the idea.
Top Jewish and Muslim groups are urging Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government to let citizens sue US tech giants over failures to police online hate, a legal weapon aimed at big tech that Labor is now weighing for its Digital Duty of Care Bill.
Albanese wants the bill passed by the end of the parliamentary year. He has faced conservative pushback over what it could mean for free speech, and the US tech industry has protested against the plan.
Labor needs the Greens to pass the bill. The party wants tougher rules to discourage doomscrolling, larger fines calculated on tech firms' global revenue, and a private right to bring class actions and lawsuits, mirroring the United States.
Who is backing a private right of action
Labor is examining a private right to action to win that support. More than 80 groups, mobilised by the left-wing Australia Institute, back it. They include unions, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Islamic Council of Victoria.
Josh Bornstein, the institute's director of corporate regulation, said the bill in its current form explicitly mentions only harm based on gendered violence. "It needs to address other forms of hate speech including racist and homophobic hate speech," he said.
He pointed to the royal commission into antisemitism. "The most extreme forms of hate speech are propagated by social media giants because they profit from doing so. That has got to stop," Bornstein said.
Widening the bill would not outlaw any individual post. Companies would instead have to make sure their platforms did not amplify content that encouraged attacks on race, religion or sexuality, as well as gender.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young sought to head off free speech objections. "These rules are not about individual users at all or stopping people posting certain things," she said.
Google's objection
Google is due to give evidence at a parliamentary inquiry into the digital duty of care. In its submission, it said the bill was modelled on the Work Health and Safety Act, which "expressly precludes a private right of action".
"Compliance with the duty should be evaluated and enforced by a dedicated safety regulator," Google said. It warned against quick changes to win over the Greens without Coalition support.
Google added that Australians can already sue under existing law. If a new avenue were created, it said, a higher threshold of "serious harm" should apply so courts are not overwhelmed with minor or vexatious disputes.
Bornstein rejected the idea that the eSafety Commission alone could pursue the platforms. He said it received more than 100,000 complaints in the last year but acts in only 2 per cent of cases, and that the commissioner supports a private right of action.
Communications Minister Anika Wells did little to dampen Greens expectations. Consultation had heard from digital rights, consumer, women's and advocacy groups seeking a private right of action, she said. "We'll keep working that through in good faith."
